MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard appointed himself as Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s top defender on Wednesday. After insisting earlier in the day that you can’t tie El-Sayed to Hasan Piker’s 9/11 comments even though he campaigned with Piker, Hillyard guest hosted The Beat and emphatically insisted that El-Sayed is a “self-described capitalist.”
Teeing up a video montage for political analyst Eugene Robinson, Hillyard declared, “But I want to let you take a look at the response of some Republicans to his candidacy. Take a listen.”
MS NOW's Vaughn Hillyard continued his white knighting for Abdul El-Sayed when he filled in for Ari Melber, asking Eugene Robinson "Okay, so El-Sayed is a self-described capitalist, but do Democrats need to forcefully push back against this latest red scare in order to win this… pic.twitter.com/7wcGSPiQzW
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 6, 2026
The montage featured a soundbite from Sen. Ted Cruz chopped up into three parts interwoven with Fox News’s Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity:
TED CRUZ: These are actual communists.
JESSE WATTERS: The commie card’s a gamble.
CRUZ: Look, these communists hate America. They hate capitalism.
SEAN HANNITY: Top Democrats now echoing the DSA’s radical agenda.
CRUZ: We're looking at Mao. We're looking at Che Guevara. This is literally a communist takeover of the Democrat Party.
It should be noted that Hannity was talking about Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg endorsing abolishing the Electoral College, not El-Sayed. It should also be clear to anyone who has been paying attention that Cruz invoking Mao was a reference to Piker’s Mao fandom.
However, Hillyard reacted, “Okay, so El-Sayed is a self-described capitalist, but do Democrats need to forcefully push back against this latest red scare in order to win this race?”
Robinson agreed and then took things a step further. Not only did he insist on calling El-Sayed a capitalist, but he was also reluctant to even put him on the left side of the spectrum, “Well, look, this is the Republicans playbook this year, right? It's going to be red scare, red scare. ‘They're commies. They're, you know, socialists.’ They're all the number one, El-Sayed is not a democratic socialist. Period. And number two, I think Adam is absolutely right. I think the thing to do is not to let this race be framed in terms of left versus right. It should be populist versus establishment.”
Trying to elaborate, Robinson continued, “This is a good year to be a populist, and that is the kind of campaign that it seems to me El-Sayed ran. He ran against the establishment. And I think that's a very, very popular position that's held by many, not just in, you know, in Brooklyn and in Boulder, but in—across the middle of the country, in rural areas in the South. It's, you know, people are fed up with the establishment because the system as it is right now, as it is being run right now, is not working for a lot of people.”
For El-Sayed, Piker isn’t just some random nut job who happens to support him. He is someone he has actively chosen to campaign with and not denounce. When you choose to campaign with Maoists, people are naturally going to associate you with Mao.
Here is a transcript for the August 5 show:
MS NOW The Beat with Ari Melber
8/5/2026
6:05 PM ET
VAUGHN HILLYARD: But I want to let you take a look at the response of some Republicans to his candidacy. Take a listen.
TED CRUZ: These are actual communists.
JESSE WATTERS: The commie card’s a gamble.
CRUZ: Look, these communists hate America. They hate capitalism.
SEAN HANNITY: Top Democrats now echoing the DSA’s radical agenda.
CRUZ: We're looking at Mao. We're looking at Che Guevara. This is literally a communist takeover of the Democrat Party.
HILLYARD: Okay, so El-Sayed is a self-described capitalist, but do Democrats need to forcefully push back against this latest red scare in order to win this race?
EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, look, this is the Republicans playbook this year, right? It's going to be red scare, red scare. “They're commies. They're, you know, socialists.” They're all the number one, El-Sayed is not a democratic socialist. Period. And number two, I think Adam is absolutely right. I think the thing to do is not to let this race be framed in terms of left versus right. It should be populist versus establishment.
This is a good year to be a populist, and that is the kind of campaign that it seems to me El-Sayed ran. He ran against the establishment. And I think that's a very, very popular position that's held by many, not just in, you know, in Brooklyn and in Boulder, but in—across the middle of the country, in rural areas in the South. It's, you know, people are fed up with the establishment because the system as it is right now, as it is being run right now, is not working for a lot of people.
