Michigan Senate Candidate El-Sayed Pushes Back on CNN Questions About Israel and Iran

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed appeared on CNN's State of the Union on July 19 and criticized host Jake Tapper for focusing on Israel, Iran, and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. " The appearance followed a vote less than a week earlier in which more than 100 House Democrats supported cutting more than $3 billion in aid to Israel. El-Sayed is running in the Democratic primary against Rep.

Haley Stevens for the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, a state President Trump won in the 2024 election. Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed El-Sayed on July 20. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow had dropped out of the race on July 5.

A Detroit News poll conducted after McMorrow's exit showed Stevens leading El-Sayed 48 percent to 41 percent. El-Sayed, born in Detroit to Egyptian immigrants, attended Bloomfield Hills Andover High School, the University of Michigan, and its medical school. He is a Rhodes Scholar who earned a doctorate in public health from the University of Oxford and a medical degree from Columbia University.

In August 2015, former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan named him executive director of the Detroit Health Department, making him one of the youngest public health officers in a major U.S. city at age 30. El-Sayed ran for Michigan governor in the 2018 Democratic primary and lost to Gretchen Whitmer.

He later served as Wayne County's director of health, human and veteran services from December 2022 to April 2025 before announcing his Senate candidacy. He is endorsed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Sen.

Bernie Sanders. Stevens, elected to Congress in 2018, holds endorsements from Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Gary Peters, and former Sen. Debbie Stabenow. The Republican nominee is former Rep. Mike Rogers, who narrowly lost to Sen.