A Michigan newspaper says it will no longer seek comment from Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, calling his campaign’s scrutiny of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed “lies and bigoted attacks.”
Fox News Digital reported that the Detroit Metro Times made the declaration Wednesday, with investigative reporter Steve Neavling announcing the break on X.
Neavling framed the move as historic for the paper and tied it directly to Rogers’ handling of El-Sayed, the Democratic contender and former Detroit health director.
"For the first time in @metrotimes history, we’re no longer seeking comment from a candidate’s campaign because of repeated lies and bigoted attacks,"
He added the target by name.
"That candidate is Mike Rogers, whose campaign keeps targeting Abdul El-Sayed’s Muslim faith."
Rogers, a former Michigan congressman, is running for U.S. Senate. El-Sayed is his Democratic rival. The Metro Times decision lands in a race already thick with fights over public safety, the auto industry, women’s health policy, and El-Sayed’s record and associations.
Neither the Rogers campaign nor the Detroit Metro Times answered Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Neavling’s paper had already pressed the Rogers campaign for an Oct. 8 report that, in the paper’s telling, “counted the ways” Rogers had misled readers about El-Sayed.
When Metro Times asked about claims tied to Rogers’ counterterrorism résumé, including his role in an operation targeting Osama bin Laden, the campaign did not answer the specific questions.
"When Metro Times asked about those claims for its Oct. 8 report, Rogers’ campaign declined to answer specific questions. It instead defended his record and repeated an unfounded allegation that El-Sayed received money from terrorist organizations,"
That is Neavling’s characterization. The Fox account presents the campaign’s pushback and the paper’s refusal to keep asking as the core dispute, not a settled verdict on every charge.
Neavling also wrote that Rogers has hit El-Sayed on public safety, women’s health, and Michigan’s auto industry, then flipped the comparison onto Rogers’ own record.
"Rogers has attacked El-Sayed, a physician and former Detroit health director, over public safety, women’s health, and Michigan’s auto industry. His own record includes opposing additional police funding, backing proposed cuts to women’s health services, and voting against measures intended to steer work to U.S. manufacturers,"
One flashpoint was the claim that El-Sayed wants to ban gas-powered vehicles. Neavling said the Rogers campaign advanced that line. Bridge Michigan, as relayed in the coverage, found El-Sayed had backed the Green New Deal’s clean energy goals but had not directly pushed such a ban.
During the July primary debate, El-Sayed opposed an electric vehicle mandate and said Michigan should keep building internal combustion engines while it builds out EV infrastructure.
Neavling further noted that Rogers once cast the shift away from gasoline as an opening for Michigan workers. In an August 2008 message to constituents, Rogers praised the Chevrolet Volt and described a future of “clean, green cars run for hundreds of miles without using gasoline.”
Voters can weigh the old Rogers language against the current campaign message. The Metro Times presented the contrast as proof of bad faith. A Senate race is allowed to test both men’s consistency on the industry that still defines the state.
The faith-and-security fight is what Neavling labeled bigoted. The underlying exchanges are public.
Earlier in the week, at a town hall, an audience member asked El-Sayed to denounce the Muslim Brotherhood. He answered, “Sure, yeah, absolutely.”
Last week his denial of family ties to the group drew fresh scrutiny after social media posts from his half-sister alleged that members of their family, including their mother, had been involved with the Muslim Brotherhood. In an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, El-Sayed denied that his family had any such ties.
Rogers has asserted that El-Sayed has not disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood and has pointed to other controversy around the Democrat’s orbit. Coverage also notes Rogers suggested El-Sayed believes “America deserved 9/11,” while tying the underlying statement to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, a prominent El-Sayed supporter, rather than to El-Sayed himself.
Those are hard questions in a national-security lane. Calling them “bigoted attacks” is the paper’s framing, not a finding that the topics are off-limits.
Neavling accused Rogers of having “inflated” his counterterrorism résumé on the bin Laden-related operation. The campaign’s response, per the Oct. 8 exchange, was to defend the record rather than litigate each prompt from Metro Times.
El-Sayed, for his part, has called himself a physician. He holds a medical degree but is not licensed to practice medicine, a point raised during the Democratic Senate primary in July.
Primary voters already heard that distinction. General-election voters can hear it again. A newsroom that shuts off contact with one campaign does not erase the record; it only advertises which scrutiny it will no longer bother to test.
Seeking comment is basic practice. It lets a campaign confirm, deny, or contextualize claims before publication. Metro Times says Rogers’ team answered with defense lines and a repeated allegation about terrorist-organization money instead of the precise answers the paper wanted. The paper’s remedy was to stop asking.
Neavling cast that as accountability. It also leaves Michigan readers with one side’s unfinished questionnaire and a public announcement that the other side’s campaign is no longer worth the call.
Rogers still has to answer to voters for his House record on police funding, women’s health proposals, and manufacturing votes. El-Sayed still has to answer for policy aims, the physician label, and the Brotherhood questions he has now addressed in public forums. None of that work requires a newspaper to freeze out a major-party nominee.
When a newsroom boasts that it has stopped seeking comment from the Republican in a Senate race, it is not ending “lies.” It is ending its own obligation to test them in real time, and Michigan voters can judge that choice as plainly as any campaign ad.
