Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has been running from his own campaign surrogate for weeks.

The excuses keep changing. The story keeps falling apart.

And now the man trying to distance himself from a streamer who called America worse than al-Qaeda got called out for it — on Morning Joe of all places.

What Piker Actually Said — and What El-Sayed Claimed He Didn’t Know

Hasan Piker sat down with Axios for an episode of The Axios Show and was asked directly whether America was worse than al-Qaeda — the Islamic terrorist network responsible for murdering nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.

Piker’s answer was not complicated. “Pound-for-pound as far as the number of deaths, yes,” he told Axios. “We have caused tremendous terror all around the world.”

That is the man Abdul El-Sayed brought to Michigan during his primary campaign. That is the man El-Sayed has since tried to describe as just “a streamer in California.”

And that is the man Joe Scarborough of MS NOW’s Morning Joe forced El-Sayed to answer for during a recent appearance on the program.

Scarborough did not let it slide. “You have said, though, ‘Oh, he’s just a California streamer,'” Scarborough pressed. “He was a California streamer who’s actively engaged in your primary campaign.”

“Don’t you think it’s disingenuous just to call him like a California streamer when you know the guy, you campaign with the guy, he was a big part of your campaign?” Scarborough asked.

El-Sayed’s response was to deny the obvious. “He wasn’t a big part of my campaign,” El-Sayed said. “We had him to Michigan once.”

Scarborough kept going. “I’m just saying, if you just call him a ‘California streamer,’ that seems to minimize what he did in the primary,” he said. “That’s the only thing I’m asking you. Do you think that minimizes that?”

El-Sayed fell back on the only move he knows: pivot to the kitchen table. “Here’s my issue at the end of the day, right? He is a streamer in California,” El-Sayed replied, before swinging to Republican opponent Mike Rogers, saying Rogers “literally goes to Dallas instead of showing up to a debate in Detroit to campaign with Donald Trump, who not only says crazy stuff every day, but does crazy stuff that costs you money — the tariff war, the war in Iran.”

He also added: “And so it’s frustrating to me that I never hear about Hasan Piker on the doors.”

El-Sayed Built His Primary on Piker’s Audience — Now He Wants to Forget It

There is a word for what El-Sayed is doing, and Scarborough used it to his face: disingenuous.

El-Sayed did not stumble into a casual acquaintance with Piker. Piker campaigned in Michigan for El-Sayed. They shared a stage. El-Sayed’s own campaign brought Piker into the state. And when pressed on why he associated with a man whose most infamous views include calling America a terrorist state, El-Sayed has offered a remarkably consistent answer: Piker has 3 million followers, and El-Sayed wanted to talk to them.

“The reason I talk to Hasan isn’t because of Hasan,” El-Sayed told Fox 2 Detroit, “it’s because of the 3 million people who pay attention to what he has to say.”

That is actually an honest answer. El-Sayed knew exactly who Piker was. He welcomed that audience. He made a calculated decision that Piker’s reach was worth whatever ideological baggage Piker carried. Now that Piker told Axios that America is worse than al-Qaeda “pound for pound,” El-Sayed would like everyone to believe the man was essentially a stranger passing through town.

His campaign told Axios: “I do not agree with this statement, nor do I give much weight to the statements made by a social media streamer.”

But El-Sayed gave Piker enough weight to fly him to Michigan and put him on a stage during a primary campaign. Those two things cannot both be true at the same time.

During that same Morning Joe appearance, El-Sayed also acknowledged: “There are some things [Hasan Piker] has said that I agree with.” He did not elaborate on which things those were.

The Establishment That Tried to Stop El-Sayed Now Has to Live With Him

El-Sayed won the Michigan Democrat Senate primary in August, defeating US Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI), who had been recruited into the race by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and backed by the party establishment, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

El-Sayed ran on Medicare for All and sharp opposition to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. He secured endorsements from Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He beat a candidate who outspent him by a ratio of roughly nine to one, according to reporting on the race.

Schumer backed the wrong horse. After El-Sayed won, Democratic leadership moved to publicly embrace the outcome — which is more than can be said for how the Republican establishment has handled comparable primary upsets where MAGA-aligned candidates defeated incumbents backed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. When a Trump-backed candidate beats the establishment pick, the institutional machinery often stalls. When El-Sayed beat Schumer’s pick, the party got in line. That asymmetry is worth watching as November approaches.

But the Piker problem is El-Sayed’s alone to carry. His Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, has been tying Piker to El-Sayed directly and without apology. In his speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Rogers said: “Abdul El-Sayed has chosen Hasan as his running mate. Together, they attack America, excuse extremism, and treat our country like the villain.”

El-Sayed skipped the debate in Detroit where Rogers was absent, but he has not found a convincing answer to the Piker question at any of them.

The Michigan Senate seat opened when Democratic Senator Gary Peters announced he would not seek reelection. Democrats consider it a critical seat. El-Sayed now has to win a state Donald Trump carried in 2024 while explaining why the man he brought to Michigan thinks America commits more terrorism than al-Qaeda.

Scarborough gave him a chance to do that on national television. El-Sayed called Piker a California streamer and changed the subject.

That answer is not going to hold for another six weeks. And the fact that MS NOW’s own Joe Scarborough found it disingenuous says something about how well it is landing with anybody paying attention to this race.

Sources: Mediaite, “Joe Scarborough Grills Abdul El-Sayed Over Dismissal of Hasan Piker as Just a ‘Streamer’: ‘Don’t You Think It’s Disingenuous?'”; Axios, “Hasan Piker on ‘The Axios Show’: America worse than al-Qaeda ‘pound for pound'”; CBS News, “Abdul El-Sayed projected to win Michigan Democratic Senate primary, defeating Haley Stevens”; NBC News, “Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left”; Fox News, “Hasan Piker claims America caused more terror deaths than al-Qaeda”