Michigan candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers: The 60 Minutes Interviews

This Tuesday, control of the US Senate may be decided in the battleground state of Michigan. The Democratic nominee, Abdul Elsed, could be the nation's first Muslim senator, and he's running on transformation, busting monopolies, Medicare for all, an arms embargo on Israel. The Republican candidate, former Congressman Mike Rogers, is eager to paint his opponent as a radical. But on policy, he tries to stay inside state lines, focused on Michigan jobs and education. The test for Rogers is whether a Republican can win in the shadow of inflation, war, and President Donald Trump's unpopularity. The test for Elsed is whether ideas that thrill the progressive wing of the Democratic party are what middle America wants right now. The contest is close, contentious, and it's left the two men without a kind word to say about each other. >> I'm talking. All right, >> I'm talking. Well, own up to it.

>> He's kind of like a glitchy AI chatbot. Is say the same. >> You going after my mom? >> I'm not going after your mom. What your mom was >> in the home stretch of an expensive, bruising, and consequential Senate race. Gentlemen, >> we went to speak to both candidates and see them in action. >> Do we believe in our ability to stand up and fight back? >> The son of Egyptian immigrants, Abdul Elsed won the Democratic primary against a more centrist rival by a sliver of a percentage point. But he has big ambitions. Not just to beat the Republican party, but to remake his OWN >> MONEY OUT OF >> MONEY IN YOUR >> MEDICARE FOR SO, WE GOT WORK TO DO. >> AFTER A ROAD scholarship and a medical degree from Columbia University, Elsad went straight into public health administration and then politics. >> All right. What's for her? >> He's often associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, but he isn't a member and he keeps his distance from the label. Pick one economic issue that you think should be the priority for the next Congress.

>> Monopolies and igopies. I'm a capitalist. If you read Adam Smith, he'll tell you the biggest risk to capitalism was never government regulation. It was always monopoly and igopoly. >> You ran for office uh in 2018, right, for the first time. >> You were endorsed by Bernie Sanders in that race. Were you ever a socialist? >> No. I'm a capitalist who understands the idea that you should have guaranteed healthcare in the country. Anybody who tells you that's anti- capitalist is not really understanding how capitalism works. Do we believe in our ability to fight for healthare? Elsed is promising a version of Medicare for all that he says would leave private health insurance options intact. He would fund it in part with a sweeping tax on billionaire wealth. On the trail, though, he says healthcare is no longer voters's top concern. What is the most important issue that you hear about from Michigan voters in this campaign? Pick one. >> I think right now we are barreling total a world where the most important issue I hear about every day is AI. Tell me about that.

>> It comes in in two different ways. One is students saying, "So, I just took $60,000 in loans and the job that I was supposed to have on the back end doesn't exist anymore or might not exist in 10 years." Or it's folks in rural communities who say, "They're trying to put a data center in my backyard. I already can't afford my utilities, and I'm worried about what it's going to mean for our water." Elsa wants a cabinet level agency to regulate AI and for the frontier AI research that some fear threatens the human race. Full on pause. >> Full on pause. >> We need AI under democracy and AI under control. >> Where the 42-year-old Democrat sometimes sounds like a candidate for president. His Republican rival Mike Rogers is trying to keep things local. >> Michigan hasn't elected a Republican to the Senate in decades. Rogers hopes to make that a virtue. >> This is a change election in Michigan and that's why I don't really care what's happening around the country. I need to fix Michigan.

>> In a populist era, Rogers can sound like a throwback Republican. >> If we don't fix this literacy problem, >> a former army officer and FBI agent, he left Congress after 14 years just as Donald Trump ascended. and his platform sometimes channels the compassionate conservative rhetoric of President George W. Bush. >> So, what's the number one piece of legislation you'd want to work on on a bipartisan basis if you were in the Senate? >> Reading, literacy. I'm a big military family. My father, my brother, me, our son is fourth generation. Patriotism runs deep in our family. One of the big reasons they were missing recruiting during COVID and other places was that kids weren't reading well enough to pass the test. in America in 2026. If we don't change that, we are all in trouble. >> The welcome has been so warm. >> When Elsed recently took a bus tour with Democratic Socialist star Alexandria Okasiocortez through Trump country in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, they weren't talking about literacy.

>> Shouldn't be this hard in the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world to afford a tank of gas. While the Democrat woos MAGA voters, >> for you know that we do have a state to save, Lord God. >> The 63-year-old Rogers has been going into predominantly black neighborhoods that rarely see a Republican. >> I'm still growing. >> Trying to persuade African-Ameans that Elsed is taking them for granted. >> He went to New York with AOC to talk about how they're going to change the world in 2028. You know what I want to do? I want to take care of Flint. I want to take care of every Michigander who has kids and grandkids who want to stay in this state. >> For his pitch to work, Michigan voters have to believe that a Republican senator can fix a Republican president's policies. Trump's trade wars, especially the tariffs on Canada, Michigan's neighbor and trading partner, have cost the state an estimated $23 billion since January 2025.

>> I don't think it's helpful to us. is certainly not helpful to our automotive industry. >> I don't like the Canadian tariffs. I've said so. I've, you know, raised my concerns to the Secretary of uh Commerce. >> And what did he say? >> Uh, I'll get back to you. >> Uhhuh. Why can't other Republican senators fix it, though? There's a Republican Senate majority. Why can't they get the White House to change course? >> Well, you need one more Republican senator, though. That's how you do it. Would you support as a Republican senator trying to override the president on tariffs that you disagree with like the Canadian tariffs? >> If I can't work it out uh and it came to that yeah absolutely. >> Donald Trump is going to come to Michigan. >> One of Elsaded's attack lines is that a vote for Rogers is effectively a vote for Trump. >> The Republican candidate seems to be looking for daylight with the president while avoiding direct confrontation. He supported the unpopular war with Iran, but now says it needs to quote wind down.

>> You are like a rock star. >> When it comes to another issue on voters minds this fall, Rogers chooses his words carefully. >> Do you think that the Trump administration has a corruption problem? >> Well, I can tell you this. I'm a I'm an FBI agent by training. >> What did you work on as an FBI agent? >> Organized crime and public corruption. >> And public corruption. Yes. Yes. So, I'm going to act as United States senator with the best interest of Michigan. I can tell you that right now. >> Can you tell me a little bit more about what that would mean? >> I'll take the facts as I see them and I'll make a decision based on that. >> The president of the United States accepted a jet from a Middle Eastern nation. Do you think he should have done that? >> I mean, that's not what I would have done. U but that's uh I don't think it's illegal for the president to do that. >> Well, thank you, Mr. President. >> It's a delicate relationship. President Trump needs Rogers to flip the seat. Rogers needs the president to turn out the party base. They campaigned together in Port Hiron, Michigan last week where Mr. Trump trained his fire on Elsa.

>> I'm here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator. The president is talking about an Islamist movement whose offshoots were recently designated as terrorist groups. Rogers has also accused his opponent of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, citing a 2012 letter that Elsed signed after the Arab Spring in support of Egypt's new democratically elected government, which was backed by the Brotherhood. Elsad has declined to comment on the letter, but says he disavows the Muslim Brotherhood. He argues that Republicans are targeting his Islamic faith. >> You know, there's a lot of people, Muslim, Christian, otherwise, who are raised in a religion and it doesn't stick. Why did faith stick for you? >> I think anybody of faith has on again, offagain relationships with one's own faith. In my younger years, I certainly rebelled and it was something that that kind of came back to me in college. >> Tell me something about how that faith shapes your politics.

There is this uh notion of speak the truth even if it be against yourself and I try to be like radically honest. >> One place where Elsa casts himself as a trutht teller is the debate over US support for Israel. >> In your view what's wrong with America's relationship with Israel? >> Number one we have been told that we are pursuing a two-state solution only to aid arm and abet the very people who are trying to foreclose on the possibility of a second state. So, it's incoherent on its own terms. Number two, I don't know about you, but I don't pay my taxes to buy another country a bomb or a tank. That's Israel. That's Egypt. That's Saudi Arabia. That's Pakistan. Three, the state of Israel did a genocide. >> His language is wrong. They use terms like genocide. >> In the argument over Israel's war in Gaza following the October 7th attacks by Hamas, Rogers leaves no doubt which side he's on. Maybe I passionately defend Israel's right to defend itself and to exist as a Jewish state. That sets me at odds with my opponent right off the bat. He refuses to even acknowledge that Israel has the right to exist. I don't ever get the question of does Palestine have the right to exist.

>> Does Palestine have the right to exist? >> Yes. >> Does Israel have the right to exist? >> Yes. If there is a shared understanding. >> Wait, you said >> let me just let me just let me just understand. I believe and this is the this is the problem with this debate. We start from where we sit rather than start from principles. I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike. If the Palestinian people decide and the Israeli people decide that they want two states for two people and they decide that on equal terms, I'm for it. If they decide that they want one state shared in a different way, I'm for that. In a state with one of the nation's largest ArabAmerican populations and about 100,000 Jewish voters, the Middle East is territory where the campaign's national and local elements converge. This past March, after a terrorist attack on a Michigan synagogue and preschool, Elsad condemned the violence. >> There is never a justification for attacking innocent people or houses of worship. Never. >> But he added, >> "Hurt people hurt people." seeming to put blame on Israel. He later apologized.

>> So you they got to pick your team. You want to represent Palestine or you want to represent Michigan? I want to represent Michigan. >> To Rogers, his opponent's rhetoric is feeding an atmosphere of anti-semitism. >> There are Jewish students at University of Michigan that my wife and I talked to who have to hide their star of David to walk across campus because the harassment is so bad. Think of that. In a close election, the Rogers campaign hopes that Jewish Michiganders, usually a reliable Democratic constituency, could be one of its keys to victory. Do you think that you are saying enough to reassure those voters that you are on their side? >> Wherever our disagreements are when it comes to Israel, there are a lot more of things that we agree on here. When it comes to standing up for Jewish Americans, I will be right there. However, the Jewish vote breaks, the state's more than 200,000 Arabameans are expected to turn out to vote for Elsa in record numbers. It's one more variable in a race filled with them, where the winning Michigan coalition could be a national surprise. What's the biggest thing that you think is different in US politics if you win? the ability to run a campaign and win against big money by engaging with people, having a conversation about who we are and who we want to be.

>> What's the biggest thing that's different about American politics if you win this election? >> Well, I'm not sure about American politics, but I'm going to change the politics of Michigan for sure because you're going to have somebody who's an advocate for the state of Michigan. One close race, two very different campaigns, and an election whose outcome will reverberate far beyond the state of Michigan. Watch extended interviews with the candidates on the 60 Minutes YouTube channel.