Sen. John Fetterman is offering Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed $100,000 to put two of his political relationships in front of voters, beginning with a Sept. 11 event alongside streamer Hasan Piker.
The Pennsylvania Democrat put $50,000 on the table if El-Sayed holds a rally with Piker on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Fetterman wants the candidate and Piker to address the streamer’s previous declaration that America “deserved 9/11.”
“I’m offering $50,000 for you to do a rally with Hasan Piker on 9-11, the anniversary, and you could all explain to people why America would deserve that 25 years ago,” Fetterman said during an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
Piker has apologized for the comment, and El-Sayed has rejected it.
Speaking with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” the Michigan Democrat called the remark “dumb” and said Piker had withdrawn it.
“Of course it was a dumb statement and of course I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement,” El-Sayed told Welker. “He disavowed it. So yes, America didn’t deserve 9/11.”
Fetterman’s challenge came with a second $50,000 condition. He said El-Sayed should also campaign with his half-sister, University of Chicago professor and activist Eman Abdelhadi, whom Fetterman accused of publicly celebrating Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.
The senator’s proposed payment would total $100,000 if El-Sayed appeared with both Piker and Abdelhadi.
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Fetterman used the Fox News appearance to argue that the people around El-Sayed should matter to Michigan voters.
“These are the people that he aligns with,” Fetterman said. “That’s the kinds of folks that helped him win the primary now.”
Fetterman also accused El-Sayed of supporting sharia law, Hamas and Iran. He pointed to an interview with The New York Times from several years ago while making the sharia-law allegation.
“He’s a socialist,” Fetterman said of El-Sayed. “But he also absolutely loves Sharia law. I mean, he said that in an interview with The New York Times a few years back. Yeah, absolutely, Sharia law. And he actually has support for Hamas and Iran as well.”
The Pennsylvania senator returned to Piker while making his case against El-Sayed’s political alliances.
“And now he has been campaigning strong with Hasan Piker,” Fetterman said. “Of course we all know the guy that said America ‘deserved 9/11’ and that absolutely despises Israel and Jews.”
The Sept. 11 proposal also drew attention to El-Sayed’s own deleted posts about the attacks.
In two deleted 2020 posts in which El-Sayed compared America’s COVID-19 response with its response to an external threat, arguing that the response to the pandemic should be greater because more people had died of COVID.
In another deleted post written on the 20th anniversary of the attacks in 2021, El-Sayed wrote that America’s response to the terrorist attacks had been more egregious than the unprovoked attacks themselves.
Fetterman has made criticism of socialism within his party a recurring public theme. In an X post responding to a CBS News/YouGov survey, he wrote that the Democratic Party was becoming “the party of socialism.”
The Aug. 12 through 14 poll surveyed 2,287 adults nationwide. Among Democratic respondents, 58% held a favorable view of socialism, while 32% viewed capitalism favorably.
John, please join us
We’re not socialists
And we don’t bite https://t.co/RwCJ6OpVLO
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) August 16, 2026
The inverse numbers were 18% with an unfavorable view of socialism and 50% with an unfavorable view of capitalism.
Across all respondents, 35% had a positive view of socialism and 42% had a negative view. Capitalism received a positive rating from 46% of those surveyed, while 33% held a negative view.
“I’m a proud free market capitalist,” Fetterman posted alongside a Mediaite article about the poll. “This is lunacy.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, used his own X account to invite Fetterman to change parties.
“John, please join us,” Lee wrote. “We’re not socialist. And we don’t bite.”
Fetterman laid out a related complaint in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity after the host listed Democratic Socialists of America positions that included eliminating the Senate, granting amnesty to illegal immigrants and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and prisons.
“Of course not,” Fetterman told Hannity when asked whether he agreed with that agenda. “Like, the DSA, they’re deeply anti-American. They’re deeply anti-capitalism. They’re deeply anti-the American way of life.”
He also criticized DSA members whose parents bought them homes worth millions of dollars.
“They want to impoverish middle class whites, and seize all the production,” Fetterman said. “I would think every single Democrat should condemn the DSA.”
On “Cats & Cosby” in late August, Fetterman connected El-Sayed to a wider roster of Democrats he sees as evidence of the same problem.
He named former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner and Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson, who has the Maine chapter of the DSA’s endorsement and views Fetterman compared with Platner’s.
Platner left the Maine Senate contest after a woman he had dated accused him of rape. Platner denied the accusation.
“I don’t care if he’s a fellow Democrat,” Fetterman told hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby.
“Our party has a socialism problem,” he stated.
Fetterman also said he would leave the Democratic Party if it formally became anti-Israel, calling support for Israel a matter of moral clarity for him.
