Surprise! CNN's Dean Pressed Dem Dingell On El-Sayed-Stevens Feud & Anti-Israel Ad
Steve MalzbergThe last weekend leading up to the midterms was supposed to be a show of Democrat unity in Michigan, with Congresswoman Haley Stevens joining the man who beat her in the primaries, Senate candidate Abdul-El-Sayed, on the trail for the first time. But that all changed after an anti-Israel grocery ad by prominent El-Sayed supporters, and his initial refusal to denounce it, and that dispute led CNN's Newsroom on Saturday at 5pm.
Before welcoming in Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who she would surprisingly press time and again for answers regarding the internal Dem dispute, host Jessica Dean threw it to correspondent Brian Todd in Michigan. He provided some background, starting with Steven's request for El-Sayed to denounce the ad, which claims that U.S. aid to Israel was causing higher grocery prices. Stevens has called the ad anti-Semitic.
MRCVideo player
Source site blocks iframe embedding in preview. Imported article will use extracted HTML instead of this embed frame.
Todd played a clip of El-Sayed saying, "That ad was not made by me, and I do not agree with the contents of that ad."
Dean soon turned to Dingell and went right at her reported role in the dispute. This was obviously before Haley Stevens surprised Dingell and nearly everyone else by endorsing Mike Rogers at the last minute.
MRCVideo player
Source site blocks iframe embedding in preview. Imported article will use extracted HTML instead of this embed frame.
DEAN: We're reporting you were one of the lawmakers engaging in kind of this shuttle diplomacy between Congresswoman Haley Stevens and El-Sayed....Where do things stand right now?
DINGELL: I don't call it shuttle diplomacy. I'm Dean of the Michigan delegation....and I try to keep people together. Haley will not be there tomorrow because it has become a total distraction. The national reporters are more interested in pitting people against each other....She has made it clear she is going to vote for the democratic ticket and Abdul.
It was then time to change the subject, enter Dem talking points.
DINGELL: The issues we need to be talking about are people who don't have health care, who can't afford their medicine, who can't afford gasoline, who are hurting at the grocery store, are making choices between food and medicine on their table.
Now you'd be excused if you thought Dean would accept that answer and just move along to something else, but to her credit, she did not. Instead she noted that Stevens had released a statement saying she would appear at an El-Sayed event on Sunday.
DEAN: And in that statement, she herself said that she wanted El-Sayed to condemn that ad that Brian Todd was just talking about and apologize for statements regarding Israel.
She then played a clip of the ad in question.
CLIP OF AD (WOMAN): You're going to have to put those eggs back.
(MALE): They don't like eggs anymore?
(WOMAN): No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.
(MALE): What? I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways?
(WOMAN): Apparently it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza.DEAN: This ad was released by an outside group who is supporting El-Sayed.... She (Stevens) again wanted him to condemn the ad and apologize for some previous statements.... He said he didn't want to relitigate the primary, so they were going back and forth at each other in the last 24 hours.... Did you know that that's what she needed to agree to appear with him in the first place?
Dingell denied that Stevens needed a condemnation and an apology in order to appear with El-Sayed, and then tried to change the subject yet again, turning to alleged hate and division in the country, and claiming that both the Jewish and Muslim communities are scared. But once again, Dean wasn't going to let Dingell off the hook.
MRCVideo player
Source site blocks iframe embedding in preview. Imported article will use extracted HTML instead of this embed frame.
DINGELL: And I hope all of us are going to help us stand up to hate when this campaign is over and find ways to bring this country together.
DEAN: I hear you, I just think a lot of people that you're talking about think that ad is hateful.
DINGELL: I don't agree with the ad. I think it's wrong. But I also think you're trying to, you don't want to talk about health care. You don't want to talk about prescription drugs--
DEAN: I mean, I love to talk about it, but this is what the candidate is talking about and this is what they're talking about back and forth with each other.
DINGELL: Let's talk about the issues that we're voting on on Tuesday.
But Dean persisted as she asked her final question.
DEAN: Our reporting is that he he disinvited her from the campaign event. Is that your understanding?
A most surprising performance by Dean. However, both Dean and Todd said the ad was put out by "an outside group". In fact, the spot was released by Rebellion PAC, created by "The Young Turks" co-founder, Cenk Uygur, who is the uncle of Hasan Piker! Who campaigned with Abdul! How "outside" does that feel?
Source link
