Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum found an interview flipped back on her Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, when Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed asked her over and over whether the war in Iran has left Americans safer — until she paused to point out which of them was running the conversation. “I’m interviewing you,” MacCallum said.
President Donald Trump attacked El-Sayed again on Friday, Oct. 9, at a White House Columbus Day celebration, where he said he calls the candidate “Mohammed.”
El-Sayed, a former public health official, and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, met for their first debate on Thursday, Oct. 8, in Grand Rapids, where El-Sayed addressed Israel and Iran.
El-Sayed, 41, would be the first Muslim elected to the Senate. He faces Rogers in the Nov. 3 midterms and won the primary over Rep. Haley Stevens.
Terrorism Opens the Interview
MacCallum opened the interview on terrorism, challenging El-Sayed over whether his past remarks had suggested victims of terror attacks were themselves to blame. El-Sayed answered, “The victim is never at fault, and terrorism is wrong no matter who perpetrates the terrorism, who it is perpetrated against.”
Social media posts on 9/11 and terrorism that predated July 2023 were taken down by El-Sayed’s campaign, which said it acted so the old material could not be stripped of its context.
Sparring Over the Iran War
El-Sayed argued that war is a system of violence, then asked what end the U.S. fighting in Iran serves, who profits from it and why it is happening at all. Iran, MacCallum countered, had assembled an enormous threat in its own region and had killed thousands of American citizens.
The nuclear threat, the big one, had already been contained, El-Sayed replied. MacCallum disputed that, noting that many estimates had Iran violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era nuclear agreement. A deal had been secured by former President Barack Obama, El-Sayed answered, and Trump later destroyed it. When MacCallum tried to break in as he returned to his central question, El-Sayed told her he had not finished his point.
Peace had been available and war was chosen instead, El-Sayed said, and the result is a Strait of Hormuz where oil and gas cannot move. Not true, MacCallum cut in, citing a Wall Street Journal piece she said showed the U.S. was nearly back to getting oil out of the strait and the wider region.
El-Sayed asked why gas prices are so high. In response, MacCallum reached for Trump’s long-used line that prices were about to come down. El-Sayed said drivers in his state are not seeing that at the pump. The average Michigander, he said, is weighing more than fuel costs: grocery prices, the 18 service members who lost their lives, and service members who were deployed and left stuck at sea without the resources or rations they needed.
Turning the Tables on the Host
El-Sayed asked MacCallum directly whether she was a fan of a war now in its eighth month. She was not claiming to support the war, MacCallum replied, though an argument can be made that it will make the United States safer. El-Sayed pressed her on whether more war produces more threats or fewer, got no answer, and asked her again to say whether the fighting has made the country safer. Asked in the same interview about his contact with streamer Hasan Piker, El-Sayed said, “There’s not a relationship. The reason I have a conversation with him is the same reason I have a conversation with you.”
A Network Caught in the Middle
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday, Oct. 6, that Fox is “promoting the Dumocrats,” and he called MacCallum’s interview a “softball.”
Fox News Media President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace told Axios the interview reflected the network’s willingness to air programming its core audience may not want to hear. “Someone didn’t necessarily like that,” he said. “But that’s what we do.” Fox News aired El-Sayed’s campaign ads 129 times in the first six days of October, roughly twice as often as they appeared on ESPN, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms.
Michigan Republican strategist Jason Roe said of Fox’s El-Sayed coverage: “They are doing him a favor.” He added, “It’s only helping him reach center-right voters. But they are in business to make money, and he attracts eyeballs.”
Fox News has fielded private complaints from White House aides who fear the coverage is boosting a left-wing candidate. Those were not the first such complaints. Several Republican operatives contacted the network in August after Fox host Jesse Watters said “you gotta respect Abdul because he beat the machine” — a line El-Sayed then used in a campaign ad as an “unlikely validator.” After a later, tougher Watters interview on immigration and healthcare, Watters told viewers the next day, “I actually like Abdul. I probably shouldn’t like him, but I do.”
Asked by Mediaite about Trump’s earlier jab that “real patriots will never like Fox,” Fox host Sean Hannity called it “a throwaway comment.” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott rang the Nasdaq closing bell on Tuesday, Oct. 6, a day before the network’s 30th anniversary.
Scrutiny of the Nominee
A CNN report published Oct. 7 said El-Sayed had called Hasan Piker, warning the streamer that his rhetoric was costing votes. Fox News’ Michigan coverage has highlighted Black voters and Jewish Democrats who say they are wary of backing El-Sayed.
