Democrats
'There Are a Lot of People in Dearborn Who Are Sad': Democratic Senate Hopeful Abdul El-Sayed Said He Needed To Stay Silent on Khamenei Killing Because Many of Michigan’s Muslim Voters ‘Are Sad’
El-Sayed made the comments during a campaign conference call a day after an Israeli strike killed the late Iranian supreme leader, audio obtained by the Free Beacon shows
Alana Goodman
March 30, 2026
Michigan's left-wing Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, told staffers he wanted to avoid making a public statement about the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—or taking any public position on it at all—because "there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad" about his death, according to audio from a private campaign strategy call obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
If reporters pressed him to take a position, he said, he would change the subject to Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. "I'm just gonna go straight to pedophilia, frankly," El-Sayed said. "I'll just be like, 'Pedophile president decides that he doesn't like the front page news, so he decides to take us into another war.'"
His remarks came during a conference call with his communications team on March 1, during which the candidate and his communications team discussed his messaging on Operation Epic Fury. The previous day, Feb. 28, an Israeli airstrike killed the Iranian dictator, who, as president of Iran and then as the country's supreme leader starting in 1989, oversaw the murder and torture of political opponents inside Iran and deadly terrorist attacks against the country's enemies, including hundreds of Americans.
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/there-are-a-lot-of-people-in-dearborn-who-are-sad-democratic-senate-hopeful-abdul-el-sayed-said-he-needed-to-stay-silent-on-khamenei-killing-because-many-of-michigans-muslim-voters/
