On Tuesday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Democratic Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed responded to criticism of his embrace of Hasan Piker in the wake of the attack on Temple Israel by saying that “Any act of antisemitism is wrong and has no place in our politics, no place in our society. But I think what people find frustrating by that perspective is that, when you talk about the mass killing of children, we saw that done by our tax dollars in a genocide in Gaza. And it took, I don’t know, two years to talk about that.”
Host Audie Cornish said, [relevant exchange begins around 38:45] “So, your opponent, Mallory McMorrow, was on our show last week, as I mentioned. She was criticizing your decision to embrace the support of streamer Hasan Piker to represent your campaign. And what she said was very specific, that she goes, look, I have a problem with him embracing this person in the wake of an attack on a synagogue. This is when a truck was driven into the synagogue. I want to play for you what she said after that.”
She then played video of McMorrow saying, “It could have been the largest mass killing of kids in this country’s history. And to bring somebody in to represent your campaign, in my mind, is a very different decision than going on somebody’s stream and talking to their audience.”
El-Sayed responded, “I condemned the Temple Israel attack immediately. Any act of antisemitism is wrong and has no place in our politics, no place in our society. But I think what people find frustrating by that perspective is that, when you talk about the mass killing of children, we saw that done by our tax dollars in a genocide in Gaza. And it took, I don’t know, two years to talk about that. And I think we have to take seriously the idea that the money that we spent to kill other people’s kids there was money that we did not spend to take care of the kids that I was taking care of in Wayne County in Detroit to make sure that they had glasses –.”
Cornish then cut in to ask, “So, no answer about this embrace of him. Do you think people are making too much or too little about this?”
El-Sayed answered, “Look it’s a pretty crazy — so, Hasan Piker was invited to stream from the DNC in 2024. We had a whole debate about whether or not the vice president should have gone on Rogan. The idea that we’re going to tie people together and say, well, guilt by association so is just not in keeping with the way most of us think about the world. I’m sitting on a panel with a very diverse group of people. Did I vet all of you before I came and sat here because one of you might have said something I disagree with? I just think it’s a ridiculous way to think about politics.”
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