Sanders says GOP rhetoric about El-Sayed "should appall" Americans

Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, condemned Republican attacks on Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, saying the ethnic and religious targeting should appall decent Americans. Appearing on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Sanders singled out Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, President Trump and Vance, and he also criticized ads portraying El-Sayed, a physician, as a terrorist and jihadist. Republicans have tied El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood, which he denies, and he has denounced the remarks. Sanders predicted voters would reject such tactics, according to CBS News.

The interview came amid a split among Democrats. Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost the primary to El-Sayed, had urged him to disavow an outside group's ad connecting American military aid for Israel to grocery costs, which she called antisemitic. El-Sayed said he did not make the ad and disagrees with it, and he accused her of refighting a finished primary. Soon after Sanders spoke, Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, whom Sanders had described as a rubber stamp for the Trump administration.

Sanders, who is Jewish and said Hitler destroyed his father's family, rejected antisemitism but argued that opposing U.S. funding for Israel's government is not the same thing.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CBS News’s reporting. Read the full story at CBS News →