Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whose tight race in Michigan could make or break his party’s goal to win the Senate in November, spent the weekend apologizing to Jewish Democrats in his state.

El-Sayed began Saturday by saying he was sorry for remarks he made following an attack on a synagogue outside Detroit in March, when he said “hurt people hurt people.”

He kept going on Sunday, attending a Democratic Jewish Caucus annual Summer Simcha event as he continued extending an olive branch over comments he made after a man drove his car into a synagogue filled with preschool children — none of whom were injured — in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

“I remember attending both a bar and a bat mitzvah at Temple Israel, and when it was attacked by a terrorist on that morning, we immediately condemned it. And then a couple days later, I wanted to offer context,” El-Sayed said at the event in Birmingham, a Detroit suburb in the county where the attack occurred. “But here’s the problem with context: context at the right time seems to also offer an asterisk on a moment of pain and a moment of trauma, a moment of frustration, a moment of sadness, a moment of anger that is more than justified. That wasn’t my intention. So I’m asking for forgiveness and a moment of grace.”

MS NOW obtained audio from the event, in which El-Sayed spoke about the trust he felt he broke with the Jewish community.

El-Sayed underscored his commitment to the safety and well-being of the Jewish community, especially its children. He said he has also had several conversations with Elissa Slotkin, Michigan’s junior senator, who is Jewish.

If El-Sayed wins in November, he would become the country’s first Muslim senator, creating a historic milestone because Michigan would be represented in the Senate by both Jewish woman and a Muslim man simultaneously.

His contrition on Sunday followed his apology on Saturday at a Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus event in Lansing. “I made a mistake,” El-Sayed said, according to The New York Times, when asked about his comments at an event in Lansing. “I should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop.”

He reportedly told the group of Jewish Democrats, “Nobody deserves to have their pain trampled on.”

“I know that our ideas can win when we take the time to actually explain them. It’s what people really want,” El-Sayed, who has publicly denounced antisemitism during his campaign, told MS NOW in a phone interview on Friday.

“Meanwhile, my opponent, Mike Rogers, won’t even debate me and his entire campaign is about trying to point to a streamer in California,” he said, referring to provocative comments made by far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, which some Jewish leaders and voters have characterized as antisemitic.

El-Sayed and Piker attended campaign events together during the Democratic primary race, but the Democratic nominee has since appeared to distance himself from the streamer amid the backlash. He did not appear to mention Piker on Sunday.

Michigan Democrats, all too aware of the Senate race’s high stakes, are trying to look beyond the controversial streamer, whom more than half of Democratic voters don’t even know.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., appearing on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” Sunday, didn’t directly answer when co-host Jackie Alemany asked her why El-Sayed hasn’t disavowed Piker.

“I don’t understand Hassan Piker,” said Dingell, who told reporters last week to stop asking her questions about Piker. But she said she has had “very direct” and “blunt” conversations with El-Sayed.

“I tell him what I think,” she told MS NOW, noting that the Senate candidate apologized to the Jewish Caucus at the state party’s convention on Saturday and is expected to again on Sunday.

“So he’s listening. He’s taking the intake. We got to get this behind us. I want to talk about the issues,” Dingell said. “I have nothing to do with this on Piker.”

The post Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed apologizes to Michigan Jewish Democrats appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.