Abdul El-Sayed plastered “money out of politics” on yard signs across Michigan and swore off corporate cash.
Then federal filings showed exactly whose money he was happy to take.
And one celebrity who cut El-Sayed a check once led a crowd in a chant Michigan voters won’t forget.
Hollywood Found Its Favorite “Money Out of Politics” Candidate
Abdul El-Sayed wants Michigan to see him as the one Senate candidate nobody can buy. His campaign ads brag that he has never taken a corporate PAC check, and he loves to tell voters that billionaires and Trumpers pay for the attack ads against him.
Funny thing about that pitch. It never mentioned movie stars.
The Detroit News dug through federal campaign finance records and found a long list of famous names pouring money into Michigan races. El-Sayed’s campaign scooped up a healthy share of the sparkle.
Danny DeVito sent him $3,500. Rapper Macklemore gave $7,000, the biggest celebrity check in the bunch. Susan Sarandon chipped in $1,050, and actor Matthew Lillard and children’s author Judy Blume kicked in $1,000 apiece.
Barbra Streisand skipped the Senate race and worked the House map instead, writing $2,000 checks to Democrat House candidates Christina Hines and William Lawrence. Edsel Ford II, Henry Ford’s great-grandson and a former Ford Motor Co board member, spread $10,000 between two more Democrat House hopefuls, while Carter Oosterhouse of HGTV’s Trading Spaces backed Democrat Callie Barr.
But DeVito and Sarandon didn’t stumble into this race by accident. Both stars gave to US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) early in his 2020 presidential run, with the Associated Press reporting $2,700 from DeVito and $2,800 from Sarandon.
Sanders later stood with El-Sayed at a Detroit high school during the primary, and El-Sayed’s ads trumpet the Sanders endorsement right alongside the “No Corporate PAC Money” line.
So the Bernie money machine just found a new place to park.
DeVito, of course, built a whole career playing lovable schemers, from Louie De Palma barking orders in the dispatch cage on Taxi to the Penguin in Batman Returns. Somewhere, Louie is admiring the hustle.
One Seattle Chant Rode Along With Macklemore’s Check
Macklemore deserves a closer look, because nobody on that Hollywood list gave El-Sayed more.
In September 2024, the Seattle rapper took the stage at the Palestine Will Live Forever festival in his hometown, an event that raised money for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. Fan video caught him telling the crowd, “I’m not gonna stop you,” before he shouted “**** America” into the microphone.
The crowd cheered. His hometown teams did not.
Macklemore holds a stake in the ownership groups of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken and Seattle Sounders FC, and both teams put out a joint statement putting distance between themselves and his remarks. The Seattle Mariners piled on too. Organizers of a new Las Vegas festival called Neon City yanked him from the lineup within days.
But Macklemore never fully backed down. He posted a long statement that stopped short of an apology. “Do not misconstrue the word ‘****’ for the word ‘hate,’” he wrote, adding, “It’s different to be angry than to disown.”
Think about who that is. American fans bought his records, American arenas filled up for his shows, and two American sports franchises gave him a seat at the owners’ table. And he still found that chant worth leading.
Now his $7,000 helps pay for a Senate campaign in a state full of autoworkers, deer hunters, veterans, and Friday night football crowds who still take their caps off for the anthem.
Nobody can prove El-Sayed shares Macklemore’s view of the country, and no candidate should answer for every word a donor ever said. But a man who lectures everyone else about who funds them ought to have something to say about that check.
El-Sayed Already Told Michigan How to Read a Donor List
Here’s where it gets awkward for the good doctor. El-Sayed already handed voters the rulebook.
During the primary, Governor Gretchen Whitmer endorsed his opponent, US Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI), and El-Sayed suggested Whitmer’s big donors steered that choice.
“I think in this race, at the end of the day, it tends to be that candidates who generally have been funded the same way will tend to go together,” El-Sayed told reporters in Flint.
Fine. Run his own test on his own roster. Bernie’s celebrity donors. A rapper who chanted against America at a UNRWA benefit. And, according to Fox News, plans for a California fundraiser with George Soros’ nephew.
The super PAC side looks even less like “money out of politics.” El-Sayed pledged to refuse super PAC funding, yet the Washington Free Beacon reported that his own father-in-law has poured $300,000 into Fighting for Michigan PAC, making him the group’s biggest individual donor. The same report found fast-food businessman Zubair Kazi giving $50,000 through a company based in the Virgin Islands. The PAC insists the father-in-law plays no role in running it.
Then Chuck Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC pledged $30 million to help get El-Sayed elected.
When Martha MacCallum pressed him on Fox News about all the wealthy friends, El-Sayed drew a very convenient line. He argued that help from rich individuals differs from corporate money because “corporations shouldn’t buy politicians.”
But think that through. A corporation can’t cut him a check. A millionaire actor can. A rapper with a pro sports ownership stake can. A super PAC fattened by family money can spend millions. And somehow all of that counts as clean.
Republicans Brought Big Names Too, Just Without the Sermon
The Detroit News found famous money on the Republican side as well. Racing legend Roger Penske gave $7,000 to Republican Michael Bouchard, and Ross Perot added $3,500 to Bouchard. Orlando Magic chairman Daniel DeVos spread $21,400 across four GOP candidates.
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, a co-founder of WWE, gave $28,000 to the four Michigan Republican House candidates. Cincinnati Reds owner Bob Castellini sent $10,000 to GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers, and Anthony Scaramucci gave $3,000 to Republican Bill Huizenga.
Not every one of those donors lives in Michigan either. Out-of-state money flows in both directions in a race this big.
But there’s a difference worth noticing. Penske’s company calls Bloomfield Hills home, and the DeVos family fortune grew out of Amway in west Michigan. Those names have meant paychecks in Michigan for decades.
And none of those Republicans built a campaign around purging money from politics. Rogers accepts corporate money, and El-Sayed attacks him for it at every turn. Nobody can call a man a hypocrite for doing exactly what he said he would do.
Celebrities don’t hand out checks for the fun of it, either. They expect votes. El-Sayed wants Medicare for All, which would put Washington in charge of every retiree’s knee surgery and every family’s doctor visit. He wants higher taxes on the wealthy, and his Hollywood backers have the accountants to soften that blow. The welder in Saginaw and the diner owner in Traverse City don’t.
That’s the deal on the table. Michigan families carry the bill, and the stars fly home.
So far, no report shows El-Sayed sending back Macklemore’s $7,000. That leaves the “money out of politics” candidate holding a check from a man who once yelled “**** America” at a UNRWA fundraiser.
Sources: Breitbart News; The Detroit News; Associated Press; AV Club; KOMO News; Fox 13 Seattle; Las Vegas Review-Journal; Fox News; Washington Free Beacon; Jewish Telegraphic Agency; PolitiFact; The Nation; Common Dreams; Abdul for US Senate campaign
