Former Obama aide Jon Lovett urged Jewish Michiganders to vote for Abdul El-Sayed, saying voters have a “moral obligation” to support the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in Michigan.
On Tuesday’s episode of the “Pod Save America” podcast, the co-host condemned President Donald Trump for his rhetoric about El-Sayed at a recent rally for GOP candidate Mike Rogers.
Lovett urged Jewish voters in Michigan to reject Trump’s rhetoric, arguing that antisemitism on the left paled in comparison to the “hatred” coming from the right, which he said would eventually make America less safe for Jewish people.
“So Donald Trump says there that any Jew would be ashamed to vote for Abdul, and there’s a debate among Jews in Michigan about whether to vote for Abdul. I just want to be very clear, Jews in Michigan have a moral obligation to support Abdul,” he said. “They should do it to protect themselves from antisemitism and rising hatred in America.”
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“And if that sounds confusing to you at all, you should imagine two futures,” he continued. “One in which there is a debate inside the Democratic Party about America’s relationship to Israel, military aid for Israel and antisemitism on the left, which is real. That is a big and important debate we could have to try to find places of agreement, places of consensus. There can be persuasion and argument and hard feelings, but there can be democracy.”
The other future, Lovett said, would be dangerous for Jewish people.
“On the other, you have this kind of politics on the right, where it is about dominance and hatreds and othering of people. It starts with Muslims,” he said. “He does it for trans people. He does it for immigrants. He does it for Haitians, eating the dogs and the cats. If you think that that doesn’t end with Jews, you are out of your f—ing minds.”
“A country where this kind of politics is rewarded is a country where Jews are less safe. And anyone who has allowed their own concerns and legitimate concerns about Abdul to cloud that ultimate larger point is missing the big picture here,” Lovett continued. “For Jews in America, our safety is based around the idea that there’s a society in which we can have arguments and disagreements, but we respect those differences. Trump does not believe in that. And we need to have a check on Donald Trump in a Democratic Senate. And maybe Abdul is not your cup of tea. Maybe Abdul is not — is going to be a reliable vote against Israel. Fine, we can handle that. But we cannot handle a continued slide to this hateful authoritarian right. It will be dangerous for us.”
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Manhattan Institute Vice President Jesse Arm, a pollster and Michigan native, wrote to Fox News Digital about Lovett’s comments.
“Jon Lovett is a bitterly partisan hack who backed a candidate in Maine with a literal Nazi symbol inked on his chest because he had a D next to his name. He’s in no position to lecture Jews about their moral obligations,” he said, appearing to refer to former Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who suspended his campaign in July following a sexual assault allegation, which he denied.
Arm went on to criticize El-Sayed’s response to the March attack on Temple Israel, a synagogue in suburban Detroit, saying in part, “hurt people, hurt people.”
“His argument that Jews should vote for the guy who rationalized a terrorist attack targeting their children in a local synagogue preschool because Republicans might turn on them someday is both immoral and idiotic. The hard left is already in the disgraceful, bigoted place he imagines the right someday going,” he wrote.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Rogers and El-Sayed campaigns, as well as the RNC, and did not receive immediate replies.