Abdul El-Sayed
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Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate in the 2026 Democratic primary for the United States Senate in Michigan. Kiriakou first encountered him about six months earlier at a fundraiser at a friend's house, having never heard of him, and describes a candidate who "talked about health care, health care, health care", a medical doctor and PhD who, in Kiriakou's phrase, "single-handedly built Michigan's health care system." He states his interest openly: "I was so impressed by him that I sent his campaign $100. So there, you know, my bias."

The polling

An Emerson College poll had El-Sayed leading by fifteen percentage points among likely voters, with his opponent taking a majority in only one of six age groups tested. The age split is the striking figure: voters under fifty broke for El-Sayed by forty-two points, 67 to 25; the gap narrowed to twelve among voters in their fifties; and voters over sixty flipped the other way, 53 to 39.

The anti-Semitism question

Pressed on whether setting funding for Israel against underfunded American health care echoes an old anti-Semitic trope, El-Sayed answered that Jewish Americans are among the beneficiaries of guaranteed health care, that invoking anti-Semitism to defend a foreign government's conduct does Jewish Americans a disservice, and that "anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are one and the same." Told he had not made the same trade-off argument about other items in the American budget, he said he would say the same of aid to Egypt, where his family comes from, and that on principle he opposes unconditional foreign military aid to any government. These are the candidate's own words rather than Kiriakou's, and are recorded here as the exchange Kiriakou played and responded to.

Kiriakou's own contribution is a point he thinks Americans miss: Israel "is a democratic socialist state" with a robust welfare system in which a Jewish immigrant receives an apartment, furniture and medical care free, "well, it's because we pay for that." He leaves the choice with the voter rather than drawing the conclusion: if that is what American voters want, "okay, God bless. If it's something that you don't want, then you have to express that to your political figures."

See also

- Michigan 2026 Democratic Senate Primary
- Mike Rogers
- AIPAC
