Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has spent the opening days of the general election trying to introduce himself to voters. Unfortunately for him, his old videos and writings keep doing some of the introducing and it’s not pretty.
A growing collection of resurfaced material shows El-Sayed criticizing American football culture, Fourth of July fireworks, the Second Amendment, policing and concern about the southern border. The comments resurfaced this week as El-Sayed prepares to face Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in November.
Any one of those comments could be dismissed as an old progressive hot take. Taken together, they start to look like something more: a remarkably consistent habit of finding something wrong with the institutions and traditions that are distinctly American.
Start with football.
El-Sayed, who played football in high school, explained The Midwesterner, wrote in 2021 that “the toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport—and men’s sports culture more generally—is way deeper than a few emails or a Jay-Z turnaround.”
He described his own experience playing football as a “lifeline” and wrote, “On the football field, I felt free.”
But his diagnosis of the culture surrounding the sport was considerably darker.
“Racism, misogyny, and homophobia were lingua franca,” El-Sayed wrote.
He also accused the NFL of “deep-rooted racism” and elsewhere questioned whether football could ever be “ethical” or “safe.”
Then there is the Fourth of July.
In a July 2024 YouTube video that has since been removed from public view, El-Sayed asked whether Americans could “PLEASE” find another way to celebrate Independence Day and offered viewers four reasons “why fireworks suck.”
The video included a section titled “Fireworks just aren’t worth it: hear us out.”
Fireworks were hardly the only American institution El-Sayed thought needed reconsidering.
After a 2023 school shooting in Tennessee, El-Sayed floated a rather dramatic constitutional revision.
“What if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we change it to the right to have health care?” he asked.
He argued that doing so would result in “fewer people dying by gun and more people living because they have health care.”
El-Sayed has taken a similarly dismissive approach toward concerns about the southern border, once saying it “doesn’t even make the top five among issues that people in the United States actually care about that affect their lives” and describing immigration as an issue Republicans “love to flog.”
And then there was “defund the police.”
During the 2020 unrest, El-Sayed explicitly said “we do need to defund the police,” explaining that he wanted to redirect resources away from law enforcement and toward schools, social services and anti-poverty programs.
Years later, however, El-Sayed insisted he had “never, never called for defunding” police. CNN confronted him with the old footage in July.
That history matters because El-Sayed is now attempting to present himself as a candidate with considerably more conventional Michigan sensibilities.
His campaign told CNN: “Abdul is the former captain of his high school football team, loves Michigan football on Saturdays, and celebrates the Fourth of July with fireworks like the next Michigander. Cherry-picked comments from old podcasts don’t reflect his beliefs today.”
The comments were from two years ago. .
At least 100 videos on El-Sayed’s YouTube account were reportedly made private before his primary victory, according to an investigation by CNN. His campaign now says he respects the Second Amendment, supports securing the southern border and enjoys Independence Day fireworks.
The resurfaced record also arrives amid a broader controversy over exactly who is cheering El-Sayed’s political rise.
As New Conservative Post wrote earlier in the week, a website whose social media account identifies it as the “Muslim Brotherhood official website” celebrated El-Sayed’s narrow primary victory over Rep. Haley Stevens.
Its translated headline declared: “Abdul Rahman al-Sayyid conquers the Zionists and runs for the Senate.”
The Brotherhood outlet specifically praised El-Sayed’s campaign against unconditional U.S. military assistance to Israel.
NCP also noted that El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, contributed $200,000 to a PAC supporting El-Sayed and has ties to both the Islamic Society of North America and CAIR’s Michigan chapter. Federal prosecutors identified ISNA among organizations they said “are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood” and described CAIR as connected to the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee during the Holy Land Foundation prosecution. Neither organization was convicted in that case.
Republicans do not need to manufacture an argument that El-Sayed represents a radical vision of America. His own words provide plenty of material: American football is infected by toxic masculinity. Fourth of July fireworks “suck.” The Second Amendment could become a right to government health care. Border concerns are fake. Police departments needed to be defunded.
The question for Michigan voters is not whether El-Sayed has a vision for America. It is whether they want that vision representing them in Washington.
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