A Persian student whose family suffered under Iran’s regime put Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on the spot Wednesday with a simple question:
“Do you stand with us?”
Iman Dashti confronted El-Sayed at a University of Michigan town hall, recounting what he said his own family endured at the hands of Tehran before pressing the Democrat over his past reluctance to speak out following the death of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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“My cousin was hunted in the streets of Iran by the IRGC because her hijab wasn’t on right,” Dashti said, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He also said that his uncle was sentenced to death and received 50 lashes under the regime.
Then Dashti turned to El-Sayed’s own record.
Leaked campaign audio earlier this year captured El-Sayed telling staff he wanted to avoid commenting on Khamenei’s death because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today.”
“So, like, I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all,” El-Sayed said in the recording.
Dashti told him that silence left “a gaping hole in our community.”
He asked El-Sayed whether he regretted it, whether he would renounce people who held vigils supporting Khamenei and whether he stood “unequivocally against the IRGC” and Iran’s government.
Not surprisingly, El-Sayed did not answer each question directly.
Instead, he said Americans could oppose a foreign government and “stand in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements,” while arguing that the United States should not act as “the world’s policeman.”
Dashti tried again.
“You stand with us?”
“I will always stand with movements for freedom and democracy,” El-Sayed replied.
He then returned to his opposition to American-led regime change.
“We should not be in the business of regime change,” he said. “I want freedom and democracy for the people of Iran, no question. But I want that to be done by the people of Iran.”
El-Sayed’s campaign later said he “condemns government anti-free speech violence” and reiterated his opposition to spending American money and risking American troops in regime-change wars.
That distinction is El-Sayed’s stated position: support Iranian democracy movements, oppose U.S.-led regime change.
But Dashti wasn’t asking him to invade Iran.
He was asking whether he stood with people like his family against the regime that persecuted them.
And he had to ask twice.
Watch the clip below:
🚨 UPDATE: In a SHOCKING incident, a young Iranian-American tells MI Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed that his family was hunted and k*lled by the Islamists in Iran — and asks Abdul to CONDEMN the IRGC…
…Abdul refused IN HIS FACE.
“WE’RE DYING.”
“You said you didn’t want to…
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 24, 2026
