MS NOW host Joe Scarborough grilled Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Friday over whether his repeated attempts to dismiss his relationship with left-winger Hasan Piker as “a California streamer” were “disingenuous.”
During an appearance on Morning Joe, Scarborough raised Piker’s latest controversy. The streaming personality told Axios that, “pound-for-pound,” the United States was worse than al-Qaeda “as far as the number of deaths.” He added, “We have caused tremendous terror all around the world.”
Scarborough noted that El-Sayed had criticized those remarks and sought to minimize his past relationship with Piker.
“You have said, though, ‘Oh, he’s just a California streamer.’ He was a California streamer who’s actively engaged in your primary campaign,” Scarborough said. “Don’t you think it’s disingenuous just to call him like a California streamer when you know the guy, you campaign with the guy, he was a big part of your campaign?”
El-Sayed pushed back. “He wasn’t a big part of my campaign. We had him to Michigan once,” he said, arguing that candidates routinely speak with people across the political spectrum to reach their audiences.
He said he came on the show to speak to Scarborough’s viewers. “The problem in our democracy too often is we say who we cannot talk to, rather than asking, how do we bring these folks back into an electoral fold?” El-Sayed said, adding that Piker had said some things he agrees with. Scarborough cut in, saying he understood.
Scarborough then pointed to Ronald Reagan, who he said remarked in ’66, when he had a Bircher problem, that if they wanted to vote for him, that was great, but they were voting for him because of what he believed, not because he believed what they said.
Still, Scarborough pressed again. “I’m just saying, if you just call him a California streamer, that seems to minimize what he did in the primary. That’s the only thing I’m asking you. Do you think that minimizes that?” he asked.
“Here’s my issue at the end of the day, right? He is a streamer in California,” El-Sayed answered. He then pivoted to kitchen-table issues and his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. El-Sayed said Rogers “literally goes to Dallas instead of showing up to a debate in Detroit to campaign with Donald Trump.” He said Trump “not only says crazy stuff every day, but does crazy stuff that costs you money,” citing the tariff war and the war in Iran.
“And so it’s frustrating to me that I never hear about Hasan Piker on the doors. I never hear about him outside of conversations that are had like this,” the candidate said.
Scarborough ultimately said he agreed with El-Sayed that Republicans were elevating the controversy while defending President Donald Trump’s own rhetoric.
“I don’t mean to interrupt you, but you’ve answered the question,” Scarborough said. He added that “it is total bullsh*t for the Republican Party to be so shocked” by El-Sayed having campaigned with Piker, given that Republicans routinely defend Trump’s comments.
Scarborough also backed El-Sayed’s argument that voters he met while campaigning were more likely to be concerned with “costs,” “groceries,” “gas” and “rent” than with the subjects dominating cable news.
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