The Detroit Metro Times announced Wednesday it will no longer seek comment from Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers’ campaign, citing what it called “repeated lies and bigoted attacks” on his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed.
Metro Times investigative reporter Steve Neavling made the announcement on X. “For the first time in @metrotimes history, we’re no longer seeking comment from a candidate’s campaign because of repeated lies and bigoted attacks,” he wrote. “That candidate is Mike Rogers, whose campaign keeps targeting Abdul El-Sayed’s Muslim faith.”
Neavling’s case against Rogers centers on several claims the Republican has made on the campaign trail. He accused Rogers of falsely asserting that El-Sayed has never disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, pointing to El-Sayed telling a town hall audience member “Sure, yeah, absolutely” when asked to denounce the group. Neavling also faulted Rogers for suggesting El-Sayed believes “America deserved 9/11” — a statement that was actually made by El-Sayed supporter and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, not El-Sayed himself.
Neavling further alleged Rogers has “inflated” his counterterrorism credentials, specifically regarding his role in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. According to Neavling’s Oct. 8 report, when Metro Times asked Rogers’ campaign about those claims, it declined to answer and instead repeated an “unfounded allegation” that El-Sayed received money from terrorist organizations.
The Metro Times report also pushed back on other Rogers attacks. On public safety, Neavling noted Rogers’ own record includes opposing additional police funding. On women’s health, he pointed to Rogers backing proposed cuts to women’s health services. On the auto industry, he cited Rogers voting against measures meant to steer manufacturing work to U.S. companies.
Rogers’ campaign has also claimed El-Sayed wants to ban gas-powered vehicles. Bridge Michigan found El-Sayed supported the Green New Deal’s clean energy goals but did not directly call for such a ban, and during the July Democratic primary debate he opposed an electric vehicle mandate, saying Michigan should keep producing internal combustion engines while building out EV infrastructure. Neavling noted Rogers himself once promoted the shift away from gasoline, praising the Chevrolet Volt in an August 2008 constituent message and describing a future of “clean, green cars run for hundreds of miles without using gasoline.”
Neither the Rogers campaign nor the Detroit Metro Times responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
The dispute over El-Sayed’s Muslim Brotherhood ties has not gone away. Last week, social media posts surfaced in which El-Sayed’s half-sister alleged that family members, including their mother, had been involved with the group — claims that came after El-Sayed denied any such ties.
El-Sayed, a physician and former Detroit health director, was also questioned during the July Democratic primary about calling himself a “physician” despite not being licensed to practice medicine.
