El-Sayed, Rogers trade blows over Iran war in Michigan Senate debate

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed repeatedly anchored Republican Mike Rogers to the sinking popularity of President Donald Trump during their second debate Oct. 21 for Michigan’s open Senate seat.

The two rivals faced off for the second time in as many weeks, in one of the tightest midterm elections that could determine which party controls the Senate.

While their early exchanges were polite policy differences the two quickly returned to trading personal insults while arguing over the Trump administration’s trade policies and the war in Iran as they had during the first debate Oct. 7.

El-Sayed, the former Detroit health director, would be the first Muslim senator if elected and he alluded to how Rogers, a former congressman, will mention his Egyptian heritage as a way to frighten voters.

“You’re going to hear a form of MAGA bingo because the thing about MAGA is whenever they’re talking they are trying to distract you,” he said.

“They’re going to use buzzwords, and I’m hoping that y’all can play at home,” El-Sayed added. “Every time you hear one of those buzzwords, just remember, when they’re distracting you, they’re also trying to pick your pocket.”

When the debate touched on the war with Iran, El-Sayed tied his opponent to the unpopular war, noting Rogers had supported Trump’s decision to attack.

Rogers responded by claiming El-Sayed had sympathy for the terrorist proxy groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, funded by the foreign adversary.

Similar to their first debate, Rogers suggested electing El-Sayed would pose a national security risk, rhetorically asking if his rival supports the U.S. or overseas terror groups.

“I know you want to make this about you being a victim,” Rogers said, to rebut El-Sayed’s suggestion that Rogers is making unsubstantiated assertions of ties to extremists because El-Sayed is Muslim. “This is about an ideology, an ideology that’s banned in five Muslim countries, an ideology that’s banned in another six different countries, an ideology that is very concerning to law enforcement in the United States because they use it for funding overseas operations.”

Moderators make sure second debate stayed on time

08:46 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

While it wasn’t a brawl in Detroit’s old Cobo Hall or Joe Louis Arena, the moderators noticeably made sure the second Michigan Senate debate did not go off the rails like the first one that resembled a boxing match two weeks ago.

The trio of WXYZ-TV editorial director Chuck Stokes and station anchors Carolyn Clifford and Alicia Smith, acted as referees, letting Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed and his Republican challenger Mike Rogers go toe-to-toe and throw barbs like boxers delivering body shots, but stepping in to break things up and send the candidates to their respective corners when each round was over.

Stokes, Clifford, and Smith unflinchingly cut off the candidates when their time to talk expired, forcing the candidates to play by the rules and keeping the debate under control. They even offered a last word of friendly advice to those watching.

“Your voice will not matter unless you vote,” they said.

New barbs traded, old attack resurfaces

08:22 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel and Todd Spangler

Both Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed introduced and used new barbs throughout the debate.

El-Sayed repeatedly said viewers at home could play what he called “MAGA Bingo,” tying the former representative to Donald Trump. He said that the use of “buzzwords” was Rogers “trying to distract you.”

Rogers, for his part, called El-Sayed’s rhetoric “flowery language” and attempted to rebut El-Sayed’s attempt to tie him to Trump.

“I mean, the bingo game ought to be, how many times can he put the word Trump in any answer, any answer that he has given in the last, whatever, 30 minutes? It’s ridiculous,” Rogers said.

Rogers also responded to El-Sayed’s repeated accusations that he’s in the pocket of donors such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is spending $9 million on Rogers’ behalf.

“Being bought off by the Muslim Brotherhood, having donors to his campaign from Hamas that support Hezbollah, is not a problem?

He did not cite any evidence that El-Sayed has actually received any support from those groups.

“We need to know are you for America or these terrorist groups overseas?” Rogers said. “That is a risk to our national security.”

El-Sayed, who has repeatedly denounced terrorism and political violence, called the attack “really quite shameful.”

Rogers: El-Sayed ‘is too extreme’

08:08 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers said his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed is “too extreme.”

Rogers made his comments when asked about possibly voting for voter ID and other key changes to federal election laws if elected to the Senate. Rogers said it’s “absolutely imperative,” while alleging that El-Sayed “calls for open borders, wants to give illegals driver’s licenses, and then avail them” of all of the services the U.S. has to offer.

“The former chairman of the Democratic Party has come out and said, ‘Can’t vote for El-Sayed. He’s too extreme,'” Rogers said. “The finance chairman of Alyssa Slotkin, our current senator, came out and said, ‘I can’t vote for El-Sayed.’

“If you start thinking about Democrats for Rogers and elected officials around the state saying, ‘too extreme, can’t do it,’ this, to me, is exactly the kind of thing he does,” said Rogers, taking another jab at El-Sayed. “He’s really good on his feet. He’s not so good when it comes to policy.”

El-Sayed condemns SAVE Act for Black voters

07:59 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

The question about supporting the SAVE Act gave Abdul El-Sayed a lane to make an appeal to a group of Democrats who aren’t sold on his candidacy and that is Black voters.

He likened the Trump administration’s plan to overhaul U.S. elections to “voter suppression” and called out Rogers for suggesting that retired or off-duty police officers should work as poll watchers in Detroit.

A Suffolk University poll conducted in September found 72% of Black voters support El-Sayed, with 11% backing Rogers and 8% undecided. 

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, because that sounds like something you’d be hearing from someone in the South like 60 years ago, not a politician running here in Michigan who’s claiming that you know he’s talking to folks in the city of Detroit,” El-Sayed said.

El-Sayed calls AI an ‘existential risk’

07:55 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

Michigan Democratic Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed called artificial intelligence “an existential risk.”

“If you’ve ever seen the movie Fantasia, where all of a sudden, the broomsticks start making other broomsticks? That’s what we’re talking about,” El-Sayed said. “It’s called recursive self-improvement. And we are on the cusp of getting there. We need a pause on frontier research.”

El-Sayed said the federal government doesn’t have the regulatory infrastructure to oversee the development of AI.

“We also need to address the fact that even the CEOs of these corporations think they could take 50% of the white -collar jobs over the next 5 to 10 years,” El-Sayed said. “So we need to make sure that we have AI under democracy, meaning that there’s going to be democratically appointed folks on the boards of these AI corporations.”

Rogers favors ‘kill switch’ for AI

07:41 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

The debate turned its attention to artificial intelligence asking if the Senate should regulate the growing technology that is alarming many Americans, polls show.

Rogers, a former FBI agent, said the rise of AI is particularly concerning given his previous role as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

“I support the national security framework for AI to make sure that there’s some oversight on how these companies are developing AI that they would have the opportunity to control, including maybe even a kill switch to make sure these things don’t go wrong on you,” he said.

The GOP nominee suggested allowing antitrust exemptions for companies to work together on safety, but emphasized that the United States must remain competitive as foreign countries develop AI.

El Sayed: ‘He’s got a war for everything’

07:38 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed said there’s no doubt Iran poses a significant threat to U.S. national security, but that the threat had been contained back during the Obama adminstration when “he used diplomacy, not war, to contain the threat.”

El-Sayed said President Donald Trump in his first term decided to rip up the agreement with Iran that prevented it from acquiring nuclear weapons, and in his second term Trump decided to go to war. He then said Rogers had been promoting the war since before he was in Congress.

“He’s got a war for everything, and he won’t back off the war now. He supports this war,” El-Sayed said about Rogers, adding that the Republican candidate has “cheer-led this war all along because he stands hip-to-hip with Donald Trump.”

Rogers responded by alleging El-Sayed has sympathy for the terrorist proxy groups Iran funds, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

“Are you for America or for these terrorist groups overseas?” He asked rhetorically.

El-Sayed points to AIPAC donation

07:37 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel

During a question on the ongoing U.S. war on Iran, Abdul El-Sayed pointed to reporting from The New York Times indicating that the controversial America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is set to send up to $9 million to a group exclusively supporting his opponent Mike Rogers.

The Times reported, citing two unnamed people with knowledge of the group’s plans, that pro-Rogers super PAC Great Lakes Conservatives Fund received the money after an Oct. 14 deadline that would have required it to be reported before Election Day.

The group announced a $4.6 million media buy in Michigan, according to the Times.

Candidates address Social Security running out: Cap vs cut

07:34 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

Asked about Social Security benefits being projected to be depleted by 2032, both candidates outlined different visions on how to protect the popular entitlement program.

Mike Rogers talking about how his family uses Social Security and that any fixes must be bipartisan. He said the best idea is to go after fraud in the system but that recipients are “also going to get a cut.”

El-Sayed pounced, saying he would “scrap the cap” and taxes on Social Security.

“But I want you to pay attention to a word he just said, which is cut and fraud,” he said. “You know they’re coming for a program, just like he has come for the program when they start talking about fraud because what happens is they run their audits, and then they say there’s so much fraud in it, and then they privatize it, which Mike is on record as saying he wanted to do.”

‘Hip-to-hip’: El-Sayed ties Rogers to Trump

07:24 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

Over and over Abdul El-Sayed uses his answer to connect Mike Rogers to the President Trump, who remains unpopular in Michigan despite winning the state by about 1.5 percentage points in 2024.

A Marist Poll released Oct. 21 shows Trump’s job approval rating among likely voters is 42% approve versus 57% disapprove. The same survey found 44% of Michigan voters most likely to show up Nov. 3 say their vote is mainly a vote against Trump.

“You’re paying more in groceries because of the price of diesel. He has cheerled this war all along because he stands hip-to-hip with Donald Trump,” El-Sayed said.

“And if you don’t believe me, I want you to pay attention on Sunday when Donald Trump comes here at the invitation of Mike Rogers to remind you that, in fact, Donald Trump is on the ballot through Mike Rogers.”

Cost of living touches on Iran war

07:16 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

The first question by moderators touched on rising costs and how each candidate would put more money in Michigan voter’s pockets.

Abdul El-Sayed blamed affordability squarely on President Trump starting the Iran war, which has been faulted for rising fuel prices. The average price of regular unleaded gas in Michigan sits at $4.43 per gallon and diesel is $6.41 per gallon, according to AAA.  

“We need a war powers resolution rather than a senator who is going to stand hip-to-hip with Donald Trump on this war that made no sense when it started and certainly makes no sense now,” El-Sayed said.

Rogers emphasized the need to “explore American energy and get American energy into the market.” But he quickly pivoted to talking about El-Sayed’s relationship to Washington Democrats, saying that his opponent has used “corporate donations” that have paid for millions in negative campaign attacks.

Trump is planning rally in Michigan, too

06:55 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

A day after Obama is scheduled to visit Michigan on behalf of Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, President Trump is coming to the battleground state.

Trump will be in St. Clair County on Oct. 25.

Will El-Sayed respond if asked which is biggest threat to US: Israel or Iran?

06:45 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

Will Abdul El-Sayed have an answer if asked whether Israel or Iran is the bigger threat to the United States during tonight’s second Michigan Senate debate?

The Democratic Senate candidate declined to say when asked repeatedly by the moderator during the first debate on Oct. 8 which nation posed the biggest threat, eventually calling the question “a ridiculous hypothetical.”

His Republican challenger, Mike Rogers, chastised El-Sayed for not specifically denouncing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) when a student recently asked him.

Rogers said, “If you can’t condemn the IRGC, you have no business in the United States Senate.”

El-Sayed said that after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, that country expanded the war and began choking off the world’s energy supply in response.

“This is a situation I don’t think we should be a part of…,” El-Sayed said. “Both of them have proven dangerous in their own way.”

How many yachts does Rogers own?

06:37 PM ET, October 21 2026, Todd Spangler

The question of yacht ownership came up at the last debate and is shorthand for Abdul El-Sayed’s attempts to claim that Mike Rogers made a pretty penny off his government contacts after leaving Congress in 2015.

During their debate in Grand Rapids, El-Sayed said Rogers owned two yachts. Rogers said he doesn’t own any.

The number of yachts Rogers owns is unclear, as neither Michigan nor Florida (where Rogers previously lived and El-Sayed and Democrats would argue he still lives) allows searches for vessel registrations by name.

The Detroit Free Press ran a LexisNexis search, however, and found five vessels listed under Rogers’ personal property, though all were listed as being owned prior to our search and none currently. Even at that, it is unclear if any of them are redundant listings as there aren’t registration numbers associated with each.

At least one (and maybe two) is listed as being 39 feet, which might meet a definition of a yacht, though YachtWorld.com says it “generally considers anything in the 40-foot range (or larger) a yacht.”

How to watch the debate

06:30 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel

The debate will be streamed live by WXYZ starting at 7 p.m. ET. The Detroit Free Press will carry the stream.

Absentee ballot returns continue to outpace 2022

06:20 PM ET, October 21 2026, Clara Hendrickson

According to the Michigan secretary of state’s office, voters have returned 789,476 absentee ballots as of Tuesday, Oct. 20, which marked the two-week point ahead of the midterm election. That’s more than 17,500 ballots ahead of the pace set during the same period in the 2022 election cycle, the last midterm in the battleground state.

Over 2.1 million Michigan voters have requested an absentee ballot with two weeks to go until the Nov. 3 election, a pace that is also ahead of the over 1.8 million voters who had requested them at the same time in 2022.

How did El-Sayed respond to Muslim Brotherhood accusations?

06:15 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has responded to accusations linking him to the Muslim Brotherhood by explicitly disavowing the group and denying any ties to the organization.

At an Oct. 17 campaign event in Caro, Michigan, El-Sayed was asked if he would disavow the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed said he “absolutely” rejected the group, and then criticized the premise that he would have any affinity for the organization, comparing it to the allegations raised about President John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism in the 1960s.

The questioner was later identified as Thomas Teepell, a former aide to Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

“You assume … that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution,” El-Sayed said. “For me, that Constitution is the guiding light.”

The issue is likely to come up during El-Sayed second and final debate with the Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who has alleged that the Democrat supports the organization on the basis of a 2012 tweet from El-Sayed’s sister that referenced their birth mother’s political activity in Egypt in the 1970s. (El-Sayed was born in Michigan and raised there by his father and stepmother.)

Rogers continues to break with Trump

06:00 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

President Trump has endorsed Mike Rogers and has attacked Abdul El-Sayed at every turn, but the GOP nominee has tried mightily to put distance between him and the increasingly unpopular leader of the Republican Party.

The president’s popularity is underwater in Michigan, where 42% of voters approve of his performance and 57% disapprove, according to a Marist Poll released Oct. 21.

Going into the first debate, Rogers criticized the administration’s tariffs, which he initially supported, saying in an Oct. 7 post on X that prices “are too high” and that “Canada is not our enemy.” During that debate the former congressman also said the U.S. war with Iran should end, which he initially supported, should end.

Ahead of the Oct. 21 debate, Rogers made clear that he doesn’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump on Russia either, telling CNN that he disagrees with the decision to pause sanctions against Vladimir Putin amid his war against Ukraine, a U.S. ally.

“I don’t think we can give Putin an inch,” Rogers said. “If the strategy works, hey, good on him, because that means we’re going to pay less for diesel here in the United States.”

Many sanctions on Russia were due to take effect under a bipartisan measure named in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who was a strident Putin opponent. But Trump’s order last Friday effectively undermines that legislation, which has been roundly criticized by some GOP lawmakers.

If elected, El-Sayed would be first Muslim senator

06:00 PM ET, October 21 2026, Terry Collins

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will become the first Muslim U.S. senator if he defeats Republican Senate candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers.

While on the trail, El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, a doctor and married father of two daughters, has pushed back against campaign attacks targeting his name and religion.

“I’m not running to be a Muslim senator, I’m running for U.S. Senate and happen to be Muslim,” he said at a recent town hall.

In a new ad, El-Sayed, 41, discusses his daily prayer ritual and the importance of having faith in the nation’s future.

Born in Rochester Hills and a former leader of the health departments in Detroit and Wayne County, El-Sayed has even countered Islamophobic comments from President Donald Trump. In a Truth Social post earlier this month, Trump called El-Sayed “Mohammed,” a “terrorist sympathizer,” and “a RADICAL Extremist.”

“(Trump) thinks he can use my name and my faith to distract us from the suffering his policies are inflicting on us at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the doctor’s office,” El-Sayed said about the president in a post on X. “He thinks we don’t know any better.”

Obama is coming to campaign for El-Sayed

05:45 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

After a bitter primary against Rep. Haley Stevens, many wondered if Abdul El-Sayed and the Democratic establishment could kiss and make up.

That seems to have happened starting with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who rallied with El-Sayed ahead of the first Senate debate.

But the biggest sign that Democrats are united behind El-Sayed is the attention the race is getting from the party’s most popular figure: former President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to campaign in Michigan Oct. 24.

In a 2012 HuffPost op-ed, El-Sayed had sharp words for the former president, who he said had “perpetuated war, violated our civil liberties (and) deported more people from our shores than any other president before him.”

That is a criticism many progressives still hold about the Obama administration, but lately, the Michigan Senate candidate has focused on how the former president inspired him to run as he seeks to heal reported rifts with Black and Jewish voters in the state.

Is El-Sayed a doctor?

05:30 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

During their first debate on Oct. 8, Rogers questioned El-Sayed’s credentials saying the former Detroit public health official was “not really a doctor.”

The GOP nominee’s accusation stems from the Democratic primary when opponents alleged El-Sayed was inflating his resume as someone practicing medicine.

El-Sayed did earn a medical degree from Columbia University and has a doctorate in public health as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He is also an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, previously serving as executive director of the Detroit Health Department and director of the Wayne County Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services.

But the 41-year-old Democratic contender is not a practicing physician.

In an Oct. 20 letter the Committee to Protect Health Care, a nonprofit group of medical professionals, pushed back against Rogers’ attacks arguing that El-Sayed chose a career path many in the field make.

“He chose public health; not because it was the easier path, but because it multiplies what a doctor can do, extending care from one patient at a time to entire cities and states,” said the letter, which was signed by roughly 700 physicians in Michigan.

Who is Michigan’s other senator?

05:15 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel

Michigan’s other senator is Elissa Slotkin.

The Democrat narrowly defeated Rogers in 2024, beating him by around 19,000 votes.

Slotkin will become the state’s senior senator upon the retirement of Sen. Gary Peters. The seat will next be on the ballot in 2030.

How has Michigan voted in recent elections?

05:00 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel

Michigan has been a key swing state in recent presidential elections. Donald Trump won Michigan in 2024 by 1.4 percentage points while Joe Biden won the state by 2.2 points in 2020.

However, in the 2022 midterms, voters gave Democrats a trifecta in state government, reelecting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and flipping the state House and Senate to Democratic control.

Who is Michigan’s retiring senator?

04:45 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers are running to replace current Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, a moderate Democrat, who announced in 2025 that he would be retiring from the Senate at the end of his term.

What do the polls show?

04:30 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel

Polling averages show that Abdul El-Sayed has a lead over Mike Rogers.

As of Oct. 21, the Real Clear Politics polling average puts El-Sayed ahead by 2 percentage points while the Silver Bulletin average has the Democrat up by 2.6 points.

The most recent poll in the race, released by Rasmussen on Oct. 16, has El-Sayed up by 2 points among likely voters.

Who is Mike Rogers?

04:20 PM ET, October 21 2026, Phillip M. Bailey

Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and member of Congress, is seeking to become the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in Michigan in more than three decades.

The 63-year-old was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a state Senate seat before being elected to Congress in 2000. He represented Michigan’s 8th Congressional District for seven terms, climbing the leadership ladder in Washington, where he eventually became chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rogers had been living in Florida until he moved back to Michigan to run for the Senate two years ago and came within less than half a percentage point against Democrat Elissa Slotkin, who won the seat by around 19,000 votes out of nearly 5.6 million ballots cast.

Although President Trump has endorsed Rogers, the candidate has lately sought to put distance between his campaign and the White House, including criticizing Trump’s tariffs and trade wars that he initially supported.

“Prices are too high and Canada is not our enemy,” Rogers said in an Oct. 7 post on X. “We need to end the tariff war — now.”

Who is Abdul El-Sayed?

04:10 PM ET, October 21 2026, James Powel and Michael Loria

Abdul El-Sayed is a former public health official who won a contentious primary against Rep. Hayley Stevens to secure the Democratic nomination for Senate.

Born on Halloween in 1984, he grew up in suburban Detroit. His father was an engineer from Egypt and his mother worked as a nurse practitioner, according to the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. El-Sayed’s parents divorced and he grew up mainly with his father and stepmother, a professor from a Protestant household in Central Michigan.

El-Sayed has a medical degree from Columbia University and a doctorate in public health as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He served as Detroit’s public health director and as an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University.

During the height of the COVID pandemic, he appeared frequently as an expert in media outlets.

El-Sayed made his first foray into statewide politics in 2018 when he ran for governor of Michigan, losing the Democratic primary to now Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: El-Sayed, Rogers trade blows over Iran war in Michigan Senate debate