Abdul El-Sayed has been scrubbing his radical record since the day he won the Michigan primary.
He went on Fox News to try to reset that narrative.
And Martha MacCallum had other plans for his rebranding.
El-Sayed Went on Fox to Reintroduce Himself and MacCallum Asked About George Soros
Radical Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has spent the general election distancing himself from the positions that won him the primary.
Fox News host Martha MacCallum opened by letting him make that case – then asked why a candidate running against billionaires buying politicians was fundraising with George Soros' family.
El-Sayed's entire campaign rests on one argument.
"The fundamental corruption of our politics has been the system that allows corporations and would-be oligarchs and billionaires to buy politicians," he told a local news outlet in 2025.
On the trail he simplified it: "I want to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket."
MacCallum wanted to know what he made of the Soros family – who funded his education, hosted his Hollywood fundraiser, and whose PAC money is flowing directly into his race.
"There's a big difference there," he told her. "When individuals want to give to my campaign, I welcome their support. You know what I don't do? I don't call corporations. I don't call AIPAC. Individuals who want to support a campaign, that's different."
MacCallum pushed further: the Senate Majority PAC backing his race involves corporate money – so how is that any different?
El-Sayed insisted those donors would never come back and ask him for favors.
MacCallum then pulled out a quote he probably hoped Michigan had forgotten – El-Sayed telling a crowd during the primary: "When they go low, we don't go high. We take them to the mud and choke them out."
He said he meant it as a response to attacks. MacCallum let it sit.
"Abdul El-Sayed is only for getting money out of politics when it isn't being spent on him," said Alyssa Brouillet, spokeswoman for Republican nominee Mike Rogers.
How Soros and Schumer Are Spending $40 Million to Buy Michigan Senate Seat
George Soros' wealthy nephew Jeffrey Soros hosted El-Sayed at a West Hollywood fundraiser last month where attendees could donate up to $57,800 per person – and standing next to El-Sayed at the event, he told the crowd he had personally interviewed him for the family's fellowship program and had backed his career ever since.
El-Sayed's graduate education was funded in part by the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.
Senate Majority PAC – the super PAC aligned with Chuck Schumer – has pledged $30 million to help El-Sayed win Michigan, and that PAC received $9 million this cycle directly from Soros' own Democracy PAC.
Schumer flew El-Sayed to Washington for a personal meeting at DSCC headquarters, where senators lined up to shake his hand, then added another $10 million to the Michigan commitment.
The candidate Soros built has never served in the military, despite a Soros-funded propaganda newspaper calling him a veteran in papers distributed across Michigan – his own campaign had to publicly reject that claim.
He holds a medical degree he has never used to treat a patient, brought far-left internet streamer Hasan Piker – whose comments about American Jews were condemned as antisemitic by prominent Democrats – to a poolside campaign event, and made the front page of the New York Times in an Abolish ICE T-shirt.
When Republicans raised Piker, El-Sayed called him "a streamer in California who has nothing to do with Michigan politics" – the same moderate rebranding MacCallum had just dismantled.
Republican Mike Rogers spent a decade in Congress representing Michigan and is running on one pitch: suspend the federal gas tax and cut costs for Michigan families.
Democrats have run this play before. Joe Biden's 2020 campaign website promised to flush big money from the system while George Soros pumped $50 million into the same cycle to elect him.
El-Sayed is the purest version of it – a candidate whose entire political existence was funded by the billionaire class he campaigns against.
Fox News did not reveal a secret.
The interview stripped away two months of moderate theater and left El-Sayed exactly where he started – standing next to a Soros.
Sources:
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Michigan Senate Nominee El-Sayed Challenged Over Soros Ties on Fox News," Fox News Digital, October 6, 2026.
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Jeffrey Soros Reveals Yearslong Connection to El-Sayed at Hollywood Fundraiser," Fox News Digital, October 2026.
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Abdul El-Sayed Dubbed 'Veteran' by Soros-Linked Propaganda Newspaper Distributed in Michigan," Fox News Digital, September 2, 2026.
- Mike LaChance, "Schumer Adds Another $10 Million to Outside Spending Blitz for El-Sayed," Legal Insurrection, September 2026.
- Joe Schoffstall, "Soros Pours Record $50 Million Into 2020 Election," Washington Free Beacon, July 28, 2020.