El-Sayed Got Asked About Hasan Piker Three Times on National TV and Refused to Say His Name

CBS reporter Weijia Jiang asked Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about Hasan Piker three times on Face the Nation Sunday morning.

El-Sayed's answer was the same each time – deflect, pivot to grocery prices, pretend the question isn't happening.

What he refused to do is something every Jewish voter in Michigan is waiting to hear.

The Streamer El-Sayed Won't Disavow

Hasan Piker isn't just some random guy in California.

He is a Twitch streamer with more than 11 million followers who stood on stage with El-Sayed during primary campaign events.

He called Israel "Jewish ISIS."

He said American Jews who support Israel are "making antisemitism worse."

He warned that someone will eventually "take action" – not against Israel, but against American Jews.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the claim "dangerous and antisemitic."

Rep. Josh Gottheimer said it was "right out of the Nazi playbook."

About a dozen Democratic senators and representatives condemned Piker by name.

Abdul El-Sayed has not.

What El-Sayed Said Instead

When Jiang pressed him Sunday on CBS for the third time, El-Sayed responded that voters weren't asking him about "a Twitch streamer in California."

He said they were asking about grocery prices.

He said the race isn't about streamers.

He said he's done four events in Michigan this week and Piker never came up.

That answer is not an accident – it is a strategy.

El-Sayed needs Piker's audience to win.

Piker told his followers in August that any Democrat who calls El-Sayed "a bridge too far" must be "punished."

El-Sayed can't disavow the man who is mobilizing his base, even when that man is telling Jewish Americans they have brought violence upon themselves.

So instead he pretends the question is a Republican trick.

The Numbers That Should Terrify Democrats

Michigan's last Senate race was decided by 19,006 votes.

The state's Jewish population is between 105,000 and 130,000 adults.

Do that math.

A new Detroit News poll published September 8 shows Rogers at 45.8 percent and El-Sayed at 44.4 percent – a statistical dead heat.

Lifelong Michigan Democrats – including at least one prominent rabbi – are telling reporters they're crossing party lines in November.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin told reporters directly: "I usually vote Democrat, but I'm going to be voting for Mike Rogers."

El-Sayed narrowly beat moderate Haley Stevens in the primary on August 4.

Stevens had the backing of Jewish voters and AIPAC.

El-Sayed beat her by one point anyway.

After her loss, Stevens told Michigan Jewish voters they would "need to make a personal and private decision" about which candidate to support.

That is a Democrat telling other Democrats she cannot ask them to vote for her own party's nominee.

This Is What a Party Losing Its Mind Looks Like

The Democratic Party spent decades earning Jewish American loyalty.

That community voted Democrat by overwhelming margins for 80 years.

Now their Senate candidate in the one race that could decide who runs the chamber can't bring himself to say Piker's name.

El-Sayed didn't just dodge Jiang's question.

He dismissed it.

He told a CBS News reporter, in front of a national audience, that Jewish voters' safety concerns are less important than grocery prices.

Compare that to Lansing, where El-Sayed later said his earlier comments on a synagogue attack "might have been misconstrued."

He can find the words to walk back his own remarks about a terror attack.

He cannot find four words to say Hasan Piker is wrong.

Mike Rogers isn't waiting for El-Sayed to slip.

He stood on a Detroit lawn last month and launched "Democrats for Mike Rogers" – a coalition built specifically for voters like Rabbi Lopatin who never imagined voting Republican.

"I'm not asking you to be a Republican," Rogers told them. "I'm asking you for the opportunity to earn your trust."

Three Jewish Democratic bundlers who had never before raised money for a Republican hosted a fundraiser for him.

Michigan Jewish leaders are circulating an open letter warning that if El-Sayed wins, "far-left and anti-Jewish elements" will take over the Democratic Party heading into 2028.

That's the trade Michigan just handed voters – a former FBI agent building bridges to people his own opponent won't even name-check, against a candidate who can't say "Hasan Piker" out loud on national television.

Control of the United States Senate may come down to whether enough Jewish voters in the Detroit suburbs decide El-Sayed's non-answers on Face the Nation were the last straw.

Based on what Weijia Jiang heard Sunday morning, they should be.

Sources:

• Rachel Wolf, "Abdul El-Sayed dismisses questions about Hasan Piker ties on 'Face the Nation,'" Fox News, September 14, 2026.
• "Jewish Dem defections threaten El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race decided by razor-thin margins," Fox News, August 2026.
• "Antisemitic streamer finally makes Dem leader snap with rare rebuke: 'Malicious,'" Fox News, August 2026.
• "Abdul El-Sayed plays down Hasan Piker ties after streamer's viral antisemitism firestorm," Fox News, August 2026.
• "Poll: Rogers Takes Lead over Socialist El-Sayed in Michigan Senate Race," Breitbart, September 8, 2026.
• "Michigan Senate race: El-Sayed's ties to extremist fuel antisemitism concerns among Jewish voters," Fox News, April 2026.
• "Democrats face do or die split key voting bloc razor close senate race," Fox News, August 2026.
• Drew Berkemeyer, "Mike Rogers Slams Abdul El-Sayed's 'Apology' To Jews As Political Theater," The Daily Wire, 2026.