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Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing a firestorm over a despicable line of text found on his campaign website that backed a trucker who targeted a synagogue — and his campaign did nothing to hold any potential digital saboteur accountable, The Post has learned.
The text appeared in a transcript of El-Sayed’s response to the March attack at Temple Israel and its preschool in West Bloomfield, Mich., where a truck driver rammed the synagogue complex.
After the Democrat said violence could never be justified, the transcript included a shocking additional line: “it was and he should have done it.”
The sick statement appeared in the middle of the same statement where El-Sayed was criticized for saying “hurt people hurt people” in a videotaped delivery, rather than issuing a simple condemnation. That comment drew howls of protest, and El-Sayed apologized in August for how he framed his comments.
Former Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Lon Johnson discovered the additional text while reviewing the transcript of El-Sayed’s speech. Johnson said he alerted the campaign this spring and that the text was promptly removed.
But he’s gotten no answers on how it may have gotten there or who put it there in the first place. He flagged the issue Monday, posting about it on X, but said he still couldn’t get an update.
“Clearly there’s been an error. Who’s error that was – I’m asking,” Johnson told The Post.
Johnson said his experience working on political campaigns led him to believe access to internal campaign materials is tightly controlled. He added that he did not believe El-Sayed himself had written the line.
“Now if it was a transcript error, say that. Was it an individual who purposely edited that statement? Then was there ever an attempt to find who they were and to fire them? These are simple questions,” he said.
The Post has reached out to El-Sayed’s camp about how the text got into the speech and whether any investigation or disciplinary action occurred but did not receive a response.
Johnson also coauthored an op-ed in the Detroit News where he said El-Sayed missed his chance to unite Democrats including those who backed rival Rep. Haley Stevens in the primary this summer.
The piece also cited his refusal to say Iran was a greater threat than Israel and his earlier refusal at a September University of Michigan event to condemn Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. El-Sayed instead condemned US military interventions abroad.
“That to me was cause for a real concern and for many others,” he said of El-Sayed’s non-answer on Israel and Iran.
During his contentious Oct. 9 debate with former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), El-Sayed called it a “ridiculous hypothetical” when he got asked whether Israel or Iran was a greater threat to the US
Johnson and coauthor David Kramer urged voters to “leave it blank” rather than vote for El-Sayed or the Republican.
“El-Sayed had a responsibility to unite Democrats. Instead, he has dismissed substantive concerns as distractions and failed to provide the clarity many Democrats sought,” they wrote.