First posted on Instagram
Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday, November 8, 2026, attacked President Donald Trump's decision to name Stephen Miller as his new White House chief of staff, telling ABC's "This Week" that Trump had hired "the most broken man to continue to run the most dysfunctional White House we've seen."
El-Sayed, a Democrat who won Michigan's open Senate seat on Tuesday, November 3, added that he did not know "what Stephen Miller has actually contributed to our culture, our society, in any real way, except to make us more angry and stoke the worst kind of fear and vitriol."
The attack came a day after El-Sayed posted the same message on X, in response to NBC News reporting that Susie Wiles was out as chief of staff and would be replaced by Miller. "Couldn't have picked a more broken person for the most dysfunctional White House in history," he wrote on Saturday, November 7.
Trump announced the change on Friday, November 6. Miller, the deputy chief of staff and the architect of the administration's immigration and deportation policies, will take over as chief of staff starting Monday, November 9. Wiles, who announced her resignation on Thursday night, will move to the Trump Political Operation.
Miller's wife, Katie Miller, answered El-Sayed on Sunday. "Stephen has contributed far more to America at 41 than Abdul El-Sayed will in a lifetime," she wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Miller with their children.
The exchange revived a feud from the Michigan Senate campaign. In October, Miller went after El-Sayed by name on Fox News, calling him a "Manchurian candidate" and questioning his allegiance to the United States, and raising claims about El-Sayed's sister, Eman Abdelhadi, and the family's background. The Washington Times reported on October 19 that El-Sayed was battling claims of family links to the Muslim Brotherhood, including a 2012 statement backing Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's government that a Washington Free Beacon report said carried the name of a "Dr. Abdul Rahman El-Sayed" among its 46 signatories.
El-Sayed's own remarks about identity have also drawn fire. On Friday, November 7, he declared that "Michigan is the capital of Arab America," and critics have pointed to academic papers he wrote as a medical student warning Arab Americans against assimilating into American society — writings columnist Betsy McCaughey described on October 27 as a warning that "if you're Arab-American, assimilating into American society is dangerous to your health."
El-Sayed was not the only Democrat to attack the appointment. California Governor Gavin Newsom called the move "sick," and the group Republicans Against Trump wrote: "Everything is going to get worse. Much worse."
El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers on November 3 to become the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate. He takes office in January.