Abdul El-Sayed wants Michigan's Jewish voters to forget everything they know about him. For years, he's faced accusations of antisemitism over his rhetoric on Israel, and his policy positions have been extreme enough that even fellow Democrats have kept their distance from him. But now that he needs Jewish votes to win the general election, he's suddenly softening his tone and hoping nobody checks the record.
Spoiler alert: somebody checked the record, and it was a fellow leftist.
That critique belongs to Van Jones. The former Obama administration Green Jobs czar and current CNN commentator unloaded on El-Sayed during a recent appearance on the Ask Haviv Anything podcast, warning Michigan voters that El-Sayed's foreign policy views are not just dangerous, but insane.
And yes, he used both of those words.
“And just from a purely, from a foreign policy perspective, these people are incredibly dangerous,” Jones said on the podcast. “Abdul, who — you know, I work with at CNN, I know Abdul — his positions on Israel in foreign policy are insane.”
He added, “They're not reasonable reactions to anything."
Jones was careful to separate El-Sayed's views from mainstream Democrat criticism of Israel.
“Look, some Democrats are going to say that we should condition military aid that, you know, Israel's gone too far in Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon. We're going to put some conditions on you. I think that's a defensible position if you're a Democrat.”
But, he pointed out, “That's not Abdul’s position.”
He said he even understood the instinct behind cutting off aid entirely, even while disagreeing with it.
“We're building a strong defense sector here, and Israel is projecting a lot of Western interests in that region. But I can get why you would say, ‘No more aid, they got to pay their own way.’ That's not Abdul's position.”
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El-Sayed wants to end military aid to Israel entirely, defensive weapons included. "Abdul's position is a total and complete arms embargo against the state of Israel, including defensive weapons," Jones said. "That's an insane position."
Jones spelled out what that means in practice. "That says if Israel wants to pay for interceptors to stop a rocket coming from Iran … we should deny them the right to buy the interceptors to knock down rockets going at Israeli children, women, men, babies," he pointed out.
Political commentator Van Jones appears to suggest that Abdul El-Sayed opposing weapons sales to Israel is racist against Barack Obama. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/NBuQepFQk7
— gato fumante (@KweenInYellow) September 1, 2026
The only people falling for El-Sayed’s attempt to distance himself from his antisemitism and radical positions are those desperate to absolve themselves for supporting someone so dangerous in the first place. His campaign may be trying to sand down the rough edges now that a general election is at stake, but who does he think he’s fooling? Even people on the left aren’t deceived.
Let’s face it, El-Sayed is not an unknown quantity. He has made his positions clear for years, and there is no excuse for pretending those views have suddenly changed, or for supporting a candidate who holds them.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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