The second Michigan Senate debate on Wednesday featured several heated clashes between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, though it was far more tame than an explosive first meeting earlier this month.
The debate, which took place in Detroit, came less than two weeks before Election Day in the bitterly contested battle for an open Senate seat. Polls show a neck and neck contest to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat.
El-Sayed sought to tie Rogers to President Donald Trump at every turn while also painting his opponent as a corporate sellout. During a question about addressing cost-of-living concerns, El-Sayed said rising gas and grocery prices are all products of the war with Iran
“We need a War Powers resolution rather than a senator who is going to stand hip to hip with Donald Trump on this war that made no sense when it started and certainly makes no sense now,” El-Sayed said. “I’m looking forward to standing with my colleagues in the United States Senate to hold Donald Trump accountable for this war. The other thing that we’re going to need to do is take on the corporations who bought and sold politicians for a very long time.”
Rogers has sought to create space between himself and Trump on the war in recent weeks. The Republican cut an ad calling for the war to wind down, though he has also said there was good reason for Trump to go to war initially to target Iran’s nuclear program. In an interview with NBC News last week, Rogers said “I don’t think so,” when asked if Trump made a mistake launching the war.
Separately, Rogers aimed to tie El-Sayed to Islamic fundamentalist groups overseas while questioning his resume and trustworthiness.
“Everything that he said is not accurate, not correct,” Rogers said in response to criticisms from El-Sayed, adding that the Democrat had misled voters about his connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and his own medical background. “This is a pattern that we need to understand for this to trust this candidate.”
Rogers has sought to elevate the Muslim Brotherhood in the final weeks of the race, claiming on several occasions that El-Sayed and his family had connections to the Islamist organization. On Wednesday, he said El-Sayed asked the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt “to defund the police there, too. I mean, it’s unbelievable.”
“He keeps raising this question about this association with an organization I’ve never been a part of, because of my mom, who’s a nurse in Missouri,” El-Sayed responded.
In their last debate, Rogers questioned El-Sayed’s mother, Fatten Elkomy, over her work at a charity that the U.S. government later as a supporter of terrorist groups, leading to its closure. Elkomy was never accused of wrongdoing.
El-Sayed has repeatedly denied any connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, telling NBC News last week, “I have no ties, we have no ties,” when he was asked about the accusations.
“It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s actually really quite beneath you, Mike. It’s really quite beneath you,” El-Sayed said Wednesday. “To call into question my loyalty to the Constitution.”
The exchange culminated in the most heated moment of the debate as Rogers tried to interrupt El-Sayed.
“I’m talking,” El-Sayed said while pointing his finger at Rogers. “I am talking. I’m talking. Excuse me.”
“To bring into question my commitment to the Constitution is really beneath you. I am proud of America. I’m proud to be an American,” El-Sayed continued. “I’m proud of our Constitution that guarantees all of us the right to pray as we choose to pray, and the question that you would ask that, I think, is actually really quite shameful.”
Rogers responded that El-Sayed “could pray any way you want, and I know you want to make this about you being a victim,” adding, “This is about an ideology.”
The debate highlighted a contrast in style between the two candidates that has been playing out for months on the campaign trail, though El-Sayed was far less aggressive than he was during the first contest. El-Sayed looked directly into the camera nearly the entire time he was speaking. Rogers, meanwhile, offered few looks directly into the lens, opting instead to make eye-contact with the moderators.
The moderators kept tight control over the candidates’ time to answer questions and appeared to get through every subject they wanted to address, with the debate concluding a couple of minutes before the full hour had passed. They addressed healthcare, immigration, crime, Social Security and tariffs, among other issues.
On tariffs, Rogers seemed to put additional distance between himself and Trump after earlier this month calling for an end to the trade war with Canada. He said Wednesday that although some tariffs had brought “positive” developments for his state, he said “maybe these Canadian tariffs were not well thought through.”
He framed himself as being someone who could stop Trump from enacting policies that would be harmful to Michigan.
“You might want to send the guy back who can actually get the meeting to get these things worked out,” he said. “If it’s good for Michigan, I’m going to be for it. If it’s bad for Michigan, I’m going to be against it.”
At a later point, El-Sayed questioned the idea of electing a Republican senator in order to best rein in Trump.
“So I’m just trying to figure out how this is going to go,” the Democrat said. “Donald Trump’s going to help him get into the United States Senate, and he’s going to turn around and stand up to Trump? Because you know we’ve got a real history of Republican senators standing up to Donald Trump right now. I don’t see it happening.”
Throughout the debate, El-Sayed made reference to a “MAGA bingo” game for supporters to play at home as they watched the debate, with the spots on the board being filled in by certain references from Rogers. The Republican retorted at one point that “the bingo game ought to be how many times can he put the word Trump in any answer.”
“Any answer that he has given in the last, whatever, 30 minutes?” Rogers said. “It’s ridiculous. This is really about the best way forward for Michigan.”
The two candidates also laid out their visions on artificial intelligence. Rogers said he supports an antitrust exemption for the frontier AI companies that only covers coordination on the safety of their technology, and he suggested he might be in favor of a so-called “kill switch” for programs that become dangerous.
El-Sayed, who recently released an updated AI platform, said he wants a pause on frontier research and said lawmakers must address “the fact that even the CEOs of these corporations think they could take 50% of the white-collar jobs over the next five to 10 years.”
“So we need to make sure that we have AI under democracy, meaning that there’s going to be democratically appointed folks on the boards of these AI corporations,” El-Sayed said. “There also should be AI no-gos. AI should not be able to fire you, shouldn’t be able to fire a weapon, shouldn’t be able to deny you health insurance.”
The candidates also answered a series of rapid-fire questions at the end of the debate. On expanding the Supreme Court, El-Sayed said he was in favor of doing it, “but fairly.” Asked if he supported universal background checks to purchase firearms, Rogers said it “depends.”
After El-Sayed and the moderators said it was a yes or no question, Rogers said he was “in the middle.”