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, representative 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, according to leaked audio published by Politico, he suggested that if “you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message”. The comments drew immediate backlash from several high-profile Democrats and charges of sexism by those who believed the remark was a reference to Stevens. “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 said he had been speaking of supporting a primary challenge to Fetterman, the towering Pennsylvania Democrat who campaigned as a progressive but has moved to the right since taking office. “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,” El-Sayed said in the debate. Fetterman and El-Sayed have clashed mightily over the senator’s increasingly robust support for Israel, and in recent weeks Fetterman has said he would consider leaving the Democratic party if it became “anti-Israel” . During the hour-long debate, El-Sayed pushed back on criticism that he had failed to foster a spirit of political civility as candidate, noting that he recently chided his supporters for mocking 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. Stevens Before the moderator moved on, Stevens quipped: “Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre.” The expensive and increasingly bitter 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