ANN ARBOR and EAST LANSING, Mich.—The left-wing Democrat running for Michigan's open Senate seat, Abdul El-Sayed, campaigned Tuesday alongside anti-American streamer Hasan Piker. El-Sayed railed against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and what he called the "genocidal" war in Iran, suggesting that U.S. lawmakers only support the war because of money from the pro-Israel advocacy group.
"Our president is waging a genocidal, illegal, unjustifiable war in Iran that is torching our tax dollars to the tune of $1.5 billion a day," El-Sayed said during his second campaign stop at the University of Michigan. "I am proud that AIPAC has called me the single most dangerous candidate for the U.S. Senate. I'm the only candidate in this race who's never asked for an AIPAC endorsement, only candidate in this race that is not supported by the Israel lobby."
"In America we believe that it should be one person, one vote, not $100 million corrupting our entire politics because AIPAC said so," El-Sayed continued. He made similar comments at an earlier rally at Michigan State University. After asking the crowd, "Why are we at war with Iran?" an audience member shouted back, "AIPAC." El-Sayed paused his speech to point at the person approvingly.
JUST IN: Abdul El-Sayed (D) has taken the stage for his rally at MSU, asking the crowd: "Why are we at war with Iran?"
He says Netanyahu finally found a "dumbass willing to do it," referring to President Trump. When someone shouts "AIPAC," he grins and points right back at… pic.twitter.com/xJI0juP132
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 7, 2026
El-Sayed rallied alongside Piker—who has said "America deserved 9/11" and argued that it "doesn't matter if rape happened on October 7"—as well as Reps. Summer Lee (D., Pa.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), both members of the "Squad." Piker lashed out at those who call him anti-Semitic, saying the criticism is no longer "consequential."
"The smear campaigns that started shortly after October 7 were obviously a lot more consequential, a lot more successful back then, but now I can easily say, 'F— them,' because I'm no longer alone," Piker said at the University of Michigan rally. "Neither are you. That's a positive change you should hold close to your chest, and that's exactly the attitude." Earlier in the day, at the Michigan State event, Piker said "people like myself and people like yourselves" were "smeared" as "radical … and yet we persevered."
JUST IN: Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has said America deserved 9/11, is on stage for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s packed rally at Michigan State University. Piker said "smear campaigns started shortly after Oct. 7." @FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/chrcnVJktk
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 7, 2026
El-Sayed is locked in a tight three-way Democratic primary in which he's the most extreme candidate. His appearance with Piker is his latest controversial move, coming a week after a Washington Free Beacon report on a private campaign strategy call held one day after the death of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. El-Sayed said he could not make a public statement about Khamenei's death because "there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad," the Free Beacon reported. After the call was published, El-Sayed said the Free Beacon "may have illegally and unethically obtained" the audio. His statement did not mention Khamenei.
El-Sayed's primary opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens and state senator Mallory McMorrow, criticized El-Sayed's decision to campaign alongside Piker. Stevens said the streamer built a career on "hurtful and anti-Semitic comments," while McMorrow described Piker as "somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks."
"That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state," McMorrow told Jewish Insider, referencing the recent Hezbollah-inspired terror attack on a Michigan synagogue. "You don't fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention."
About 40 minutes southwest of that synagogue, at the University of Michigan, El-Sayed rallied alongside Tlaib, who represents the Arab-majority city of Dearborn where the synagogue attacker lived. Tlaib, sporting a keffiyeh, said she backs El-Sayed because "I don't want to have to convince my senator not to fund another bomb, another destruction, another dime to genocide."
JUST IN: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has taken the stage at Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed's rally at the University of Michigan.
"I don’t want to have to convince my senator not to fund another bomb, another destruction, another dime to genocide." @FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/HS8aoPh1qX
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 8, 2026
Ahead of the Michigan State rally, a reporter asked El-Sayed if he disavows any of Piker's views.
"I’m not here to disavow people's views," he said. "This whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture, I thought we were over it."
Piker, for his part, said El-Sayed is "what the moment needs, and that's why I said yes to coming on board."
Earlier in the day, during a Fox News appearance, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker. He argued that the streamer's comments need to be viewed in "context."
"It’s important to talk about context," he told Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones. "The issue that you're trying to do is paint me ... with out-of-context quotes taken out of context specifically to ask me these questions."
El-Sayed also said Piker's critics are engaging in "cancel culture."
"Because you appear with somebody doesn't mean you agree with them on everything," he contended. "My question to you is, when did we start bending to cancel culture?"
Just hours before the rallies, however, El-Sayed appeared to agree with an X post from Piker reading, "donald trump is adolf hitler." Piker's statement came in response to Trump's threat to bomb Iranian infrastructure sites and destroy "a whole civilization" if the Islamic Republic did not agree to a ceasefire deal by 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Trump announced a ceasefire hours ahead of that deadline as El-Sayed and Piker campaigned at Michigan State.
"I mean, when you're threatening genocide against the whole people, that speaks for itself," El-Sayed told Politico when asked about Piker's post. "You're talking about a country of 93 million and he's talking about a whole civilization ceasing to exist. That is Hitler-like rhetoric."
Piker has long defended terrorism against the United States and its allies. He said during a 2019 video appearance that "America deserved 9/11, dude. F— it, I'm saying it."
On his show, Piker called Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack a "direct consequence" of Israeli and U.S. government actions and said that if civilian women were raped during the assault, it "doesn't change the dynamic for me." He has also said "hamas is a thousand times better" than Israel, called Orthodox Jews "inbred," and praised the "mujahideen" who attacked U.S. soldiers during the war on terror as "brave."
When Jones, the Fox News host, asked El-Sayed about his leaked Khamenei remarks ahead of Wednesday's rallies, the Democrat drew an equivalence between the "regime" of the Islamic Republic and the "regime" of the United States.
"I'm no apologist for any regime, including our own," he said. "And at the end of the day, the question is whether or not a leader focuses on his or her people. Clearly, the ayatollah did not, and clearly Donald Trump and this administration is not either."
Tuesday was not the first time El-Sayed appeared with Piker. Both El-Sayed and Piker were featured speakers during a March 28 online rally held by the left-wing group Progressive Victory. When the left-wing streamer Vaush said he did not know how the "Democratic Party can survive" without making opposition to Israel a core tenet of its platform, El-Sayed jumped in.
"I think you hit the nail on the head," he said. "If this is not a legitimate space for conversation about where our tax dollars go in the aftermath of having subsidized genocide and now getting pulled into an absolutely insane war in Iran because Netanyahu finally found an American president stupid enough to take us there, then I don't know what is."
At the University of Michigan, El-Sayed told attendees, "How dare I say that I love Jewish people without standing up against the genocide against the Palestinian people."
JUST IN: At his University of Michigan rally, Dem. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told the crowd, "How dare I say that I love Jewish people without standing up against the genocide against the Palestinian people."@FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/HGV8NNdNmo
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 8, 2026
The rally opened with remarks from Amir Makled, a Dearborn-based civil rights attorney and candidate for an open seat on the University of Michigan's Board of Regents. Makled represented nearly a dozen University of Michigan students who faced criminal charges stemming from their involvement in an illegal anti-Israel campus encampment in 2024.
