Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday, a major shakeup in the final stages of a top battleground race that could determine which party controls the Senate.

“Hey, Michigan, as you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said in a video.

“And he’s right, and that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” she said. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.”

The congresswoman’s announcement marks a whirlwind turnabout from just days ago, when she said she would support her party’s ticket and planned to attend a campaign event on Sunday to support Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

But leading up to the rally, Stevens and El-Sayed released dueling critical public statements, prompting concerns from Democrats that the spat was a distraction from what is widely seen as one of the most competitive Senate races.

Stevens had said that she expected El-Sayed to condemn an ad from an outside group that she said was antisemitic. El-Sayed responded, accusing Stevens of being “intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”

NBC News reported Saturday that El-Sayed’s campaign had asked Stevens to no longer attend campaign events following the dueling statements.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [S] 38 points 4 hours ago (7 children)

Stevens had said that she expected El-Sayed to condemn an ad from an outside group that she said was antisemitic.

This is referring to an ad produced by Cenk Uygur. Cenk owns a pac called Rebellion PAC. Rebellion PAC is not affiliated with Abdul El Seyed or Hasan Piker (Cenk's Nephew). It would be illegal Abdul El Sayed to be affiliated with Rebellion PAC because of pac regulation laws.

Cenk was paying for the ad to be played on Michigan television. The ad shows a couple grocery shopping and the woman tells the man to put back groceries because the US government is spending their money on Israel. The ad then says that Mike Rogers wants to give your money to Israel. Haley Stevens said the ad is anti-Semitic.

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] [S] 28 points 3 hours ago (6 children)

    This is the video of the ad. The wife says "You're gonna have to put the eggs back because we have to set the $7 aside for killing Palestinians." "Apparently it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza." The husband says "Why the f*** do we have to pay for all of this?"

    https://nitter.click/cenkuygur/status/2113799606299758984

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

    Fucking Cenk, bro makes a fire ad and then just decides to sprinkle a lil transphobia on at the end. Like wtf dude come on

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] [S] 20 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

    Yeah the "they/them" line is a fumble but while that line is played, it shows photos of Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir. So the ad is referring to Israel politicians, not trans people. The ad should have just said "them" and not "they/them".

    The "they/them" line is a satire of a Trump campaign ad. Maybe Cenk was thinking "blame israel, not trans people". I don't know. The ad should have just said "them".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_is_for_they/them

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 1 hour ago

    Yeah, the they/them line felt like a joke for a certain type of "politics fan" that would just slightly confuse the normies these ads are supposed to reach. Like it's intended for the meta-discourse, not for voters.

    But whatever, the ad was fine imo, and calling it "anti-semitic" is massively out of touch. Go ahead and get mad. The more Israel stays the dominant topic the better for AES anyway.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 2 hours ago*

    That isn't transphobia. He totally would do that and he's a piece of shit, but it's a flat misreading of the ad to call it transphobic. If I had to assign a position to it, I'd say it's more plausible to call it defensive of trans people as far as repurposing the rhetoric of an actually transphobic ad based on othering trans people and essentially saying "there is a real 'other' that some politicians have a wrongful fealty to, but it's Israel [not some cabal of trans people]".

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 14 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    I don't understand how this can be construed as antisemitic? This whole thing is so dumb. I don't give AF about Zionists' religion. I care that my money is letting them bomb and murder babies

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 2 hours ago

    The immediate line was to call the pointed use of "them" a trope (which is a malicious misreading), but Stevens takes it much farther and says that the premise of connecting funding Israel to the rising cost of living is antisemitic.

  • source
  • parent