Sad Michigan Muslims Drove Dem Senate Hopeful To Silence On Khamenei

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is facing scrutiny after audio surfaced of him telling staff he wanted to avoid commenting on the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei because “a lot” of constituents in the majority-Muslim city of Dearborn, Michigan, would be upset.

The comments from El-Sayed, a leftist Muslim running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, were published Monday by the Washington Free Beacon. During a call with his communications team on March 1, just one day after President Donald Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury,” El-Sayed laid out his strategy for addressing the conflict.

“I also want to remind you guys that there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today. So, like, I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all. Like, I don’t think it’s worth even touching that,” El-Sayed said.

Michigan holds one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in the United States, with the vast majority residing in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. Dearborn became the first majority-Muslim city in the United States in 2023. The city recently drew national attention after a resident rammed his vehicle into a synagogue and was killed in a shootout, reportedly after Israeli strikes killed members of his family.

In the conversation, El-Sayed acknowledged that Khamenei was a “bad man” but condemned the U.S. strike.

“The fact that he was a bad man does not justify our breaking of international law and unilateral action outside of wartime,” he said. “This is a bigger question about the United States’ responsibility to international law, and we have been breaking it wantonly.”

In a mock unfriendly interview, one of El-Sayed’s staffers asked him if he believes the United States is “authorized to pursue further action” after Iran launched missile attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East. In response, the leftist Democrat painted the United States and Israel as the aggressors.

“Don’t forget what started this,” he said. “The United States and Israel attacked first. So now, you have another country retaliating in what you would expect them to do when they’re attacked. And now we’re going to back-justify the thing that we did to start the war in the first place?”

At another point in the call, El-Sayed also floated a strategy to avoid addressing the Iran war directly if he was asked by reporters to comment on the issue.

“I’m just going to go straight to pedophilia, frankly. I’ll just be like, ‘Pedophile president decides that he doesn’t like the front page news, so he decides to take us into another war,'” he added.

While prepping his response to the Iran war, El-Sayed also shifted his focus to criticizing Israel.

“Frankly, this [war] doesn’t actually benefit the United States. You know who it benefits? It benefits Israel, who has captured too many of our politicians through AIPAC contributions,” he said.

The Daily Wire reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign, seeking comment.

El-Sayed’s legal team told the Free Beacon that the audio from the internal staff meeting “was obtained without the campaign’s permission, and without knowledge that individuals were being recorded.” David Mitrani, of the Sandler Reiff law firm, added, “The campaign is considering its legal options against the individual in question,” according to the Free Beacon.

El-Sayed is in a tight race with two other Democrats for the 2026 Senate nomination and has positioned himself as the most progressive choice for Democrats in the primary. El-Sayed boasts endorsements from democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and is advocating for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished.

During his 2026 Senate campaign, El-Sayed has been in hot water over comments he has made on Israel. Last October, the Democrat sent a fundraising email on the two-year anniversary of Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack on Israel, but the email made no mention of Hamas’ atrocities and blamed Israel for launching “a ground invasion of Gaza.”

In an interview with The Daily Wire earlier this year, El-Sayed said the email that went out on the anniversary of the October 7 attack was supposed to be sent on a different day, but he added that he still supported the main message of the email.

“It went out, and I very quickly reached out to leaders in the Jewish community to apologize for having stepped on their grief,” he said, adding, “The message in the email is something I stand by.”

El-Sayed also plans to campaign alongside Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has praised terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and once said that “America deserved 9/11.”