Abdul El-Sayed had a fiery argument over the Iran War with Martha MacCallum as the left-wing Michigan Senate candidate spoke on Fox News Monday.
El-Sayed maintains a slight lead in the polls over Republican and former Congressman Mike Rogers in a key state that Democrats must not lose in order to flip the Senate blue.
The former public health official has made opposing the war in Iran, as well as most US foreign intervention, one of his biggest campaign issues.
MacCallum challenged El-Sayed on his views during her Fox News show Monday afternoon, in a discussion of recent terrorist attacks, which El-Sayed condemned as ‘awful and terrible’ in the wake of the FlyDubai hijacking.
She quoted El-Sayed as saying that ‘we need to be curious about people who do them, what causes them to do these sorts of things, why these things happen, what happens when individuals who commit these acts are in pain.’
MacCallum then said El-Sayed was suggesting the US has ‘been on the wrong side of our own policies’ and he was claiming that terrorism is ‘our fault.’
‘No, it’s not — the victim is never at fault, and terrorism is wrong no matter who perpetrates the terrorism, who it is perpetrated against,’ El-Sayed said, before pivoting to Iran.
‘War is a system of violence, when you think about a war we shouldn’t be fighting, like the war in Iran right now.’
Abdul El-Sayed (pictured left) had a fiery argument over the Iran War with Martha MacCallum (pictured right) as the left-wing Michigan Senate candidate spoke on Fox News Monday
El-Sayed maintains a slight lead in the polls over Republican and former Congressman Mike Rogers in a key state that Democrats must not lose in order to flip the Senate blue
MacCallum replied: ‘Probably because Iran created a huge threat to the neighborhood and killed thousands of American citizens.’
El-Sayed argued that ‘the nuclear threat’ Iran presented had been contained by Barack Obama’s Iran deal.
His statement came the same day El-Sayed announced a Michigan rally with the former President.
‘I don’t know about that, they had been breaking the JCPOA by many estimations,’ MacCallum said, referring to that very deal.
El-Sayed continued to argue the threat was contained: ‘Ask yourself, does more war make us safer?’
As MacCallum tried to hit back, El-Sayed argued: ‘I haven’t finished my point, I just want to finish what I was saying. We’re in a situation where we could have chosen peace and instead we chose war, and now you’ve got a situation at the Strait of Hormuz where we can’t move oil and gas.’
MacCallum finally got in a word, referencing a Wall Street Journal piece saying ‘we’re almost to level of getting oil out of the strait and the region.’
El-Sayed asked: ‘So why are our gas prices so high?’
MacCallum challenged El-Sayed on his views on her Fox News show Monday afternoon, in a discussion of recent terrorist attacks, which El-Sayed condemned as ‘awful and terrible’ in the wake of the FlyDubai hijacking
Trump reacted to the interview at his rally in Nebraska Monday night, calling El-Sayed ‘a total communist’
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‘I think you are going to start to see them come down. That’s what we’re seeing from economists,’ MacCallum said.
‘That’s not what Michiganders are experiencing at the pump, ‘ El-Sayed responded.
It got even more heated, as MacCallum accused El-Sayed of filibustering before he argued MacCallum was a ‘fan’ of the war in Iran.
Trump reacted to the interview at his rally in Nebraska Monday night, calling El-Sayed ‘a total communist.’
‘El-Sayed was interviewed on a certain network. I won’t tell you which one (FOX). They hardly fight him at all. Why are they putting these people on our television networks? Why they always have to put Jessica Tarlov, another loser? They should stop,’ he added.
Michigan is one of the true toss-ups in November, as Progressive insurgent Abdul El-Sayed was declared the winner of a rollercoaster Democratic primary for the US Senate after squeaking by with a slim victory over Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
His single-point win raises new questions about whether his strength among base voters can translate to a general election this fall, as Democrats look to flip four seats necessary to secure a majority in the upper chamber.
El-Sayed fared well with Arab-American and younger voters, while Stevens nabbed support from older Democrats as well as African-American voters who do not seem ready to back El-Sayed in November.
Rogers, a former House GOP lawmaker, has been biding his time as the GOP’s presumptive nominee for months, waiting on a challenger to emerge from the Democratic Party.
The seat is rated as a ‘toss up’ by the Cook Political Report.
