El-Sayed's Israel criticism features in Obama-Trump campaign exchange
An Israeli report places the Michigan Senate nominee's views alongside Obama's Iran-war criticism and Trump's attacks on the campaign trail.
IsraelWhy this story? One of כאן | חדשות - תאגיד השידור הישראלי's most watched videos since yesterday, with 25,918 views.
כאן | חדשות - תאגיד השידור הישראלי: The news division of Kan, Israel's public broadcaster. 806K subscribers and 1.8B views.
אובמה יצא נגד טראמפ - והוא לא נשאר חייב: ״נשיא כושל״
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 0:00Obama endorses El-Sayed at a Detroit rally, saying he is fighting for real change.
- 0:32An interview excerpt shows El-Sayed saying Israel is not actually America's friend.
- 1:16Obama criticizes Trump's nuclear-deal withdrawal and calls the Iran war unnecessary.
- 1:50Trump condemns Obama's nuclear agreement and alleges Iran used it to produce weapons.
- 2:27Obama mocks White House renovations and gold decorations.
- 2:54Trump attacks El-Sayed's name; El-Sayed then addresses the campaign's focus on his Muslim identity.
"Israel is not actually our friend," Abdul El-Sayed says in an interview excerpt included in a report on Barack Obama's support for his Michigan Senate campaign. For an Israeli audience, that statement gives the American campaign exchange a significance beyond the insults between two presidents.
Israel's Kan News, the news division of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, opens Nathan Guttman's report with Obama campaigning beside the Democratic nominee in Detroit. "Abdul is fighting for change, real change," Obama tells the crowd.
El-Sayed draws parallels with the former president: both have fathers who immigrated from Africa, and both have faced attention over their names. The report closes by presenting him as a rising Democratic figure whose political story echoes Obama's.
Between those scenes, the focus shifts to Iran. Speaking in Ohio, Obama criticizes Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and accuses him of starting "an unnecessary war that nobody asked for, nobody voted for." In a recorded telephone appearance, Trump calls Obama's agreement a disaster and alleges that Iran exploited it to produce weapons. Those are the competing political accounts presented in the report.
Obama also mocks the gold and renovations at the White House, comparing its appearance to a Cheesecake Factory opened by Saddam Hussein. Trump, meanwhile, attacks El-Sayed's name and portrays him as an extremist. "I'm the president, I can call him whatever the hell I want," he says from the rally stage.
El-Sayed's response returns to his Muslim identity and the way it has been used against him in the campaign. With the November 3 midterms approaching, Guttman's report connects that personal argument to the larger dispute over America's war policy and its relationship with Israel.
An American epidemiologist and politician who is the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat in the 2026 election.
More on Wikipedia ›The 2026 U.S. elections, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats due to be contested, alongside state and local offices.
More on Wikipedia ›Published on Trari
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- Channel
- כאן | חדשות - תאגיד השידור הישראלי
- Subscribers
- 806,000 ▲ 1,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 8,056,272
- Channel views, pace per day
- 1,634,620 (on a normal day: 1,096,545)
- Video published
- October 25, 2026
- Video views so far
- 39,271 (2 days online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 25,912 (on a normal day: 25,424)
The numbers
The report drew about 26,000 views since yesterday, placing it among Israel's most-watched news videos over that period.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which state is Abdul El-Sayed seeking to represent in the U.S. Senate?
El-Sayed is the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan in the campaign covered by this report.