Michigan’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate on Hasan Piker, finding common ground with the GOP and more

(CBS, KYMA) - Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, spoke with Weijia Jiang on Face the Nation Sunday about Hasan Piker.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who is El-Sayed's opponent, called Piker, who is known for making incendiary remarks, El-Sayed's running mate, prompting Jiang to ask the Democratic candidate what his current relationship is to Piker, to which he said:

"I don't know if Mike Rogers has a running mate, but when you run for U.S. Senate, you don't actually have one. I'm actually running to represent the people in my state, which is why while he was in Dallas saying that I was in Detroit. Dallas is not in Michigan. I'm sure he won all of the Michigan votes in Dallas. Now the only reason he went to Dallas is because he cannot break with the president, and when the president tells him to do something to jump, he's going to say how high. It's the same reason he won't comment on the tariffs. It's the same reason he won't talk about gas prices being driven up by this war in Iran. So, they want to make this about a streamer in California. I want to make this about affordability in Michigan, and they can't talk about it because it's their policies that are driving them up. So yes, they can continue to distract. That's fine. Let's see how well that goes for them. But at the end of the day, it's very hard to ignore a president, especially one who wants to host himself at Trump-a-Palooza and forces all of the Republican candidates to come and kiss the ring. So good luck with that."

Jiang followed up by saying there are some Jewish voters in Michigan who are concerned about El-Sayed's relationship with Piker, and while he has condemned anti-Semitism, El-Sayed did not call out Piker's rhetoric directly.

When asked why not, El-Sayed said:

"With all due respect, this is the third time [I have been] asked about a Twitch streamer in California. I've done four events in Michigan this week. You know what didn't come up? Twitch streamers in California. You know what did come up? Grocery prices, the fact that people can't see a doctor, the worry that they have about the quality of air and water. I'm not interested in having a conversation about streamers in California because they are not raising the prices of gas and groceries. I'm more interested in having conversation about tariff policies and trade wars we shouldn't be fighting, about hot wars with Iran, about AI, which I know we were supposed to talk about right now. So let's actually talk about the issues that are affecting people instead of getting distracted by whatever the president says we should be talking about. Their whole game is to make us fight culture wars, so that we don't pay attention to the fact that the president has made $2.2 billion. His family has made even more. How about your family in Michigan? How about your ability to afford the basic things? How about the ability to believe that you could see a doctor without having to potentially fall into medical debt? Those are the conversations that people are having. Those are the conversations I'm interested in having. So yeah, I'm not all that interested in having a conversation about a Twitch streamer, forgive me, when people can't afford their gas and their groceries."

During the interview, Jiang asked El-Sayed who does he think he can work with in the GOP, should he be elected, and the candidate said:

"I've heard from a lot of Republicans who say, 'Yeah, well, you know, this current situation under Donald Trump is not really working for anybody.' You look at like, somebody like Josh Hawley. Now he and I are not going to agree on everything, but he seems curious about what unions could mean if we were fighting for pro-union legislation. He seems curious about what it could look like to buy a lot of folks out of the current predicament when it comes to healthcare, by guaranteeing healthcare through Medicare For All, so I'm looking forward to building that conversation. But more broadly, it's not just about the conversation that any one senator has with the 99 other senators. It's about the conversation that we all have with the 350 million people who elect all of us. And I believe in persuasion. Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way, but it's the reason that I come on your show. It's the reason I went and talked to Jesse Watters on Fox. It's a reason that I spoke to Hasan Piker to talk to the three million people who listen to him, because I think that when you believe in your ideas and you're willing to defend them, that there are a lot of people who might believe in them too. And so, I'm looking forward to having the conversation with folks across my state and, frankly, across the country about what we could have if we were willing to get past the corporate chokehold in our politics, to get money out of politics, to put money in your pocket, and pass Medicare For All."

Later in the interview, Jiang asked El-Sayed about his proposal to turn artificial intelligence (AI) companies into public trust companies, leading her to ask how it's going to address the current debate over AI pacing and safety, and El-Sayed said:

"You just spoke to the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, who's been thinking a lot about this problem...In fact, he wonders why it is that we leave it to big corporations to pursue what is going to be the biggest technological transition of our time, when in fact, we know that there's a lot of real risks here. And because of this race that either is made up or- or inflated, you're seeing the pace of technological development outpace the pace of safety. If you had public oversight over this, in the form of democratically elected or appointed members of at least 50% of all of these public trust corporations, you would imagine that they'd act far more focused on what is in the public good rather than what is for the private benefit of a few billionaires. And that's what we're proposing. This would allow the best of technological innovation to continue forward while making sure that there are guardrails. But this isn't the only part of our plan. We also think that we need a public agency focused directly on the safety of AI, and there need to be AI no-go's. AI shouldn't be able to deny you healthcare. It shouldn't be able to deny you a job. It shouldn't be able to fire you. It shouldn't be able to fire a weapon. There are things that we should not be using AI to do, and we collectively have to decide that we need public oversight so that all of this technology is not being created for the interests of a few against the well-being of a many. And, you know, I don't have to bring this up. I know you already spoke about this, but that Hugging Face situation where you had a few AIs hop their sandbox and then hack a website that should send a shutter down all of our spines. We need to act, and we need to act now. So, we've also been calling for a pause on any of this frontier AI research until we can assure that this is being done safely."

To watch more of Jiang's interview with El-Sayed, click here.