Rogers and allies go scorched earth to stop El-Sayed

By Kyle Melinn 

Michigan’s U.S. Senate race is careening into scorched-earth territory as Republican Mike Rogers and his supporters attempt to link Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and his family to terrorist organizations. 

One of the claims is El-Sayed’s campaign is receiving financial support from alleged cheerleaders for Hezbollah and Hamas. However, one of those alleged cheerleaders said Rogers himself met with him and 15 or so other Arab American leaders at a Dearborn restaurant in 2024 as he tried to defeat Elissa Slotkin. 

I’ll get back to that later. First, some background. 

Republicans see the writing on the wall. They also see – surprisingly – that prospects of turning Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat red for the first time since the 1994 election are better than other swing states like North Carolina and Georgia. 

In fact, Rogers’s chances are in the same ballpark as the Republican nominees in Texas and Ohio, based on his polling position aggregated by RealClearPolitics. 

Even though President Donald Trump’s numbers are in the toilet everywhere, recent polls put Rogers 1 to 3 percentage points behind. 

Nearly $300 million in traditional and streaming TV has been spent and reserved to win this seat, making it the nation’s third-most expensive race this cycle (after Texas and Ohio), according to AdImpact. 

National media is showing up everywhere in Michigan. Their audiences are seeing the next bright, shiny object, which raises the inevitable question …

“Every national reporter in the state over the last 10 days asked me if he’s running for president and our opinions aligned: When you’re this hot and have nothing to lose electorally, the chances are high that he would hit the presidential circuit,” John Sellek of Harbor Strategic told me this week.  

For his part, El-Sayed told Meet the Press this weekend he has “no intention of ever running for president.” Of course, he doesn’t until he does. 

Stopping El-Sayed has meant going straight at his Muslim heritage, as they hope to stir skepticism. Polling from the Brookings Institution has shown those old enough to vividly remember 9/11 are particularly receptive to this messaging. 

Rogers said during last Thursday’s debate that El-Sayed’s mother, Fatten Elkomy, worked for an organization that “funneled money to al Qaeda.” 

The reference is to Elkomy’s work with the Islamic American Relief Agency from 1999 to 2004, according to The Jerusalem Post. It’s a tenure that ended shortly before the U.S. Treasury Department, later in 2004, shut down the group for steering money that ended up supporting 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. 

Elkomy was never prosecuted. 

Over the weekend, Rogers shared a tweet from a sports commentator about how El-Sayed “really is a terrorist.” Then, the Senate Leadership Fund released an ad linking some of El-Sayed’s contributors to Hamas. 

The link being made is between five staff members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group that advocates for U.S. Muslims, who gave money to El-Sayed.  

CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator by federal prosecutors in a case in which millions of dollars were sent to Hamas, although CAIR was never charged and CAIR leadership has called any link between them and the Brotherhood “pure McCarthyism,” according to Bridge Michigan. 

The National Republican Senatorial Committee shared an Oct. 5 article from the Federalist that flagged El-Sayed for being supported by Osama Siblani “a pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas activist.” 

Yet, Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News, said Rogers asked Siblani and about 15 to 20 other Arab American leaders for their support in April 2024 when Rogers ran for the Senate against Elissa Slotkin.  

After the Saturday brunch was over, Siblani and another person in the room said Rogers asked that the meeting be kept quiet so as not to offend other Republicans. 

The scorched earth strategy continued Tuesday when Rogers told Fox News that El-Sayed allegedly “wrote an op-ed in Arabic a few years back supporting the Muslim Brotherhood,” a “direct descendant” of which is Hamas. 

Bridge Michigan looked into this claim and found no evidence of it. I asked for evidence of it, as well.  

I’ve also asked why Rogers was bold enough to ask for Siblani’s support in 2024, but then ask that they not mention the meeting to the press. 

Then, two years later, after they turned him down, why he’s been complicit in letting the NRSC tie them to terrorist groups. 

We’ll see if either one comes.