Abdul El-Sayed's sister is defending the left-wing Michigan Senate hopeful from left-wingers who have criticized him for his decision to rally with former president Barack Obama, saying that while Obama may be an "establishment" figure, El-Sayed's "policies have not changed."
Abdelhadi's remarks came during a Thursday evening event at the University of Chicago—where she works as a professor—titled "Power, Rage, and New Possibilities: Midterms 2026." Abdelhadi delivered a lecture titled "Moral Injury: How Palestine Is Changing US Politics," photos obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. She identified El-Sayed not as her brother but as the successful "Senate Michigan primary candidate" who has since received "criticism" for his "relationship with the center or the establishment wing of the Democratic Party."
"Obama is campaigning with Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul El-Sayed has received a lot of criticism from the left for this," Abdelhadi said, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by the Free Beacon. "But his policies have not changed, right? So one of the things that we can say is that his policy position has been consistent since he ran, which is to stop aid to Israel, and yet Obama, who is, you know, arguably the establishment wing of the party, is campaigning with him."
Abdelhadi's remarks come as El-Sayed faces scrutiny over his sister's social media posts tying their family to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that spawned Hamas in Gaza in the 1980s. In the posts, which were first reported by the Free Beacon, Abdelhadi said her family "has long been" Muslim Brotherhood and that some have been "jailed" over their membership in the group. She also said her and El-Sayed's mother, Fatten Elkomy, was active in the Muslim Brotherhood while in college in Egypt.
Those posts came to light after El-Sayed told Meet the Press that neither he nor his family has connections to the brotherhood. When NBC News's Tom Llamas later pressed El-Sayed on the posts, El-Sayed accused him of relying on "hearsay evidence."
"You want to ask me about what was happening in Egypt in 1970? Are you serious?" El-Sayed said. "Like, you're using hearsay evidence from a tweet. This is not serious."
Abdelhadi did not address the controversy during her lecture, which was open to the public. She and three other speakers took a small number of questions but only appeared to call on attendees they knew by name. Abdelhadi used a back door to exit the event space in the University of Chicago's Social Science Research Building before the start of a post-event reception, an attendee told the Free Beacon.
El-Sayed himself has attacked Obama for having "perpetuated war, violated our civil liberties, [and] deported more people from our shores than any other president before him" during his first term as president. El-Sayed said he had a "really warm conversation" with Obama in the wake of his primary win over congresswoman Haley Stevens, who ran ads highlighting her work on an Obama administration auto task force.
Abdelhadi, who was arrested last year for spitting on an Illinois state trooper, also likened El-Sayed's campaign to those of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, and Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon. All three of those Democrats are associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, which El-Sayed says he is not a member of despite headlining a 2019 DSA fundraiser.
"Obviously the midterms have multiple progressive candidates who have put front and center the issue of AIPAC spending," Abdelhadi said, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by the Free Beacon. "The El-Sayed campaign, the Mamdani campaign, the Jackson campaign, the Nixon campaign—all of these are responses to the movement pressure that made Palestine front and center and changed public opinion."
Neither Abdelhadi nor El-Sayed responded to requests for comment.
