LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who is running to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate, is under fire after leaked audio reveals comments that some interpret as anti-American.

In audio released by the Washington Free Beacon, El-Sayed explains why he wouldn’t comment on the death of Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei, saying the Muslim constituents in Dearborn could be grieving his death.

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“There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” El-Sayed says on the recording. “Like, I don’t think it’s worth even touching that.”

The audio also revealed El-Sayed’s strategy if asked by reporters to comment on Khamenei’s death. “I’m just gonna go straight to pedophilia, frankly,” El-Sayed says, signaling his intention to shift the conversation to President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. “I’ll just be like, ‘Pedophile president decides that he doesn’t like the front page news, so he decides to take us into another war.'”

El-Sayed released a statement on X in response to the leaked audio, referring again to the war in Iran as “illegal and unjustifiable.” He added,
“The fact that a right-wing news outlet may have illegally and unethically obtained a deliberation about how to talk about this by a way of a disgruntled former employee is only a distraction.”

 

However, El-Sayed’s comments track with his history. Michigan News Source reported in August when El-Sayed said his party must stand up to “Trump and his goons.” El-Sayed said, “We don’t back down. With all due respect, if they go low, we don’t go high. We take them to the mud and we choke them out.”

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The Muslim candidate is also teaming up with Hasan Piker, an influencer who said “America deserved 9/11.”

And although El-Sayed said he was one of the first politicians to denounce the March 12 Hezbollah-terrorist attack on Temple Israel, he quickly shifted his statement to blame Israel and its presence in Lebanon.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers said El-Sayed and the Democratic party are extreme. “Rather than empathize with the 140 kids whose lives were threatened in the Michigan synagogue attack, the thousands of Americans murdered by Iran, or the victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism around the world, he instead, chooses to empathize with the terrorists who committed these vile acts,” Rogers said. “And now, to campaign with a known antisemite who claimed ‘America deserved 9/11.’ Each time you think the Democrats can’t get lower, they pick up the shovel and keep digging.”

In addition, El-Sayed’s X feed is littered with posts stating “abolish ICE” and claimed “ICE is about normalizing paramilitary force in our lives in direct opposition to the Constitution.”