Abdul El-Sayed is full of hot air, a former top aid says.
The Michigan Senate Dem nominee loves ripping farts in public and is a “manufactured man” who has the maturity of a high school locker room, according Jordan Domigue, who worked on two of El-Sayed’s campaigns as his bodyguard and personal assistant.
“Everything I had previously ignored or excused made it obvious to who he was and that I was on the wrong side,” Domingue wrote in a Sept. 17 post on X.
Domingue argued that El-Sayed’s behavior is “best explained by the guy who never grew past the high school locker room.”
“His masculinity is a performance, and he has the maturity to match it,” Domingue said.
And one of Abdul El-Toot’s favorite tricks, the former aide said, is openly passing gas in front of staffers.
“He would openly do so without warning or embarrassment as his form of stand-up comedy,” Domingue wrote.
“To this day for him, the act of farting is easily one of the funniest things a person can do.”
Domingue said that during El-Sayed’s gubernatorial and Senate campaigns, he came to view the candidate as a “30-year-old leapfrogging into a job he was inexperienced for and only got through connections.”
“Now I’m far from blameless, and will reflect for years how I let myself be captured by loyalty and personality,” Domingue said.
“When he acted like an entitled mobster to elected officials in 2017-2018, I excused it as justified outsider earning their place. When he would say one thing to one group and another thing to a different group hours later, I considered it just the norm or “strategic ambiguity” as he calls it.”
Domingue has also accused El-Sayed of hypocrisy on antisemitism and Jewish safety.
In a Sept. 9 post, Domingue criticized El-Sayed’s response to a researcher who announced her resignation from Anthropic, comparing it to him leaving the campaign.
In the tweet, Domingue accused El-Sayed of not valuing the safety of Jewish Americans.
“How we change the incentives leading antisemitism in the Democratic Party and protect Jewish Americans against these existential risks are the defining political questions of our time,” he said.
El-Sayed has made Israel and the Gaza war a central issue of his political identity, but Domingue is now urging the media to look past what he described as the candidate’s “tough guy act” and his reluctance to discuss the Middle East in the final stretch before the midterms.
Domingue also took aim at El-Sayed’s public image, particularly campaign videos that have drawn criticism online.
After El-Sayed posted a campaign video dancing to a Taylor Swift song last month, some social-media users questioned his masculinity. Domingue rejected speculation about El-Sayed’s sexuality, saying he believes claims that the candidate might be gay are “inaccurate.”
Domingue also accused El-Sayed of misrepresenting his professional background.
“On the trail he likes to say he has ‘10 years of public service experience,’” Domingue said. “I knew that was a lie while working for him, but I was also surprised he would say it.”
“Not because it was a lie, but because 10 years of public service work experience at 41 was embarrassing to me,” he added.
The former aide has also questioned El-Sayed’s relationship with law enforcement.
In July, El-Sayed was endorsed by the Wayne County Deputy Sheriff’s Association. Domingue called the endorsement ironic, citing what he described as El-Sayed’s history of disrespect toward law enforcement.
After the endorsement, El-Sayed posted a campaign video in which he said he is not an “honest man.”
For Domingue, that was further evidence of what he now calls a carefully constructed political persona.
“A manufactured man,” he said of his former boss.
El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.
