Closing Catfight: El-Sayed Disinvites Haley Stevens From ‘Unity’ Event After Refusing To Condemn Antisemitic Ad

Left-wing Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed disinvited his primary opponent, Michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens, from a planned "unity" event after he refused to condemn an antisemitic ad produced on his behalf that blames the rising cost of groceries on Jews and Israel.

The remarkable turn of events came after Stevens said on Friday that El-Sayed’s condemnation was "expected" and that, at the invitation of her mentor, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.), she would attend a "unifying" event at a black church in Detroit on Sunday with El-Sayed and Clyburn.

El-Sayed responded by releasing a statement criticizing Stevens and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which backed Stevens in the primary.

"Our campaign has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing," El-Sayed said. "That focus is why our people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens."

"So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on reiterating a primary that ended three months ago, let’s all focus on the task at hand," he added.

Hours later, on Friday night, El-Sayed reportedly disinvited Stevens from the event. Stevens told the Washington Post that she would not discuss the matter further until after Tuesday’s election.

The feud could cost El-Sayed support from Stevens’s primary voters, particularly those in Detroit, where Stevens secured 51 percent of the Wayne County primary vote to El-Sayed’s 45 percent. Some black voters in the city have since said that El-Sayed is struggling to make inroads among the crucial voting bloc. El-Sayed defeated Stevens in the primary by less than 1 point.

The ad in question came from Cenk Uygur, the cofounder of the left-wing media company The Young Turks and the uncle of El-Sayed’s inflammatory primary campaign surrogate, Piker. It depicts a married couple in the grocery store who blame the price of eggs on Israel and its war on Hamas in Gaza.

Jewish leaders condemned the spot, which Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called a "case study in antisemitism." Stevens said it was "wrong" and did "nothing to help Michigan Democrats win up and down the ballot." Rather than disavow the ad’s contents, El-Sayed’s campaign released a statement noting that it did not make the ad.

There seemed to be a breakthrough on Friday, when Stevens said El-Sayed’s condemnation of the spot was "expected." The statement was reportedly the result of talks between Stevens and El-Sayed held "Thursday night and into the early Friday morning hours" and mediated by Clyburn. But signs emerged almost immediately that the detente would not come: Stevens’s fiance, a Jewish Democrat and attorney who has said he plans to vote for El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, said in a Friday afternoon TMZ interview that he didn’t think Stevens was "going to be supporting Abdul El-Sayed very much longer."

While El-Sayed is unwilling to welcome Stevens on the campaign trail, he’s rallied with plenty of controversial surrogates, chief among them Piker, who has said that "America deserved 9/11" and that the United States is "pound for pound" responsible for more terrorism than al Qaeda. El-Sayed invited Piker to campaign with him in Michigan on at least five occasions during his primary against Stevens, though he has since distanced himself from Piker, referring to him as  a "streamer in California."

Piker caused another headache for El-Sayed on Friday, when, in a screaming rant on his livestream, he referred to the heavily Jewish Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield as a "KKK neighborhood." The "supremacist attitude" in the suburb is "identical" to the Klan, Piker added. He was reacting to a news segment showing canvassers for El-Sayed’s campaign knocking doors in the area. El-Sayed called the comments "inappropriate" but did not condemn Piker himself.

El-Sayed has campaigned with other controversial figures as well. On Thursday, he appeared alongside Benton Harbor mayor Marcus Muhammad at a get-out-the-vote rally. Muhammad is a Nation of Islam "student minister" and acolyte of the Nation’s antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan, who has referred to Jews as "termites." Muhammad recently promoted a video of Farrakhan discussing The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Vol. 2, a pseudoscientific Nation of Islam work that claims Jews controlled the transatlantic slave trade.

The post Closing Catfight: El-Sayed Disinvites Haley Stevens From ‘Unity’ Event After Refusing To Condemn Antisemitic Ad appeared first on .