El-Sayed calls out Haley Stevens for backing of Republican rival

Progressive Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed is refusing to let his former Democratic primary rival's endorsement, a Republican Mike Rogers, distract from his Senate campaign. Speaking to reporters here in Detroit, El-Sayed struck a defiant tone, making clear he has no intention of revisiting the primary contest. Here's what he told us. At the end of the day, I actually don't think about him, Stevenson. I think about the, like I said, the 9,999,998 people who are not those two. We won that primary despite a record amount of outside spending in that race against us. $70 million got outspent 11 to 1. Never has there been more money spent against a single candidate running in any primary race in American history. But one of the most important issues was simply the fact that I think we should spend our tax dollars here. That I want our money spent here to build infrastructure here and build schools here and build opportunity here and build health care here and child care here. Rather than sent abroad to do the worst things, the most heinous things to other people. But the reaction from Michigan. Democrats has been far less restrained. I spoke to party chair Curtis Hertel Jr., who strongly condemned Haley Stevens' decision to back Rogers, saying there's no room for her in this race, and accusing her of betraying the Democratic Party. Here's what he had to say. She threw people that have worked for her for eight years under the bus for this moment, so she could have a tantrum on TV right before this election. What about other Democrats who've been undermining, I'll say it? What about other Democrats who haven't really been putting their full weight behind Abdullah El-Sayed as a candidate? People like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. What kind of message did they send by not backing him early? First of all, I think Chuck Schumer is endorsed as far as I know, and I think Nancy Pelosi said that people should vote for him. She called him the other guy from Michigan. Real quick, my suggestion to you, and you can do whatever you'd like. Well, my suggestion to you is not to try to make excuses for Haley Stevens by comparing it to a bunch of other people who didn't do this. At the end of the day, she's the one that abandoned her constituents. She's the one that is campaigning for someone who will make people that she says she represents lives worse and is against every value that she says she's gonna fight for. And that's what the reality is. And so we can try to drag everybody else into this, but she deserves no cover. Are you worried about you getting in the Democratic Party? Thanks, everybody. And with the midterm elections approaching just days away, Al-Saeed is looking to shift the focus away from the fallout of the Democratic primary and back to issues he says matters most to voters, affordability, the economy, and keeping American taxpayer money out of foreign wars.