NBC’s Welker Confronts El-Sayed About Hasan Piker: Do You Disavow Him Saying ‘America Deserved 9/11?’

NBC’s Kristen Welker pressed Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about his association with Hasan Piker.

In a pointed back-and-forth on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Welker confronted El-Sayed with several of Piker’s most controversial remarks.

“You’ve faced scrutiny for campaigning with Socialist streamer, Hasan Piker, who has made a series of inflammatory comments, as you well know, including saying America deserved 9/11, describing Hamas as a lesser evil than Israel,” Welker said. “Do you plan to continue to campaign with Hasan Piker in the general election campaign?”

El-Sayed dodged the question.

“Look, I’m less concerned now with who I’m campaigning with and a lot more concerned about who I’m campaigning to,” El-Sayed said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to continue to build the coalition that’s going to beat Mike Rogers.

“Would you welcome him, though, on the campaign trail with you?” Welker asked.

“Like I said, I’m a lot more focused on who I’m campaigning to,” El-Sayed said. “I think we have this notion sometimes on shows like this that we cannot or should not talk to certain groups of people.”And I’ll tell you that the three million people who listen to Hasan are people I want to make sure understand that there’s a pathway into our politics around getting money out of politics so we can get money back in pockets and pass Medicare for All. And so I’m going to continue to have the conversations with those folks who we desperately need to reach out.”

Welker then asked specifically about Piker’s 9/11 remark.

“When asked about Hasan Piker’s comments on 9/11, Senator Bernie Sanders called it a dumb statement,” Welker said. “Do you agree? Do you disavow those comments that America deserved 9/11?”

El-Sayed was clear in his condemnation, while still calling it “gotcha politics” to try to link him to Piker’s remarks.

“Of course, of course,” El-Sayed said. “It was a dumb statement. And, of course, I think Hasan, himself, would say that was a dumb statement. He disavowed it. So yes. America didn’t deserve 9/11. But, you know, to sit here and play gotcha politics with a dumb thing somebody said out of context, that they disavowed themselves, to say, ‘Oh, well, what does that mean about what you think?’ I want to be held accountable for what I say and what I do rather than this idea that we’re so stuck in cancel culture that all of us agreed was a bad idea back in 2020, but we seem to want to bring back.”

Watch above, via NBC.

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