The left-wing Democratic Senate candidate is scheduled to campaign with streamer Hasan Piker later on Tuesday
The left-wing Democratic candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat, Abdul El-Sayed, defended his decision to campaign with Hasan Piker, who said “America deserved 9/11.” El-Sayed argued in a televised interview that the influencer’s comments need to be viewed in “context.”
El-Sayed used his Tuesday morning Fox News interview to accuse critics of Piker—who has also defended Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks—of attacking both individuals unfairly. The Senate candidate is scheduled to appear with Piker at two campaign events later in the day.
“It’s important to talk about context,” he told Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones. “I’m never going to agree that 9/11 was justified. It was wrong. It was a horrible day for all of us. I’m never going to be okay with the innocent murder of civilians. I condemned Hamas and I condemned that attack on day one. 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.”
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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?”
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Piker has a long history of backing 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.”
The streamer has also justified Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” and praised the “mujahideen” who attacked U.S. soldiers during the war on terror as “brave.” He has voiced support for Hamas terrorism against Israel and said it “[d]oesn’t matter if f—ing rapes happened on October 7. Like, that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much.”
Jones also pressed El-Sayed about audio from a private campaign meeting in which the candidate said he didn’t want to make a statement on the death of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei because many voters in Dearborn, Mich., were “sad” about the dictator’s assassination. The Washington Free Beacon first published that audio last week.
El-Sayed appeared to dodge the question, instead drawing 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.”
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