El-Sayed Responds to GOP Convention Member Calling for Him to Be Shot: ‘Call It Out for What it Is’

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed urged Republicans to “call it out for what it is” after a GOP Convention attendee proclaimed he and other Dems should “be shot.”

El-Sayed spoke out after a member of the audience in Dallas could repeatedly be heard shouting, “He should be shot!” as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) named a list of Democrats during his Thursday speech, including El-Sayed.

As Cruz spoke on Thursday, a crowd member shouted the wildly violent phrase multiple times, including when Cruz mentioned New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. Cruz did not acknowledge the screams from the stage, and it was unclear whether he heard them.

Speaking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday’s edition of The Source, El-Sayed said of the rhetoric:

Look, I’m a dad with two daughters, and I hope those daughters get to grow up and live with their dad. This is what has become norm in our politics. I mean, literally calls to violence and the inability for anybody to actually call it out.

Democracy is supposed to be the process by which we solve our problems peacefully. We can learn to disagree agreeably, and when you hear that kind of call to violence, it should be shuddering to all of us. We have a responsibility to lower the temperature, to release that this is not a bloodsport, where you’re just trying to bash the other guy.

This is about actually solving problems that real people face. The reason I got into politics is not because I wanted to beat Republicans. I got into politics because I wanted to heal people, and I realized that our healthcare system was failing to do that — more interested in billing than healing.

And so I hope that everybody who heard that is going to call it out for what it is — a call to violence that ought to be condemned across the board — and that we can actually turn our politics back into a conversation about what really matters: the ability to live a dignified life, get the things that you need and deserve in your life, and recognize that our democracy, so long as we’re willing to dignify it and uphold it, is the best means we have to solving the challenges that we face together.

Watch above on CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!