Left-wing Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed's top campaign surrogate, anti-American streamer Hasan Piker, rejected calls for El-Sayed and his supporters to start "mending bridges" in the wake of his contentious primary against congresswoman Haley Stevens. "You are all unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of shit," Piker said in reference to Stevens's supporters.
"Everyone being like, 'Abdul has a fuck-ton of work to do mending bridges,'" Piker, who is best known for arguing that "America deserved 9/11," said while livestreaming from El-Sayed's election night watch party. "Here's the fucking take nuke for you, okay? You are all unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of shit."
"You literally called the dude a fucking terrorist for months on end, and, like, called him a sexist, misogynist, terrorist, bad candidate, fake doctor, when he has, like, two fucking degrees. And now you're gonna sit there and be like, 'Well, you know, you've really got to come to me now.' Like, what are you talking about?"
Piker's comments came as El-Sayed put up a weaker-than-expected showing against Stevens, prompting speculation that he could struggle to win over Stevens's voters—particularly black voters, who overwhelmingly backed the congresswoman—in his November contest against Republican nominee Mike Rogers. Recent polling showed El-Sayed leading Stevens by double digits, but he led by less than 1 point when the Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning.
Piker expressed some concern that Democrats could struggle to rally behind El-Sayed, but he blamed the issue on Stevens's backers rather than on El-Sayed's far-left positions and comments excusing Islamic terrorism.
"I do worry that there are some out there who, in an effort to make sure that this narrative that a progressive can win in a state like Michigan doesn't take root, will literally either subtly or not so secretively endorse Mike Rogers, or stay out of the race while trying to push the excitement in the opposite direction," he said. "Like, everyone is already doing the, 'Can El-Sayed unite the Democrats?' And that question is just … Can El-Sayed get the people and the groups and the NGOs and the consultants that have worked extensively for pro-Israel candidates to shut the fuck up about El-Sayed being a terrorist for a long enough timeline so that we can consolidate the base and defeat the fucking Republican."
El-Sayed campaigned with extreme confidence in the race's closing days. On Monday, he attended a pre-election influencer pool party in Detroit, which Piker attended. One day later, during an Election Day interview with Politico, El-Sayed "waxed poetic about being a 2028 powerbroker, putting potential presidential candidates on notice to subscribe to his campaign mantra of getting money out of politics, putting money into pockets and passing Medicare for All," the outlet reported.
"If not, I'm going to dog you up and down the state," El-Sayed said. A "Democratic operative close to El-Sayed," meanwhile, "was so confident earlier on Tuesday that they predicted the race would be called 'almost immediately.'"
That didn't happen. Though El-Sayed pulled out to an early lead, Stevens closed the gap by winning a large share of black voters in Detroit, at one point taking a lead over her left-wing opponent. El-Sayed took the stage at his watch party around 1 a.m., saying, "We're going to have to wait a little longer to see the outcome of this race."
El-Sayed appeared alongside Piker at two campaign events in April. Before the events, he said Piker's "America deserved 9/11" comment needed to be viewed in "context."
"It's important to talk about context," El-Sayed told Fox News. "I'm never going to agree that 9/11 was justified. It was wrong. It was a horrible day for all of us. … 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."
