El-Sayed apologizes for ‘hurt people hurt people’ comment after Temple Israel attack

U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed worked to mend a fence that’s posed a challenge to his campaign for several months during Saturday’s Michigan Democratic Party nominating convention that mostly focused on unity.

After speaking to a meeting of the MDP Jewish Caucus prior to the convention’s official start, El-Sayed briefly took questions from delegates in the room. He discussed the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield earlier this year, in which an assailant drove a vehicle into the entrance of a synagogue building housing a school and daycare with over 100 children inside before being shot and killed by security staff.

El-Sayed was asked about a comment made in a video he posted after the attack, in which he condemned the actions of the attacker and went on to note the discovery by law enforcement that members of the assailant’s family had been recently killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and said that “hurt people hurt people.” The remark was seen by many in Michigan’s Jewish community as an excuse for the attacker, which El-Sayed said Saturday was unintended and not appreciated by him at the time.

“I did not appreciate that in the attempt to offer broader context, I was trampling the dignity that that fear and that pain should have been afforded, and I could imagine that for a lot of folks, that would have read like ‘he does not see our pain or weigh it equally,’ and that was not my intention with the statement,” he said. “And if my statement caused pain, I’m sorry. That was not what I intended to do, and sometimes you can offer context for something, but not in the moment when people are feeling pain. I made a mistake… we issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and it just should have been (where we stopped). In the fullness of time, I hope that we can have conversations that are about context. But sometimes you can’t really see context in the moment of acuity or pain, and so the intention for me was not to trample that pain, it was not to discount it, it was not at all to justify any sort of domestic terrorism. That’s wrong. Full stop.”

El-Sayed described the interaction to reporters later as “getting a really important question” and reiterated his apology for the comment, saying “it wasn’t the time for context” and “you don’t ever want to trample somebody’s pain.”

He said he intends to continue having conversations with Jewish voters, including those who disagree with him on foreign policy, and asked Jewish Democrats who may be on the fence about his candidacy to remember the stakes in his general election contest against Republican nominee Mike Rogers.

“This election is not about the past, this election is about the future. If we want to rubber-stamp Donald Trump’s disastrous policies, if we’re serious about protecting our democracy, if we’re serious about standing up for unions and providing healthcare, then we need to be serious about what it takes to unify and win in November,” he said. “And I would just say to any and all folks who believe that Donald Trump is an existential risk to our democracy, the time is now for us to show up and fight for that democracy. I’m looking forward to fighting alongside anyone and everyone who’s willing to take that back.”

El-Sayed was also asked by national media outlets about primary campaign appearances with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, whose past comments have drawn criticism from Jewish Michiganders, including Attorney General Dana Nessel, and whom some Democrats have called for El-Sayed to more strongly condemn or distance himself from.

El-Sayed, who hasn’t been billed alongside Piker since the Aug. 3 primary, was quick to dismiss the idea that his candidacy was tied to an out-of-state social media personality.

“If you want to make this race about a streamer in California, I just think you’re missing the boat. This is about affordability in Michigan. This is about being able to see a doctor in Michigan. This is about Donald Trump’s disastrous policies in Michigan. That’s what I’m focused on right now. I am not interested in a conversation about a social media person in California,” El-Sayed said in response to a CNN reporter’s question about Piker. “And for folks who want to make this race about a social media person in California, let’s not forget what actually matters in our politics and what our politics really are about. I don’t ever want my comments to hurt anybody’s feelings. It’s important to me that people understand that I take seriously the pain of all communities in this state, but I don’t want to have a conversation about a Twitch streamer in California. It’s just not a serious conversation.”

For those voters who may have those concerns or hurt feelings, El-Sayed said he wants to have the conversation – sans reporters and microphones, with the knowledge that his campaign isn’t about Piker.

On Sunday, El-Sayed will appear alongside gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson, the rest of Democrats’ ticket for executive offices, Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Bloomfield Township, and Rep. Samantha Steckloff, D-Farmington Hills, at the MDP Jewish Caucus’s Summer Simcha event, held this year in honor of Nessel especially.

El-Sayed said Saturday he was looking forward to the opportunity to attend and continue to speak directly with Jewish Democrats. The event stands to be a critical one for his campaign as it works to foster goodwill with Jewish voters and signal to those who may not have supported El-Sayed in the primary that he’s capable of a general election shift.

Although he said it’s likely he’ll disagree with many Jewish Democrats in Michigan about issues of foreign policy, El-Sayed said he finds power not only in the common beliefs they do share but the shared experiences of Americans of Jewish, Muslim and Arab descent.

“We might not agree on everything, but I think there’s a lot more that we agree on than we disagree, and I also think it’s really important for us to realize that at the end of the day, the things that we face together. You guys have watched the campaign that Mike Rogers has waged. This is a campaign that is about specifically trying to identify some kinds of people as being less American than other people,” El-Sayed said. “He doesn’t want to actually have a conversation about the issues that Michiganders face, he’d rather have a conversation about identity, and I just think it’s important for all of us who know the experience of being told that we’re less American than other people that we band together to take that on. And I’m looking forward to working alongside my Jewish sisters and brothers to fight for an America where all of us are included, where none of our safety is in harm’s way and I’m looking forward to continuing those conversations.”