This Tuesday night, radical Democrat Abdul El-Sayed was nominated to run in the Michigan Senate race by a narrow margin. This Wednesday morning, the media had already fallen into line, ready to defend their precious candidate. MS NOW Reports was immediately in on the action, opening with El-Sayed’s victory speech and quickly pivoting to discussions about the upcoming general election campaign.
To begin, host Vaughn Hillyard responded to a clip by El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, to begin a discussion about the opposition’s tactics in the upcoming campaign season:
ROGERS: I find it shocking that I'm going to go up against a guy who believes America deserved 9/11.
[Cuts back to live]
HILLYARD: To be very clear, El-Sayed never said that. But he has appeared with popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who did, but then walked it back. And to be clear, El-Sayed has justified his relationship with Piker as one in which Piker has a following of millions, and just because he appears with him doesn't mean he agrees with everything he says, equating to someone appearing on Fox and not agreeing with everything that individuals on Fox say.
With El-Sayed now the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, the media have begun to play defense.
Vaughn Hillyard tries to distance El-Sayed from violent extremist and terrorist sympathizer Hasan Piker, even though Piker was endorsed by and literally campaigned with Sayed. pic.twitter.com/KNgW2lSN8T— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) August 5, 2026
Hillyard did his best to distance El-Sayed from Hasan Piker, but their relationship is well documented.
Piker, for context, is a socialist streamer who endorses political violence, idolizes communist dictators, and, as Hillyard admitted, has defended the 9/11 attacks. And El-Sayed doesn’t just have a “relationship” with this violent extremist, he openly campaigned with and was endorsed by the guy!
Hillyard then fretted about how El-Sayed could counter “this sort of disinformation and this onslaught of money and type of messaging that he is bound to face.” Hillyard was more concerned about Mike Roger’s mix-up than the insane views of El-Sayed’s buddy, Piker, the guy who he got mixed up with.
“This type of messaging” is only possible because El-Sayed chose to associate with that kind of stuff!
The director of UVA’s center for politics, Larry Sabato, joined in on defending El-Sayed’s campaign. He decried President Trump for his “hardball” campaign tactics and equating socialism and communism:
But for the Republicans, you have to play hardball. You can't play word games with them. You have to play hardball. They've just started, and something people haven't commented on much - but I think they're going to have to - is the fact that Donald Trump isn't just talking about socialists. He's equating them to communists, and it's happening all over the country.
Larry Sabato seems indignant about Republicans equating communism and socialism, as if socialism isn't (as described by Lenin & others) the first step to communism. And if El-Sayed isn't a socialist, why are you trying to defend him from this? pic.twitter.com/a9zopoaw8O
— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) August 5, 2026
Sabato implied that there was a significant difference between socialism and communism, seeming indignant that Trump would compare the two. If you dig into the issue, however, communist revolutionaries like Lenin write that socialism is merely a stepping-stone on the route to ‘true communism.’ And once again, El-Sayed is the same guy who campaigned with Hasan Piker, a Mao sympathizer and self-described socialist.
If you don’t want to face hardballs, don’t give them ammunition!
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.
MS NOW Reports
August 5, 2026
11:21:36 a.m. Eastern
(...)
VAUGHN HILLYARD: Larry, Republicans are going to be spending big in Michigan. It's a seat that they can take at a time that Democrats feel like they have open opportunities in places like Maine and Texas. I want to play a sound bite from Mike Rogers, who was on Fox just a bit ago here this morning, setting up his general election campaign. Take a listen:
[Cuts to video]
MIKE ROGERS (D-MI): I have never seen someone so radical, so extreme, get nominated by a political party. And the DSA candidates in the state, in two different congressional races, look like they're pulling it off as well. The Democrat party is lost to this hardcore socialist attitude and I- listen, I fought terrorism my whole life. I was an FBI special agent, U.S. Army officer, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. I find it shocking that I'm going to go up against a guy who believes America deserved 9/11.
[Cuts back to live]
HILLYARD: To be very clear, El-Sayed never said that. But he has appeared with popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who did, but then walked it back. And to be clear, El-Sayed has justified his relationship with Piker as one in which Piker has a following of millions, and just because he appears with him doesn't mean he agrees with everything he says, equating to someone appearing on Fox and not agreeing with everything that individuals on Fox say.
But this is the type of attack El-Sayed is already getting from the- Rogers and from Republicans. Larry, how does he counter this sort of disinformation and this onslaught of money and type of messaging that he is bound to face?
LARRY SABATO: Well, step one is when they have that unity breakfast, it better be a really good breakfast that puts people in a great mood. And that's the easy part. The leadership, the top echelon will come in behind him and support him. It's the rank and file, and people who vote Democratic but may not even think of themselves as Democrats, particularly white blue collar workers and blacks. Those are the two large groups that El-Sayed is really going to have to cultivate.
But, you know, he's got the pieces as Joel was saying, you've got a big talent here, talent with a capital T, he has the ability to do it. He has pieces of his past and present that will appeal to large numbers of people. And he's starting to use that. I thought the piece of his speech that he just gave that was the most effective talked about his background, and how he isn't, he wasn't born into riches. He wasn't an elite as he was growing up, and he has to stress that part.
But for the Republicans, you have to play hardball. You can't play word games with them. You have to play hardball. They've just started, and something people haven't commented on much - but I think they're going to have to - is the fact that Donald Trump isn't just talking about socialists. He's equating them to communists, and it's happening all over the country. The Republican candidates are picking that up.
And you know darn well that El-Sayed is going to have to deal with that. You can't sit back and intellectualize it and have five debates - which, of course, Mike Rogers will never agree to - and expect it to all resolve. It's not going to resolve. It's going to take a lot of money, it's going to take a lot of troops, and it's going to take a candidate who's disciplined, not just on his message, but in countering the other party's message, because Republicans do that a lot better, I'm sorry, than Democrats do, but I've watched it over decades.
(...)
