El-Sayed Instructs Staff to Avoid Khamenei Comments in Leaked Audio

Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed instructed his campaign staff to avoid public comments on the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, citing sensitivities among residents in Dearborn, a city with a large Arab American population. The remarks came during a private strategy call on March 1, following Khamenei's death in a U.S.-Israeli military operation on February 28.

In the recorded discussion, obtained and released without the campaign's consent, El-Sayed emphasized the need for caution. "There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today," he told his team. "So, like, I just don't want to comment on Khamenei at all. Like, I don't think it's worth even touching that." He added that the campaign held the "moral high ground" and anticipated reporters attempting to draw him into justifying the operation. El-Sayed suggested deflecting such questions by shifting focus to former President Donald Trump's associations with Jeffrey Epstein. "I'm just gonna go straight to child abuse, frankly," he said. "I'll just be like, Pedophile president decides that he doesn't like the front page news, so he decides to take us into another war."