The Michigan Senate debate on October 10 between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed got weird fast, but nobody could have predicted it would end up in “your mama” territory. Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent, accused El-Sayed’s birth mother of working for an organization that funneled money to Al-Qaeda, and the whole thing went sideways from there.
It started with Rogers making repeated insinuations throughout the debate that El-Sayed had ties to terrorist organizations. About 40 minutes in, Rogers suggested that El-Sayed opposed Flock surveillance cameras because he was worried about what they might catch. “If you have someone in your family that might be on the watchlist…” Rogers said, letting that hang in the air like a wet sock.
El-Sayed cut him off and told him to just say it outright. Rogers then started talking about his own mother working at a local chamber of commerce, which led El-Sayed to ask, “Are you going after my mom?” Rogers said he wasn’t, then immediately did exactly that. “What your mom was working at, I was going after that organization, that was indicted for funneling money to Al-Qaida. That’s your mom,” Rogers said. El-Sayed’s campaign says his mother was working at an Islamic relief agency helping orphaned children, and she was never charged with a crime or named as a co-conspirator, according to the Michigan Senate debate coverage.
"Let's do this!" "Let's open this can of worms" Candidates are now bringing 'yo mama' jokes to politics. pic.twitter.com/atRaPX10hO
— Frank (@drastic215x) October 9, 2026
Snopes, the fact-checking site, weighed in on August 25, calling the claim about El-Sayed’s mother “misleading and missing context.” Their report noted that while the Department of Justice convicted several officers of the relief organization for prohibited financial transactions with Iraq, “no charges of terrorism or knowingly supporting terrorism were ever brought against IARA-USA or its officers.” Snopes also pointed out that the organization was one of many Muslim charities shut down after 9/11 and that there is “no evidence Elkomy herself was aware of these actions or was doing anything other than helping orphans.”
To be fair to debate moderator Rick Albin of WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, the man earned every penny he made that night and probably deserved combat pay on top of it. The two candidates disagreed on pretty much everything: universal health care, defunding ICE, support for Israel, and data centers. El-Sayed wants the government to take an ownership stake in AI companies. Rogers thinks local authorities should handle data center decisions. They did agree on suspending the federal fuel tax and on stopping the war in Iran, though Rogers apparently just reached that conclusion a few days before the debate, which is the kind of timing that’s hard to miss.
Rogers also got off a decent line, telling El-Sayed after one exchange, “You learned that in Oxford, I guess, how to talk pretty.” El-Sayed fired back, “I learned that at Michigan, where I actually went to school,” and took a shot at Rogers for wearing a Michigan sweatshirt in campaign ads. Two former high school football players taking swings at each other on live TV, with one of them dragging the other’s mom into it. Michigan voters, this is what the primaries produced for you. Drop a comment below and let us know what you thought of the debate.
