Jesse Watters spent twenty-four years on television learning to read people.
Now the most dangerous Democrat in the 2026 midterms appeared on his show.
What Watters said after reviewing the tape was not what Democrats were hoping to hear.
Watters Reviewed the Fox News Interview on The Five and Had One Verdict
Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed decided to go toe to toe with Jesse Watters on Jesse Watters Primetime.
On The Five, Watters had a surprising reaction to his night interview with El-Sayed.
“I like him,” Watters said. “I don’t want to like him. I like him for some stupid reason, but he’s not right for Michigan.”
That’s a significant admission from a man who spent the interview methodically exposing El-Sayed’s radical record. Watters pressed him on abolishing ICE, Sharia law, boys in girls’ sports, the Green New Deal, reparations, and gender surgeries on children. El-Sayed dodged nearly every one.
But the dodge didn’t make him unlikable. That’s what has Republicans worried.
“He was compelling,” Watters said. “A confident guy, kind of a guy’s guy.”
El-Sayed is not your father’s Michigan Democrat. He’s a 41-year-old Rhodes Scholar and former Detroit Health Director who talks like a normal person and thinks like a socialist.
Bernie Sanders and AOC endorsed him. He wants Medicare for All, a wealth tax on anyone with over $100 million, and to dismantle ICE entirely.
On paper, he’s the most radical Senate nominee in Michigan history. In person, he’s the kind of guy you’d argue with at a cookout and actually enjoy it.
El-Sayed Dodged ICE Abolition Sharia Law and Boys in Girls Sports on Jesse Watters Primetime
Watters wasn’t done.
“He wouldn’t take a stand on anything,” Watters said. “I asked him about boys in girls’ sports, the Green New Deal, reparations. He’s on the record as backing all of this, and he just dodges.”
El-Sayed’s debate strategy was pure misdirection. On boys competing against girls in sports, he told Watters that decisions about who plays what sports “ought to be decided by the people who govern sports.”
On sex-change surgeries for children, he flipped the question back on Watters by asking whether Watters had been circumcised – a move that generated a full day of bizarre headlines but successfully avoided a direct answer.
On abolishing ICE, he pivoted to the old INS, claiming America enforced immigration law just fine before ICE existed – conveniently skipping over the part where he wants to eliminate border enforcement entirely.
Watters caught every dodge — and the bigger problem underneath them.
“He didn’t do his homework,” Watters said. “Didn’t know how many illegals were here. Didn’t know the federal budget. Didn’t know how much Medicare for All costs.”
Jesse Watters just unloaded on Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed after their interview sparked a whole day of bad press:
“I like him. I don’t want to like him…but I don’t trust him.”
Watters first cracked up over the bizarre headlines generated by the interview.
WATTERS:… pic.twitter.com/HcaPUH4HER
— Overton (@overton_news) August 25, 2026
El-Sayed wants to spend the country into socialized medicine and can’t tell you what it costs. He wants to abolish border enforcement and doesn’t know how many illegal aliens are in the country. That’s not a knowledge gap. That’s a fraud.
Michigan Senate Race 2026 Could Hand Democrats a Radical They Cannot Explain
El-Sayed is running neck-and-neck with Republican Mike Rogers in a race that could flip Senate control. Fox News polling showed Rogers ahead 51 to 47. The AARP poll showed El-Sayed up one – well within the margin of error. The race is a coin flip in a state Trump won in 2024.
The dodging was the least of it.
He described Israel as a “rogue state” and called Prime Minister Netanyahu a war criminal.
Sayed linked efforts to prohibit Sharia law in American courts to white supremacy. A 2009 interview resurfaced in which he called Sharia compliance a matter of religious duty – something he chose, not something imposed on him.
JD Vance named El-Sayed by name at a White House event after the primary, warning against the possibility of “President El-Sayed” down the road. The Vice President of the United States looked at this man’s record and decided it was worth a public warning.
His radicalism is masked by his charisma.
“He does not usually sound like a politician,” Watters said. “That’s probably why he won that primary.”
El-Sayed walked into the highest-profile interview of his Senate campaign not knowing the federal budget, not knowing how many illegal aliens are in the country, and unable to defend a single policy he’s publicly backed for years. He covered it with personality – and it nearly worked.
Watters says he’d have him back for a rematch. Michigan conservatives don’t get a rematch. They get one shot in November to make sure the guy who couldn’t answer a question doesn’t get to cast votes on the Supreme Court.
Sources:
- “Michigan Senate Nominee El-Sayed Defends Sharia Law Views in Fiery Interview,” Fox News, August 25, 2026.
- “Abdul El-Sayed’s Interview With Jesse Watters Was a Trainwreck for His Campaign,” Townhall, August 25, 2026.
- “Michigan Senate Democrat Abdul El-Sayed Pledges Sharia Law Loyalty,” Fox News, August 2026.
- “Fox News Poll: Senate Battle Looms in Michigan,” Fox News, August 2026.