Critics condemn, students show up for Abdul El-Sayed and Hasan Piker

EAST LANSING — Many different forces in the Democratic Party establishment and the Republicans who oppose them tried to derail U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s planned events at Michigan State University and University of Michigan with controversial influencer Hasan Piker.

In response, scores of young people, students and plenty of other potential voters countered that messaging by filling two MSU lecture halls for El-Sayed, Piker and U.S. Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. They were not only there to hear their messages but to stand against the deluge of condemnations.

Speaking with reporters prior to the event at MSU, El-Sayed said that messaging may have had the opposite effect of activating and solidifying Michigan’s progressive students in support for his candidacy.

“In politics, condemnation is what you do when you can’t win an argument,” El-Sayed said to Michigan Advance. “I started my day on ‘Fox & Friends,’ so I’m talking to everybody. I know there are probably not that many people who agree with me on Fox, but I think there are some. … I want to take that message everywhere and talk to everybody.”

After all, El-Sayed added, he doesn’t pay much attention to what his opponents have been saying about him.

@michiganadvance At his event on Tuesday with streamer Hasan Piker and U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed calls President Donald Trump a “dumb ass” for getting the United States into a war with Iran without allies, except for Israel, which he said has been stoking the flames of war with the Persian nation for decades. @Abdul El-Sayed ♬ original sound – Michigan Advance

Many Democrats have criticised Piker over the last few months for his past commentary on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which has been labeled as a genocide by both Amnesty International and a United Nations independent commission, as well as the language he uses to describe his opposition to Zionism. That language has been branded as antisemitic, as critics say he directs vulgar and violent language toward Jewish people and not just the state of Israel.

Piker’s announcement that he would be campaigning with El-Sayed drew the senatorial candidate into the Democratic friendly fire. That also led some of the very same individuals who advocated for going out and finding new ways to communicate to young people voicing their own opposition to Piker as a campaign surrogate.

In the weeks leading up to the event, both state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham) said that Piker was not someone they would be campaigning with. Third Way, a think tank dedicated to “championing modern center-left ideas,” issued a scathing letter asking him if he agreed with Piker’s comments on America deserving 9/11 and other seemingly controversial takes made while streaming.

Prior to the events on Tuesday, both the Republican State Leadership Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued similar statements decrying Lee and El-Sayed for associating with Piker on the campaign trail.

“Abdul El-Sayed’s continued pandering to known antisemites and terrorist sympathizers is not only deeply disturbing, but is disqualifying for anyone seeking to be a United States Senator,” said NRSC Regional Press Secretary Samantha Cantrell in a statement.

All of that persuading did very little to sway progressives young and old from attending the event. It’s unclear if the backlash boosted attendance, but the trio did fill two meeting rooms — including an overflow area — for the massive line of people that wrapped around several buildings adjacent to the campus’ Anthony Hall.

Even in the face of all that criticism, Piker told reporters that even though he rarely if ever chooses to go out and hit the campaign trail, he does have a lot of politicians on his broadcasts. 

El-Sayed was different, Piker said.

“When Abdul asked me to come on this journey with him, I said yes, absolutely, not realizing the backlash that would even start,” he added. “But I would do it again, just the same, regardless, because he’s a real fighter. He’s honest. He doesn’t treat people like they’re stupid. He understands that voters have demands, and he will respond to those demands.”

Piker said that if Michigan voters also wanted a warrior in the U.S. Senate, someone who will “fight like hell to make sure that you get Medicare for all, that you get free health care that every other OECD nation has … then Abdul is your guy.”

“That’s my argument for why you should go out and not only vote for him, but you should go out and also door knock for him as well, because he’s going to need it,” Piker said of El-Sayed. “There are a lot of corporate powers at play in every single race. You’ve got AIPAC, you’ve got corporate lobbyists, you’ve got the big pharmaceutical industry that are going to do everything they can to disparage him. They’ve already started doing that, as a matter of fact, in the past two weeks.”

Before the event, Piker spoke with the Advance, which asked him about those two weeks of controversy and if he thought Democrats, through purity tests and gatekeeping, were making the same mistakes they made in 2016 and 2024, when President Donald Trump was able to convince voters that he was the right man for the job ahead of establishment favorites like Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Piker said yes, and noted that this wasn’t self-serving for him to be there backing El-Sayed. The backlash, in his assessment, came more from political group think.

“The reason why I think a lot of Democrats are upset with this is because they’ve been told to be upset with this. I mean, people like Elissa Slotkin and Cory Booker have openly admitted that they don’t even know who I am, and yet they have such strong opinions,” Piker said. “Apparently, they were very forthcoming about that, and I feel like that’s exactly what’s wrong with politics nowadays; where politicians should not simply be mouthpieces for this eclectic group of corporate donors and corporate interests. They should make up their own minds. They’re adults. They’re very intelligent people.”

Piker added that was also a major issue at the heart of the current Democratic Party, and was perhaps the reason why they — with all the momentum and wind at their backs in 2026 — still aren’t a very popular national party.

“I think it’s a fatal problem for American democracy,” he said. “Someone has to fight back against the Republican forces here, and the expectation right now in our current duopoly is that someone is the Democratic Party. It’s unbelievable they are still leaning into harm reduction narratives and business as usual politics at a time when people are very loudly demanding change.”

That’s why Piker said he was happy to be on this Michigan road trip with Lee boosting El-Sayed’s prospects in a tight race, because “any Republican anywhere is going to be devastating.”

El-Sayed was asked about the enthusiasm he felt in the room as people started to pour in, and if he was thinking further ahead past the primary to the general election. If he can best McMorrow and Stevens in August, El-Sayed’s ultimate opponent would likely be former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), and he may very well need much stronger numbers than he had when he lost the 2018 gubernatorial primary against current Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The mass of students who flooded the campus after hours to see the trio speak gave El-Sayed hope that they would carry the message when they go home after the spring semester ends in a few weeks.

“Guess who they’re going to talk to: Their parents. They’re going to be having conversations about the kind of world they want to live in, and as they express their frustration about their future, they’re going to be asking, ‘Well, what do you want out of your future?” El-Sayed said. “And you know what they’re going to say? ‘I want a politics that gets corporations out and puts me forward. I want to make sure that I can afford a home sometime in my life. I want a job, that I can work, that I can build the things that you have.’ So that’s how you expand.”