‘Bothers Me A Lot’: Michigan’s Democrat Top Cop Calls Out Abdul El-Sayed Over Remark

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‘Bothers Me A Lot’: Michigan’s Democrat Top Cop Calls Out Abdul El-Sayed Over Remark

Michigan’s top law enforcement officer accused her own party’s Senate nominee of rationalizing a terrorist attack on a synagogue.

Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, faulted Abdul El-Sayed for how he responded to the March assault on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, according to an interview released Wednesday on “The David Frum Show.”

“And that’s the kind of mentality that bothers me a lot,” Nessel said on the podcast.

Nessel particularly objected to El-Sayed’s use of the phrase “hurt people hurt people,” which also according surfaced at an April press conference in Michigan, where El-Sayed appeared beside left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, according to Jewish Insider. (RELATED: ‘That’s Not My Grandpa’s Democratic Party’: JD Vance Blasts Dem Senate Candidate El-Sayed)

“I also think it’s just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here, and if we stand against violence, we’ve got to stand against violence, all violence,” El-Sayed said, according to the outlet.

Many in the Jewish community saw the comment as an attempt to offer excuses for a man who tried to kill more than 100 preschoolers, Nessel told Frum.

El-Sayed has met privately with Jewish officeholders since winning the primary, she noted, but has not retracted the statement.

The attorney general drew a contrast with her own conduct after the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand. After that mass shooting, which killed 51 people, Nessel visited a Dearborn mosque and condemned the killings without examining the gunman’s grievances, she told Frum.

Ayman Mohamed Ghazali drove into the Michigan synagogue on March 12 and shot himself in his burning car after a brief gunfight with security. The FBI tied the assault to Hezbollah and determined the gunman singled out the Jewish community, the outlet reported. Ghazali’s brother commanded a Hezbollah unit and died in an Israeli strike in Lebanon, according to the same report. None of the 103 children inside were injured.

El-Sayed defended the phrasing after his primary win. “I condemn the attack. It was a vile, antisemitic attack,” he told CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe on Aug. 5.

Nessel told Frum she will never vote for Republican Mike Rogers, though Jewish Michigan Democrats are now backing him, she said.