After One Retraction, El-Sayed Won't Apologize for Streamer

Abdul El-Sayed is trying to calm one political storm in Michigan while refusing to touch another. The Democratic Senate candidate spent the weekend courting Jewish Democrats, apologizing for the way he framed a March attack on a suburban Detroit synagogue, in comments that seemed to express more concern for the suspect than the victims. But on another issue of concern to Jewish voters and others in El-Sayed's campaign, Axios reports, he's digging in: his ties to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker.

Reporters repeatedly pressed El-Sayed on Saturday about distancing himself from the left-wing streamer, who has campaigned with the candidate and has been criticized—including by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries—for comments widely labeled antisemitic. El-Sayed declined to use Piker's name, dismissing him as "a streamer in California" and saying he's "not interested" in that conversation. Instead, he's trying to steer his general-election run toward economic and health care issues, even as Republicans, including opponent Mike Rogers, work to tie him tightly to Piker and to his earlier remarks about the synagogue attack.

El-Sayed did use the streamer's name Monday in an appearance on Charlamagne tha God's radio show, per Forbes, in which he elaborated on his decision. "There's this massive effort to cancel Hasan—my point is that I don't do cancel culture," El-Sayed said. "I go everywhere, I talk to everybody." As an example, he mentioned his recent sit-down interview with Fox News' Jesse Waters.