❓WHAT HAPPENED: Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed avoided commenting on the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, citing concerns about upsetting constituents in Dearborn, according to leaked audio.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Abdul El-Sayed, his campaign team, and the late Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
📍WHEN & WHERE: March 1, during a private campaign strategy call, following Khamenei’s death on February 28.
💬KEY QUOTE: “There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today. So, like, I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all.” – Abdul El-Sayed
🎯IMPACT: Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Muslim population per capita in the U.S., has become a focal point in El-Sayed’s campaign. The city, which recently became the nation’s first Arab-majority city, has a history of political divisions over Middle Eastern conflicts.
Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) stated during a private campaign call on March 1 that he would avoid publicly commenting on the death of Iran’s now-former Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. According to audio obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, El-Sayed expressed concern about upsetting constituents in Dearborn, saying, “There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today. So, like, I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all.”
Khamenei was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike just days earlier, on February 28. El-Sayed said he would pivot to criticism of former President Donald J. Trump if pressed by reporters, stating, “I’m just gonna go straight to pedophilia, frankly.” He also proposed attacking Israel and pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC during the call.
Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Muslim population per capita in the U.S., has become a focal point in El-Sayed’s campaign. The city, which recently became the nation’s first Arab-majority city, has a history of political divisions over Middle Eastern conflicts. Just hours after the deadly October 7, 2023, terror attacks against Israel by Hamas, Dearborn’s Democrat Muslim mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, defended the Islamist violence as an “inevitable” consequence of Israeli “occupation”. Subsequently, former President Joe Biden appointed Hammoud to the State Department’s Assembly of Local Leaders program.
Dearborn featured in the 2017 book No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You by Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, as an example of an emerging, European-style Islamic enclave in the U.S. In recent years, police in Dearborn have been issued optional Arabic patches, and Mayor Hammoud warned a Christian resident he was “not welcome” in the city when he expressed opposition to street signs honoring an Arab publisher accused of supporting terror, indicating that the process of Islamization is accelerating.
Notably, El-Sayed’s remarks on Khamenei have drawn criticism from his own advisers, who expressed discomfort with his messaging on Israel. In the leaked call, El-Sayed defended his position, stating, “I got to take the whole shot, which means that I’m going to say, ‘Look, you’ve got AIPAC-backed congresspeople who now don’t want to empower Congress to step up and enforce its own prerogative.'” He also suggested that left-wing influencers like Jennifer Welch might “bait” him into discussing his views on Israel in future interviews.
On the campaign trail, El-Sayed has frequently criticized U.S. foreign policy and military actions in the Middle East. He has also made controversial statements in the past, including claiming that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. war on terror were derived from the same “tribalistic grievance,” and refusing to stand for the national anthem as a college athlete.
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