# El-Sayed: stop talking about a Twitch streamer > Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee refuses the culture war bait and pushes prices, Medicare for All, and public control of AI. - Title: El-Sayed: stop talking about a Twitch streamer · CBS News - Summary: Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee refuses the culture war bait and pushes prices, Medicare for All, and public control of AI. El-Sayed's bet is that… - Keywords: michigan, senate 2026, medicare for all, ai policy, abdul el-sayed, news, El-Sayed, stop, talking, Twitch, streamer, CBS News - Source: CBS News — https://cbsnews.com/news/abdul-el-sayed-michigan-democrat-senate-face-the-nation-transcript-09-13-2026 - Published: 2026-09-13T15:13:26+00:00 - Read time: 3 min - Topics: michigan, senate 2026, medicare for all, ai policy, abdul el-sayed, news ## A main character at the RNC Republicans from the president down to Speaker Mike Johnson named Abdul El-Sayed by name at their convention. He is the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan. ## Barbarians inside the gate Johnson's line went past El-Sayed to swing-seat Democrats, accusing them of saying one thing and voting with socialists. > We know who the Mamdanis and the El-Sayeds are... They're the ones who have let the barbarians inside the gate. ## He flips the insult El-Sayed's first move is to hand the word back. His argument: the damage voters feel is coming from the Oval Office, not from him. > the barbarian is in the White House ## What the RNC skipped No gas prices, no grocery prices, no tariffs, no war with Canada, no war in Iran. He reads the omissions as the whole story. ## $5,600 a year That is the number he puts on the trade fight for a typical Michigan household. It anchors his affordability pitch. > this war with Canada that's raising our prices an average $5,600 a year for the average Michigan family ## Name and faith as decoys He frames the attacks on his identity as a deliberate swap: talk about him so nobody adds up what they are paying. > They're going to point to my name. They're going to point to our faith. ## The Hasan Piker question Opponent Mike Rogers calls the streamer El-Sayed's running mate after the two campaigned together. Piker is known for incendiary remarks. ## Senate races have no running mate El-Sayed answers with a joke and a jab, then pivots to where his opponent was that week. > 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. ## Dallas is not in Michigan While Rogers went to a Trump event in Texas, El-Sayed says he was in Detroit. The contrast is the point. > I'm sure he won all of the Michigan votes in Dallas. ## Kiss the ring He ties Rogers' silence on tariffs and gas prices to an inability to break with the president on anything. > forces all of the Republican candidates to come and kiss the ring ## Asked a third time Pressed on Jewish voters' concerns and why he has not called out Piker's rhetoric directly, El-Sayed pushes back on the premise of the question itself. > this is the third time you've asked about a Twitch streamer in California ## Four events, zero mentions He says his week in Michigan produced questions about groceries, doctors, and air and water quality instead. > You know what didn't come up? Twitch streamers in California. ## The $2.2 billion line Culture war fights, in his telling, are cover for a presidency that has enriched itself while families squeeze. > the president has made $2.2 billion. His family has made even more. ## Where the money already goes Asked how he pays for Medicare for All, he says a fifth of the economy already flows to healthcare, mostly into executive pockets. > It's already coming out of our back pockets ## $225 billion in medical debt He uses the national medical debt total to argue the current system is the expensive option, not the safe one. > that is more than the GDP of half the states in this country ## Cradle to grave His pitch: coverage you cannot lose by turning 26, changing jobs, marrying, divorcing, or turning 65. The only losers he names are insurance CEOs. ## Tax billionaires, not W-2s He wants a wealth tax and argues most workers already pay an insurance company first, before any premium buys them real access. > if you're a billionaire in this country, you probably should be worried ## A Republican he could work with El-Sayed names Josh Hawley as curious about pro-union legislation and about buying people out of the healthcare trap, despite broad disagreement. ## Persuasion is the job It is why he does Face the Nation, Jesse Watters on Fox, and Piker's stream. He wants his ideas tested in front of audiences that disagree. > I believe in persuasion. Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way ## Turn AI labs into public trusts His plan puts democratically chosen members in at least half the seats of AI companies, adds a federal safety agency, and pauses frontier research. > you're seeing the pace of technological development outpace the pace of safety ## Key takeaway El-Sayed's bet is that voters punish distraction: keep the fight on prices, healthcare, and who controls AI, and the name-calling stops landing.