Latest news with #AbdulElSayed
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden showed ‘general failure' to do job while Harris and his party ‘ran away' says Michigan Democrat vying to be first Muslim senator
Why did Kamala Harris lose the 'Blue Wall,' and every other swing state in 2024? For the three leading candidates vying to win the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, providing an answer could determine their political futures. At least one already has: Abdul El-Sayed argued on Monday that his party ran away from its voters — not towards them. Polling within the margin of error against Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed, 40, is very well positioned to pull off the historic feat of becoming the first-ever Muslim member of the United States Senate. A poll conducted by the NSRC, the GOP's Senate campaign arm, put him two points behind Stevens, a Democratic congresswoman and reportedly the Democratic party establishment's favorite to win the seat. Mallory McMorrow, a state senator, trailed both but was nearing striking distance. 'Democrats still haven't learned this lesson,' El-Sayed insisted on Monday. 'It's frustrating because these people made a calculated decision about who they needed and who they didn't. And it turns out that that decision was way off.' El-Sayed spoke to The Independent two days before he was set to visit a Yemeni coffeeshop in Dearborn Heights for a meet-and-greet with voters, an area of Michigan that saw one of the sharpest drop offs among Democratic-leaning voters last year. Across the state, El-Sayed is running the exact opposite kind of campaign as an increasingly frail Joe Biden ran in 2024. In some ways, his strategy contrasts with Harris,' too, in ways which clearly didn't sit well with the former Detroit health commisioner. On a recent interview with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker (HasanAbi), the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war and starvation crisis in Gaza, which El-Sayed labels a genocide. But in the hourlong conversation — the likes of which Harris avoided to some dismay from Democrats — the two also bro'd out, chatting about fitness as well as the YouTube and Twitter 'shorts' seemingly consuming social media and transforming it into slop. 'I watched this campaign actively run away from certain groups of voters because they did not want to take questions that would expose the inconsistency of their values,' said El-Sayed. 'Whether that was Joe Rogan's audience, whether that was Hasan's audience, there are just groups of people that Democrats have said, 'you know what? We're going to give up on you, because we don't think we need you to win an election. 'That's not how you do politics,' he continued. 'Your job is not about just trying to architect a winning coalition. Your job is about trying to identify the issues that all people need, and then being able to be clear, specific and direct about how you solve them in an effort to win an election, because your agenda would deliver for the most people in the ways that they need.' He pinned much of the blame for the party's stiffness in 2024, exemplified in both Biden and Harris' campaigns, on a steady stream of donor money the two-time Bernie Sanders-backed candidate argued was poisoning the party. Democratic policies were being winnowed down through a narrow lens of what would be palatable to both the party's base and their corporate-backed financiers, El-Sayed argued. The devastation in Gaza and the Democratic Party's complicity in not pressuring Israel over it under Biden highlighted a gulf between those two groups he argued was growing for years. The man who could very well be the Democratic Party's champion in a crucial Senate race spared no criticism for those Democratic elites he argued were responsible for the mess within which the DNC was now mired. "Joe Biden's handling of Gaza was indicative of a general failure to be able to do the job,' El-Sayed told The Independent. "I wasn't in those rooms,' said El-Sayed. 'What I can tell you is what I watched, and what I think the American public watched, [which] is an American president who was struggling to give a coherent statement, to get through a debate, [and] ... to manage a extremely complicated situation in Gaza.' 'I also know that there was this effort to silence those voices who were willing to state what was obvious before our eyes,' he added. A disrupting voice in the party, El-Sayed is pledging to shake up the geriatric halls of the Senate as well should he become his party's nominee. He's hoping that a phenomenon which manifested to propel Zohran Mamdani to victory in the New York City mayoral primary election can be duplicated in the Rust Belt. 'There was an inversion of the demographics of the electorate in that primary, young people came out in droves,' said El-Sayed. 'And here in Michigan, we've got young people who have been sick and tired of the system for a very long time, and our job is to go and talk about the challenges that they're facing in their lives,' he continued, offering an example of the complaints he's heard: ''I don't know that I'm going to be able to get a job, even though I've done everything you told me to do. I did it all. I'm stuck with $60,000 in debt, and AI is about to take the job I was supposed to have. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to buy a home. I'm worried about the fact that I'm watching a smokestack corrupt our climate. I'm watching as oil pipelines are flowing through our Great Lakes, and I'm asking what's going to be left for me.' As senator, El-Sayed says he'd back leveraging Democratic votes on legislation to fund the government: the kind of shutdown politics Chuck Schumer refused to play earlier in 2025. He also supports ending the filibuster, according to a staffer. El-Sayed also would not commit to supporting Schumer for another term as leader of the caucus, telling The Independent he wanted to look at his options as 2027 came into view. First he'll have to win the 2026 primary as well as a general election against Mike Rogers, the Republican Trump-supporting congressman on a path to be crowned the GOP nominee. With a unified Republican Party backing Rogers, El-Sayed is well aware that his Muslim background and stance on Gaza could be weaponized by Republicans in an attempt to overshadow a Zohran Mamdani-like focus on affordability and Michiganders' financial stability. Republicans see Michigan as a path to expanding a majority and giving Donald Trump the breathing room he needs to further his legislative agenda in 2027. The loss of Michigan would be a massive blow for a battle-weary DSCC, and a pro-Israel site has already attacked El-Sayed over his sitdown with Hasan Piker. El-Sayed argued that the momentum was on his side, and that Democrats needed to be ready to brawl. 'I think we need to stop being afraid,' he said. 'I just think we need to punch back harder, right? They want to come after us on this issue, punch back harder. 'I don't back down, I don't pull my punches, and I am more than happy to go at this issue or any other issue with lying MAGA types,' El-Sayed continued. ' I think we can win the American public, but we gotta stop being afraid of our own shadow.'
The Independent
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Biden was ‘general failure' and Kamala ‘ran away' says Michigan Democrat vying to be first Muslim senator
Why did Kamala Harris lose the 'Blue Wall,' and every other swing state in 2024? For the three leading candidates vying to win the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, providing an answer could determine their political futures. At least one already has: Abdul El-Sayed argued on Monday that his party ran away from its voters — not towards them. Polling within the margin of error against Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed, 40, is very well positioned to pull off the historic feat of becoming the first-ever Muslim member of the United States Senate. A poll conducted by the NSRC, the GOP's Senate campaign arm, put him within the margin of error against Rep. Haley Stevens, a Democratic congresswoman and reportedly the Democratic party establishment's favorite to win the seat. Mallory McMorrow, a state senator, trailed both but was nearing striking distance. 'Democrats still haven't learned this lesson,' El-Sayed insisted on Monday. 'It's frustrating because these people made a calculated decision about who they needed and who they didn't. And it turns out that that decision was way off.' El-Sayed spoke to The Independent two days before he was set to visit a Yemeni coffeeshop in Dearborn Heights for a meet-and-greet with voters, an area of Michigan that saw one of the sharpest drop offs among Democratic-leaning voters last year. Across the state, El-Sayed is running the exact opposite kind of campaign as an increasingly frail Joe Biden ran in 2024. In some ways, his strategy contrasts with Harris,' too, in ways which clearly didn't sit well with the former Detroit health commisioner. On a recent interview with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker (HasanAbi), the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war and starvation crisis in Gaza, which El-Sayed labels a genocide. But in the hourlong conversation — the likes of which Harris avoided to some dismay from Democrats — the two also bro'd out, chatting about fitness as well as the YouTube and Twitter 'shorts' seemingly consuming social media and transforming it into slop. 'I watched this campaign actively run away from certain groups of voters because they did not want to take questions that would expose the inconsistency of their values,' said El-Sayed. 'Whether that was Joe Rogan's audience, whether that was Hasan's audience, there are just groups of people that Democrats have said, 'you know what? We're going to give up on you, because we don't think we need you to win an election. 'That's not how you do politics,' he continued. 'Your job is not about just trying to architect a winning coalition. Your job is about trying to identify the issues that all people need, and then being able to be clear, specific and direct about how you solve them in an effort to win an election, because your agenda would deliver for the most people in the ways that they need.' He pinned much of the blame for the party's stiffness in 2024, exemplified in both Biden and Harris' campaigns, on a steady stream of donor money the two-time Bernie Sanders-backed candidate argued was poisoning the party. Democratic policies were being winnowed down through a narrow lens of what would be palatable to both the party's base and their corporate-backed financiers, El-Sayed argued. The devastation in Gaza and the Democratic Party's complicity in not pressuring Israel over it under Biden highlighted a gulf between those two groups he argued was growing for years. The man who could very well be the Democratic Party's champion in a crucial Senate race spared no criticism for those Democratic elites he argued were responsible for the mess within which the DNC was now mired. "Joe Biden's handling of Gaza was indicative of a general failure to be able to do the job,' El-Sayed told The Independent. "I wasn't in those rooms,' said El-Sayed. 'What I can tell you is what I watched, and what I think the American public watched, [which] is an American president who was struggling to give a coherent statement, to get through a debate, [and] ... to manage a extremely complicated situation in Gaza. 'I also know that there was this effort to silence those voices who were willing to state what was obvious before our eyes,' he added. A disrupting voice in the party, El-Sayed is pledging to shake up the geriatric halls of the Senate as well should he become his party's nominee. As senator, El-Sayed says he'd back leveraging Democratic votes on legislation to fund the government: the kind of shutdown politics Chuck Schumer refused to play earlier in 2025. He also supports ending the filibuster, according to a staffer. El-Sayed also would not commit to supporting Schumer for another term as leader of the caucus, telling The Independent he wanted to look at his options as 2027 came into view. First he'll have to win the 2026 primary as well as a general election against Mike Rogers, the Republican Trump-supporting congressman on a path to be crowned the GOP nominee. With a unified Republican Party backing Rogers, El-Sayed is well aware that his Muslim background and stance on Gaza could be weaponized by Republicans in an attempt to overshadow a Zohran Mamdani-like focus on affordability and Michiganders' financial stability. Republicans see Michigan as a path to expanding a majority and giving Donald Trump the breathing room he needs to further his legislative agenda in 2027. The loss of Michigan would be a massive blow for a battle-weary DSCC, and a pro-Israel site has already attacked El-Sayed over his sitdown with Hasan Piker. El-Sayed argued that the momentum was on his side, and that Democrats needed to be ready to brawl. 'I think we need to stop being afraid,' he said. 'I just think we need to punch back harder, right? They want to come after us on this issue, punch back harder. 'I don't back down, I don't pull my punches, and I am more than happy to go at this issue or any other issue with lying MAGA types,' El-Sayed continued. ' I think we can win the American public, but we gotta stop being afraid of our own shadow.'
CNN
26-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Democrats are posting weightlifting videos to give their midterm campaigns a lift
Democrats running in next year's midterms are pumping out videos of themselves pumping iron. In one video, Texas Senate candidate Colin Allred stands in his home gym after a workout and, still in a sweat, criticizes President Donald Trump's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. In another, Cait Conley, an Army veteran challenging New York Rep. Mike Lawler, talks about affordability as a video plays of her pressing weights over her head. And when a critic on social media jabbed at his bench-press form in a recent campaign ad, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed posted a snappy dismissal correcting how many pounds he was lifting. 'That's 315, habibi,' El-Sayed said in a post on X that has been viewed more than 5 million times. Politicians working out in public is a bipartisan custom. But Democrats are increasingly posting weightlifting content in hopes of reaching male voters in the so-called 'manosphere' that Trump mastered during his campaign. They are also trying to move past the ongoing arguments – fanned by Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill – over former President Joe Biden's physical and mental fitness. 'People want to see vigor, they want to see action, that you're prepared to do the job, doing more than sitting behind a podium regurgitating a litany of nonsensical acronyms,' said Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo. Pat Dennis, another strategist, credited candidates for exploring new ways to reach people, but warned about seeming inauthentic. 'I would caution Democrats against pulling out a checklist – 'For young men, we'll do some bench pressing; for young women, we'll talk about the Barbie movie,'' he said. 'People don't like checklists and they don't like being pandered to. They remember you for who you are. You need to be authentic, in a way that is believable.' El-Sayed said posting his lifts allows him to reach young men who otherwise have trouble identifying with Democrats. But he argues that the weightlifting content isn't just for men. 'As bro-coded as heavy lifting tends to be, like I said, some of the most monster lifters I've ever met are women over the ages of 65,' he said. 'This is a discipline that is there for everybody.' El-Sayed is running in a crowded primary to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. As a physician and former public health official, El-Sayed has made health, fitness and appeals to young men hallmarks of his campaign. 'Part of the problem that we often have is folks don't see themselves in our politics,' he told CNN. 'I want to break that artificial barrier down – bringing the politics back into the gym and bringing the gym back into politics.' Good night. This month, his campaign launched Facebook ads touting his workouts and calling for 'time, effort, and discipline' in politics. In other social media posts, El-Sayed has spoken out about the need for better male role models and discussed how leaders can improve their outreach. And El-Sayed also acknowledged that the focus on health and fitness could address voter concerns about aging political leadership. 'I do think there's something about vigor that you need in public leaders. Our public leaders need to be able to go all in, in the things that they do, and push themselves in all the ways that they can,' he told CNN. 'What it doesn't look like is Donald Trump. It's hilarious to me that like, he walks around being this caricature of a macho man – buddy, we've all seen you in a polo shirt.' Allred is a retired NFL linebacker and former congressman making his second run for Senate this year in Texas, where Democrats are hoping for a statewide breakthrough against incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn or primary rival Ken Paxton, the state's attorney general. Allred lost a Senate bid last year to Sen. Ted Cruz. The brawny Democrat has also made physical fitness a key part of his communications strategy, filming workout videos and using them to comment on campaign developments and news of the day. 'I'm at the end of my workout here, and just wanted to thank y'all for helping us have such a great launch yesterday,' he says, breathing hard and pumping weights, in a video posted the day after his campaign launch. In another video posted last Friday, Allred commented on the escalating controversy over Epstein and his alleged links to Trump. 'Hey everybody, I just finished my workout, hope you got your workout in. So I guess we gotta talk about Jeffrey Epstein,' he says in the video. A post shared by Colin Allred (@colinallred) Allred described his thinking behind the videos to CNN, saying that 'it's not something that I really planned on doing, as much as I started to feel like after my workouts, that I was doing anyway – that was when I felt I had something to say.' Allred also said he recognized the concerns that voters have about aging politicians. 'I think it's a real concern,' he said. 'I do think that we have to show folks that we have the energy and I'd say sort of the fitness in order to go to bat for them.' Earlier this year, Allred helped found the 'Speaking with American Men' project, aimed at helping the party reach those voters. In a memo outlining their 'strategic plan' for 2025, the group pledged to 'develop a cohort of credible voices … to promote a constructive, aspirational vision of manhood that aligns with Democratic values without alienating other core constituencies.' In Colorado's battleground 8th District, state Rep. Manny Rutinel is challenging Republican incumbent Gabe Evans with a series of social media videos that often feature Rutinel playing sports, working out, and ribbing his GOP rival. 'If I do 20 pull-ups, we're gonna flip a red seat blue in Congress to stop the horrors of the Trump administration,' he says in one of the videos on Instagram. J.D. Scholten, a state lawmaker and minor league pitcher seeking to challenge Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, shared a video of a 'spot start' he made pitching for the independent Sioux City Explorers, writing, 'We got the W and are back in first place! Still learning the game at 45 years old…' It's not just men who are producing fitness content. Conley, the Army veteran challenging Lawler in a top battleground district, has also made workouts and exercise a key component of her campaign communications. 'Welcome to Reps and Real Talk,' Conley, sitting in front of a bench press, says in an Instagram video promoting her campaign launch in March. 'Over the coming weeks and months, I'll be posting videos here to talk to you.' Conley told CNN in a statement that 'fitness embodies those values which have guided me my whole life – from West Point to 16 years of military service and multiple combat tours.' Meanwhile, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow – eyeing a Senate seat potentially opening with Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet running for governor – is a former Army Ranger who says he's training to retake the Army Combat Fitness test. 'I'm not the 27-year-old Ranger anymore,' joked Crow, 46, in an interview with CNN. 'But, you know, I'm crushing the pull-ups, I'm crushing the push-ups, the sprint-drag-carry I'm doing well, the plank I'm doing well on. I just need a little bit more time on the max deadlift than I used to so, but I'll get it there.'
Bloomberg
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Balance of Power: House GOP Debate Tax Bill
Watch Joe and Kailey LIVE every day on YouTube: Bloomberg Washington Correspondents Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz deliver insight and analysis on the latest headlines from the White House and Capitol Hill, including conversations with influential lawmakers and key figures in politics and policy. On this edition, Kailey speaks with: Spokesman for the Alliance for Competitive Taxation and Former Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady. Bloomberg Politics Contributors Rick Davis and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino. Bloomberg's David Gura following his interview with Former US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. Groundwork Collaborative Senior Fellow Kitty Richards. Democratic Candidate for US Senate in Michigan Abdul El-Sayed.
