Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Monday schooled Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum about President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran.
While appearing on MacCallum’s show, the Michigan Democrat made the case that Trump’s war, which he launched without congressional authorization in February, was one “we shouldn’t be fighting.”
“Why are we fighting this war, to what end?” El-Sayed asked. “Who benefits from it? Why did we do this? What are we paying for it?”
El-Sayed: Why are we fighting this war?FOX: Iran created a huge threat to the neighborhoodEl-Sayed: The nuclear threat had been contained. FOX: I don’t know, they had been breaking JCPOA by many estimations. El-Sayed: By estimations people like to cherry-pick, sure https://t.co/qYiCeq4lB3
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2026
MacCallum responded that Iran “created a huge threat” in the Middle East, and pointed to Iran’s role in the 1983 bombing of a barracks that was housing US Marines in Beirut, Lebanon as evidence.
El-Sayed noted that former President Barack Obama had signed a deal with Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program, which Trump scrapped during his first term even though Iran was complying with the terms of the agreement at the time.
“Donald Trump came and tore that agreement up, and then, in his second administration, created a war that the people of Michigan are now paying for,” said El-Sayed. “Then you ask yourself, does more war make us actually safer? And the argument that I think we continue to need to learn is that less war in the world is usually safer.”
“We’re in a situation right now where we could have chosen peace,” he added. “And instead we chose war. And right, you’ve got a situation with the Strait of Hormuz where we can’t move oil and gas.”
Elsewhere in the interview, El-Sayed explained his rationale for raising taxes on the wealthy, whom MacCallum credited with making the US the “engine of the world.”
FOX: I understand thinking that some people have too much money. We are engine of the world for these things and people end up being billionaires as a result. El-Sayed: The issue is not that some people have too much money. It’s that the engine that created their opportunity to make money is being underfunded…FOX: You said you wanted to choke them out.El-Sayed: I don’t want to choke anyone out. I want to make sure everyone can breathe. Right now, you have an economy where people are getting choked out because they don’t have the basic means for a dignified life because we are more focused on allowing a billionaire to make another billion…
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2026
“I would rather live in a society where, rather than a billionaire making a second billion, I’m invested in a public school,” he said, “so that some kid out there gets a great education, gets to participate in capitalism, builds an amazing business, and gets to make money too.”
“I don’t want to choke anyone out,” El-Sayed explained. “I want to make sure everyone can breathe. Right now, you have an economy where people are getting choked out because they don’t have the basic means for a dignified life because we’re all a lot more focused on allowing a billionaire to make a second, third, fifth billion than we are in making sure a kid gets good schools.”
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