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Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped questions from CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday after the host confronted him over past remarks suggesting “a lot of people” in Dearborn, Michigan, were saddened by the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Tapper pointed to audio first highlighted by The Washington Free Beacon from an event held shortly after Khamenei’s death during the U.S.-Iran conflict. In the recording, El-Sayed said there were “a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad.”
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The Michigan Senate candidate on Sunday also described America’s political system as a “disease” moments after professing his love for the country where he was raised. (Sarah Rice/Getty Images)
“I thought that quote was interesting, because the ayatollah has killed tens of thousands of innocent Iranians, not to mention the proxies that Iran has funded that have killed innocent civilians all over the Middle East,” Tapper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Why were you worried about offending people who support the ayatollah?”
El-Sayed, a Muslim progressive vying to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., declined to directly answer the question, instead criticizing Tapper for revisiting his past remarks rather than focusing on the U.S.-Iran conflict and its impact on Michigan.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei died on Feb. 28, 2026. (Iranian Leader Press Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Jake, on a day where we’re mourning the loss of two more service members in a war we never should have fought, I think all of us ought to step back and ask whether or not everybody in Michigan, frankly, everybody in America, shouldn’t be sad about the fact that this president, backed by the Prime Minister of a foreign government, took us to a war we had no business fighting in,” he said.
He went on to argue that Tapper should have instead been asking about the recent deaths of U.S. service members in the Middle East — which Tapper had mentioned at the start of his question — and whether the Iran conflict should have occurred and the economic impact of the war on Michiganders.
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“I’m running for Senate in Michigan, and I think, here in Michigan, all of us are probably sad about the fact that we went to war that we never should have fought,” El-Sayed said.
“I’d rather our money be spent here,” he said.
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Tapper replied, “I was specifically asking you about comments you didn’t want to make because you didn’t want to offend people in Dearborn, which is in Michigan.”
