El-Sayed’s loyalty to America, Rogers’ loyalty to Trump and other takeaways from Michigan Senate debate

Robin Buckson/Pool/AP

The Michigan Senate debate between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers was bitterly personal and ferociously contested — as befits a contest that could decide the chamber’s majority.

Each candidate had a simple task.

El-Sayed, the former executive director of the Detroit Health Department, needed to pin Rogers, a former congressman, to the deeply unpopular President Donald Trump and his economy — and to assuage questions from moderates about his politics.

Rogers is trying to win in a state currently run by Democrats while dragging Trump’s historically low approval ratings behind him. His only hope is to disqualify El-Sayed as an acceptable senator in the eyes of voters.

Here are takeaways from their last debate before Election Day:

Rogers raised an extraordinary question: Is El-Sayed, a Muslim who was born in Michigan, really loyal to the United States? The charge came against a backdrop of searing false claims by Trump that the Democrat is a “jihadist.”

Rogers claimed El-Sayed — who would be the first Muslim elected to the Senate — was bought off by the Muslim Brotherhood , an Islamist group founded in Egypt, and that he had donors who supported Iran-backed extremist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

“If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know: Are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?” Rogers asked. “You can grin and you can smile and you can talk real pretty, but I’m going to tell you what: That is a risk to our national security.”

El-Sayed, who has repudiated the Brotherhood, accused his opponent of a “shameful” attack. “To bring into question my commitment to the Constitution is really beneath you. I am proud of America. I’m proud to be an American. I’m proud of our Constitution that guarantees all of us the right to pray as we choose to pray,” he said.

Rogers also sought to play into the conceit that El-Sayed, as a progressive, is too far to the left of Michigan’s electorate, and he tried to reopen splits that were exposed between rival factions during the Democratic primary.

He claimed that El-Sayed was “aligned” with the Democratic Socialists of America and wants “bigger government and more taxes.” El-Sayed describes himself as a capitalist and is not a member of the DSA, but he is supported by several members of the group, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned with him through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last week.

Rogers also tore at Democratic divides by appealing to disaffected supporters of El-Sayed’s defeated primary opponent. “You’re a Haley Stevens voter, and you came out of this, and you said, “Man, I just can’t do it. He’s too extreme … well, guess what, you have a home with us,” Rogers said in his closing statement.

Ultimately, Rogers’ attacks on El-Sayed’s loyalties were aimed at advancing a broader argument — that the Democrat simply couldn’t be trusted — and one that implied, as Trump has, that he is not a fully authentic American.

“There is, again that whole pattern of deception,” Rogers said of El-Sayed’s claim to be in favor of strong border enforcement, using a refrain to which he frequently returned. Pushing back on El-Sayed’s denials that he wants to defund the police, Rogers claimed, “This guy has got new, false information about every 30 seconds.”

El-Sayed countered multiple times that it was Rogers who was being untruthful and said he was playing a classic game of distraction practiced by Trump. He repeatedly said people should be playing “MAGA bingo” at home as they ticked off Rogers’ pre-planned buzzwords. But he warned: “When you are winning MAGA bingo, we are all losing.”

Rogers, like every Republican candidate in the midterm elections, needs a way to separate himself from Trump’s most unpopular policies while avoiding alienating the president’s supporters, who must show up in huge numbers for him to win.

He started with a complex pivot — admitting that the Michigan economy was in rough shape and that people were “hurting” but arguing that if Democrats got control of the Senate they’d make it even worse. This was a long way from Trump’s argument that Americans are living through an economic “golden age.”

Rogers walked a fine line on tariffs, arguing that some were working to bring jobs home from Mexico and China, but that the trade war with Canada — a huge issue in Michigan’s border-state economy — was not well thought through. Rogers argued that Democratic control of Congress would cause higher taxes and higher costs, including for gasoline.

El-Sayed had an easier task given huge public dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy; he claimed Rogers and the president stood “hip to hip.” He said that voters should send him to the Senate to ensure “money is going to be spent on you and your kids, rather than dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids.”

He narrowed in on Rogers’ biggest vulnerability after the Republican said all his opponent did was say “Donald Trump” over and over again. El-Sayed countered by blaming the president’s decision to go to war with Iran for making the cost of living worse.

“Yes, I am going to blame Donald Trump because this is Donald Trump’s economy. We are living in it,” El-Sayed said. “We are paying more for gas, more for groceries, defunding the Department of Education.”

“We need to turn the page on Donald Trump, but that means we need to stand up to Donald Trump.”

罗宾·巴克森/Pool/美联社

密歇根州参议院民主党候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德和共和党候选人迈克·罗杰斯之间的辩论充满了激烈的个人恩怨和残酷的竞争——正如一场可能决定参议院多数席位的竞争一样。

每位候选人都有一项简单的任务。

底特律卫生局前执行主任埃尔-赛义德需要将前国会议员罗杰斯与极不受欢迎的总统唐纳德·特朗普及其经济政策联系起来，并以此来平息温和派对其政治立场的质疑。

罗杰斯试图在一个目前由民主党掌控的州赢得选举，同时还要背负特朗普历史性低迷的支持率。他唯一的希望就是让选民不再认可埃尔-赛义德作为参议员的资格。

以下是他们在选举日前最后一场辩论的要点：

罗杰斯提出了一个非同寻常的问题：出生于密歇根州的穆斯林埃尔-赛义德真的忠于美国吗？这一指控的背景是特朗普对这位民主党人发表了尖锐的虚假言论，称他是“圣战分子”。

罗杰斯声称，埃尔-赛义德（他将成为第一位当选参议员的穆斯林）被穆斯林兄弟会（一个在埃及成立的伊斯兰组织）收买，而且他的捐助者支持伊朗支持的极端组织，如哈马斯和真主党。

“如果你要去美国参议院，我们需要知道：你是支持美国，还是支持海外的恐怖组织？”罗杰斯问道。“你可以咧嘴大笑，你可以说得天花乱坠，但我告诉你：这会危害我们的国家安全。”

已公开与穆斯林兄弟会决裂的埃尔-赛义德指责他的对手发动了“可耻的”攻击。“质疑我对宪法的忠诚，实在有失你的身份。我为美国感到自豪。我为自己身为美国人而自豪。我为我们的宪法感到自豪，它保障我们每个人都有权按照自己的意愿祈祷。”他说道。

罗杰斯还试图迎合这样一种观念：埃尔-赛义德作为一名进步人士，其政治立场过于左倾，超出了密歇根州选民的接受范围。他还试图重新挑起民主党初选期间敌对派系之间暴露出的分裂。

他声称埃尔-赛义德与美国民主社会主义者协会（DSA）“结盟”，并希望“扩大政府规模，增加税收”。埃尔-赛义德自称是资本家，并非DSA成员，但他得到了该组织几位成员的支持，其中包括纽约州众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯，她上周曾陪同埃尔-赛义德在密歇根州上半岛进行竞选活动。

罗杰斯还通过争取那些对埃尔-赛义德初选失败对手不满的支持者，加剧了民主党内部的分裂。“你们是海莉·史蒂文斯的选民，你们出来后说，‘唉，我实在接受不了。他太极端了……’好吧，猜猜怎么着，我们这里就有你们的家，”罗杰斯在总结陈词中说道。

最终，罗杰斯对埃尔-赛义德忠诚度的攻击旨在推进一个更广泛的论点——即这位民主党人根本不可信——并且暗示，就像特朗普一样，他不是一个完全真正的美国人。

罗杰斯谈到埃尔-赛义德声称支持加强边境执法时说：“这又是一连串的欺骗行为。”他反复强调这一点。针对埃尔-赛义德否认想要削减警察经费的说法，罗杰斯反驳道：“这家伙几乎每隔30秒就抛出一个新的虚假信息。”

埃尔-赛义德多次反驳说，罗杰斯才是说谎的人，他玩的是特朗普惯用的转移视线伎俩。他反复说，人们应该在家玩“让美国再次伟大宾果游戏”，一边打勾罗杰斯预先准备好的关键词。但他警告说：“当你们在‘让美国再次伟大宾果游戏’中获胜时，我们所有人都在输。”

罗杰斯和所有参加中期选举的共和党候选人一样，需要找到一种方法，既能与特朗普最不受欢迎的政策划清界限，又能避免疏远总统的支持者，因为总统要想赢得选举，这些支持者必须大量到场投票。

他一开始就做出了一个复杂的转变——承认密歇根州的经济状况不佳，民众生活“艰难”，但同时辩称，如果民主党控制了参议院，情况只会更糟。这与特朗普声称美国人正生活在经济“黄金时代”的说法截然不同。

罗杰斯在关税问题上态度谨慎，他认为部分关税政策有助于将工作岗位从墨西哥和中国带回美国，但与加拿大的贸易战——这对密歇根州这个边境州的经济来说是一个重大问题——却考虑不周。罗杰斯还指出，民主党控制国会将导致更高的税收和更高的物价，包括汽油价格。

鉴于公众对特朗普处理经济的方式极度不满，埃尔-赛义德的任务相对轻松；他声称罗杰斯和总统“形影不离”。他说，选民应该把他送进参议院，以确保“钱花在你们和你们的孩子身上，而不是用来轰炸别人和他们的孩子”。

在共和党人罗杰斯指责他的对手只会反复说“唐纳德·特朗普”之后，埃尔-赛义德抓住罗杰斯最大的弱点展开反击。他指责总统决定对伊朗开战，导致生活成本上升。

“没错，我要把责任归咎于唐纳德·特朗普，因为这就是唐纳德·特朗普的经济政策。我们现在就生活在这样的经济环境下，”埃尔-赛义德说道。“我们买汽油要花更多钱，买食品杂货要花更多钱，教育部的经费却被削减了。”

“我们需要翻过唐纳德·特朗普这一页，但这也就意味着我们需要挺身对抗唐纳德·特朗普。”