Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers debated for the first time tonight in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

In November, voters will decide who to send to Washington, D.C., to represent the Wolverine state. The two traded attacks on investments, whose funding their campaigns, and immigration policy. 

El-Sayed called for price controls on gasoline, but also called to “hold oil and gas companies accountable.” 

“Look, I definitely think that’s something we should consider,” El-Sayed said. "Look, we’re in an emergency. When you’re paying $5 gas and $8 diesel, that’s an emergency, and I think we have a responsibility right now to make sure we do everything we can to address it.” 

The two talked about tariff policy, the Iran war, and grocery prices. 

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El-Sayed says he supports targeted tariffs. Rogers initially supported tariffs but last week said that some of the tariffs were hurting Michigan. 

Rogers said that he’s running in Michigan because of a failing economy. 

“First of all, I’m running because in the last quarter century, we’ve lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs in Michigan," Rogers said. "The last eight years, we have the highest utility rates in the Midwest, highest auto insurance rates in the Midwest, highest auto insurance rates in the country. Now, you have to be 40 years old, or the average homeowner is 40 years old. Our education is now 45th in the country.”

Rogers said that El-Sayed, who wants Medicare for All, wants to take away private insurance.

Rogers backed Immigration and Customs Enforcement but said that ICE should have gotten the “bad guy” quietly and then gotten out. Rogers said that Brandon Ortiz-Vite, an illegal alien in Grand Rapids, killed Grand Rapids woman Ruby Garcia. 

El-Sayed says that he wants to abolish ICE, but then claimed that we have to keep a secure border. 

Rogers slammed El-Sayed for not condemning terrorists. 

“He can’t condemn Hamas, he can’t condemn the Muslim Brotherhood,” Rogers said. “He says his home is Egypt.

El-Sayed attacked Rogers for owning a home in Florida, and Rogers returned fire at El-Sayed, who owns homes in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. 

El-Sayed claimed that Israel pushed the U.S. to fight the Iran war, which Rogers denied. Both candidates agreed that the war needs to end soon. 

When asked whether Israel or Iran is a bigger threat to the U.S.,  El-Sayed again refused to answer. 

The moderator moved to how the candidates plan to solve the $40 trillion national debt. 

Rogers said that lawmakers must sit in a room and cut waste, fraud, and abuse from budgets. He suggested there was $500 billion worth of fraud across the national government. 

El-Sayed claimed that the U.S. could reduce the national $40 trillion debt by taxing billionaires. 

Rogers also attacked El-Sayed for refusing to condemn the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. 

El-Sayed previously snapped at a reporter who asked whether he regrets not condemning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad.”

Michigan Republican Party Senior Communications Advisor Greg Manz said that the debate showed El-Sayed's true nature. 

"Tonight in Grand Rapids, Abdul El-Sayed presented the same clumsy, contradictory conman act that defines his entire campaign," Manz told Townhall in an email. "This debate showcased Conman Abdul's anti-American, extremist policies which Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent, decisively exposed. “Conman Abdul cares more about Palestine than Michigan, which should concern every Michigander, given that the same radical Islamists who fund him also fund the Muslim Brotherhood.”  


Rep. Bill G. Schuette, R-Midland, also slammed El-Sayed in a comment sent to Townhall. 

“Like a typical conman, Abdul El-Sayed’s attacks tonight are as fragile as the house of cards of his campaign. He says he wants money out of politics but fundraises with liberal billionaires like the Soros’ in California. His claims of ending endless wars are cheap when he profits off a second home in the Middle East protected by the U.S military. He talks about affordability while bilking taxpayers out of thousands in ‘consulting’ fees while running for U.S. Senate. You can’t trust Abdul’s words, so look to the company he keeps: his top political ally Hasan Piker believes America deserved 9/11 and he was just dining with Socialists like Mamdani in New York."