Lansing, Mich. — Speaking to a room full of college students, many of whom weren’t alive during the 9/11 attacks, Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed started with a moment of silence to commemorate the 25th year since the terrorist attacks.
He then looked to hit back politically against his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, who has ramped up criticism of El-Sayed this week due to his ties to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who in 2019 said that “America deserved 9/11.”
On Friday, El-Sayed, who campaigned with Piker during the Democratic primary and has since distanced himself from the streamer, criticized votes Rogers took as a congressman against benefits for 9/11 survivors and first responders.
Rogers, who represented Michigan in the House from 2001 to 2015, backed financial support for 9/11 victims in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. But he voted against the 2010 James Zadroga Act, which provided medical treatment and financial aid to first responders and survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At the time, he pushed for the aid to be funded annually and warned that the bill “jeopardizes the financial health of the United States,” The Hill reported at the time.
“Rather than vote to make sure that the brave first responders who ran into the rubble that day to save lives, rather to make sure that they had healthcare, he voted not once but twice against giving them healthcare,” El-Sayed said during a town hall Friday.
Rogers responded to the criticism of his voting record, saying in a post on X that the “insinuation that I do not support the victims or their families is patently false,” while noting that he advocated for an annual $150 million appropriation to support the needs of 9/11 survivors and victims’ families.
Meanwhile, Piker’s comments on 9/11 have drawn stiff criticism, including from Michigan Republicans who are looking to tie him to El-Sayed in a race that could decide control of the Senate. In August, El-Sayed called Piker’s comments about 9/11 “dumb.” In 2019, Piker said his comments were inappropriate, and that he “should’ve used more precise and better use of the language there.”
El-Sayed’s own comments on the attacks — and the military conflicts that the U.S. launched in response — have also faced scrutiny. He said in 2021 that “9/11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people.”
Republicans have argued those comments show El-Sayed is too extreme, and he was referenced numerous times by speakers at this week’s Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
“The Democrats are the party of hatred. They’re the party that despises America and the people who built it. They’re the party that can find sympathy for the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11,” Vice President JD Vance said during his remarks.
During his own speech in Dallas on Thursday, Rogers framed the contest as one about the “soul of our country,” suggesting El-Sayed would be “searching for excuses” when “radical Islamic terrorists threaten Americans.”
“Together, [El-Sayed and Piker] attack America. They excuse extremism. They treat our country like it’s the villain,” Rogers, a congressman during the 9/11 attacks, said at the GOP convention on Thursday.
El-Sayed has repeatedly condemned the 9/11 attacks, saying Friday that “nothing can justify the murder of innocent civilians.”
El-Sayed supporters, as well as Muslim advocacy groups, have called the attempt to associate El-Sayed with the attacks Islamophobic.
Tyler Mitchell, a Democratic voter in Michigan and also an Afghanistan War veteran, said while he expects Piker’s comments to be “put on a loop” by Rogers and Republicans, he believes they’re targeting El-Sayed in particular because of his faith as a practicing Muslim.
“They look at him, because he’s a Muslim, so they target that with the rhetoric about being dangerous,” Mitchell said before El-Sayed’s town hall in Detroit. “It’s disrespectful to people’s intellect.”
In a statement, Rogers said “it’s not about [El-Sayed’s] name, and it’s not about how he prays.”
“This is about how extreme his ideas are and the big-government socialist takeover he wants for our state and nation,” he added.
GOP groups supporting Rogers have run at least three ads that reference 9/11 and Piker’s comments. The leading political action committee for Senate Republicans, the Senate Leadership Fund, has announced over $45 million in ad reservations in Michigan this fall.
Rogers has also shared videos of veterans and first responders this week talking about 9/11 and criticizing El-Sayed and Piker.
“For somebody to support somebody that says that we deserved 9/11 shows their true allegiance, their true loyalties,” said Maj. Jon Turnbull, an Afghanistan War veteran.
El-Sayed has been asked frequently on the campaign trail by reporters about Piker’s comments. And during a Friday town hall, he criticized coverage of it after a student asked about healthcare.
“You know what I always get asked about? Hasan Piker. All you in the press, you hear these folks are talking about healthcare. Stop asking me about some streamer in California,” he said.
Asked on Thursday about Rogers’ remarks mentioning 9/11 and the GOP ads, El-Sayed criticized Rogers for campaigning outside of Michigan and for not focusing on the economy, healthcare or the war with Iran during his Thursday remarks at the convention.
“This is somebody who, you know, when he thinks it’s politically useful for him, wants to invoke the memory of 9/11, but also wants to deny the people who were the real heroes, who ran in to the attacks to take care of others, the healthcare that they need afterwards,” El-Sayed said Thursday.
