Michigan progressive Abdul El-Sayed says ‘ogre’ remark not directed at rival

Abdul El-Sayed at a campaign rally in Ferndale, Michigan on Saturday. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters View image in fullscreen Abdul El-Sayed at a campaign rally in Ferndale, Michigan on Saturday. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters Michigan progressive Abdul El-Sayed says ‘ogre’ remark not directed at rival El-Sayed says in TV debate ‘ogre on a pike’ Zoom comment was in reference to John Fetterman, not Haley Stevens The Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said his comments that progressives need to put the head of an “ogre” on a pike was in reference to the US senator John Fetterman – not his opponent, Haley Stevens. In a televised debate on Monday, the final head-to-head before the state’s 4 August primary, the moderator asked El-Sayed whether he regretted his comments made in a Zoom meeting, in which he said, according to leaked audio published by Politico: “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden [it] starts to sound a lot different.” The comments drew immediate backlash from several high-profile Democrats . “Many people took offense to that,” the debate moderator Roop Raj noted. “Do you regret any of the comments that you’ve made?” El-Sayed did not reply directly, but argued that he had stood up for civility, noting that he chided supporters who mocked Stevens’ accent. “Look, I took to Twitter last week and said that the tone in which people talk about my opponent is unkind, and I asked anybody who supported me to not talk about her that way,” he said. Speaking of “ogre” comments directly, El-Sayed said he was referencing Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who was elected as a progressive but has moved to the right since taking office. He and El-Sayed have clashed mightily over the senator’s increasingly robust support for Israel, and in recent weeks Fetterman has suggested he would leave the Democratic party if it became “anti-Israel” . El-Sayed said in the debate: “I was referring to a guy named John Fetterman, who’s a senator from Pennsylvania who has done terrible things, got elected on a set of values, and is now completely throwing those values in the mud.” Stevens quipped: “Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre.” The Democratic primary to replace retiring senator Gary Peters has evolved into a proxy fight over the party’s future, pitting the establishment-backed moderate Stevens against El-Sayed, a progressive former Detroit health director. The candidates have split sharply on the issue of Israel, with Stevens identifying as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat” and accepting substantial support from American Israel Public Affairs Committee. By contrast, El-Sayed has called Israel’s campaign in Gaza a “genocide” and has denounced US arms support for Israel. Last week, Stevens picked up the endorsement of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who El-Sayed challenged unsuccessfully in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. El-Sayed has rallied the party’s left fla