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Rogers to El-Sayed: you're not a physician, so explain the Dubai property

Photo: P.J. Siquig / Public domain (source)

Mike Rogers Grills El-Sayed on ‘Physician’ Claim, Egyptian Citizenship and a Dubai Rental Property

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 8, 2026 · 5 min read
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Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat got its first head-to-head debate on Thursday night, and Republican Mike Rogers spent much of it turning Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s own biography against him. Rogers challenged El-Sayed’s habit of calling himself a physician, pressed him on conflicting statements about Egyptian citizenship, and demanded to know how a man with a thin work history ended up with a rental property in Dubai.

The debate was televised from WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids on Oct. 8, and it was loud, personal and frequently interrupted.

“He’s not really a doctor”

The sharpest recurring fight was over El-Sayed’s credentials. When El-Sayed began an answer with “As a doctor, I understand exactly what’s happening,” Rogers cut in: “Not a physician.” He said it again moments later, and elsewhere put it plainly: “He’s not really a doctor.” El-Sayed, who at one point demanded, “What degree did I get at Columbia?”, pointed to his medical degree from the university and said Rogers could “take it up with them.”

Here is what the record shows. El-Sayed earned a medical degree from Columbia in 2014 and a doctorate in public health from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. But he withdrew his residency application during medical school, and he has never held a medical license in Michigan or New York. He cannot legally treat patients or write prescriptions. His hands-on clinical experience came during medical school, including a four-week sub-internship. He did not complete a residency and has never been a practicing physician.

That matters because El-Sayed has used the word himself. In a March interview on “Breaking Points,” he said, “I’m a physician. I trained to take care of people.” After winning the Aug. 4 primary, he conceded to reporters, “I don’t practice medicine, as has been well documented by all of you.” Michigan law defines a physician as someone “licensed or authorized under this article to engage in the practice of medicine.” El-Sayed is not licensed. His degree makes him a doctor in the academic sense; under Michigan’s legal definition, it does not make him a physician.

The citizenship question

Rogers then went at El-Sayed’s shifting account of his citizenship. “So he lied about being a physician. He lied now about being an Egyptian citizen or not being an Egyptian citizen. I can’t figure out what he is today,” Rogers said, before calling El-Sayed “a con man.”

The background: on Oct. 5, the Washington Free Beacon published video of a 2016 speech El-Sayed gave at a GlobeMed conference in Detroit, while he was the city’s health director, in which he said, “I carry dual citizenship.” The Free Beacon had earlier reported that his 2014 academic résumé listed him as a citizen of both the United States and Egypt.

His campaign denies it. “Abdul is not a dual citizen by any verifiable metric and never has been,” spokeswoman Roxie Richner said. The campaign told the Free Beacon the résumé listing was “an error based on what he was told by family members secondhand.” No public document has settled the question either way. What is settled is that El-Sayed said one thing to a conference audience and a résumé, and his campaign now says another.

The money, and the Dubai property

Rogers also attacked El-Sayed’s backers. “He has taken money from individuals on his campaign who openly support Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida,” he said, adding that El-Sayed had taken money from groups he tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and from the family of George Soros: “By the way, that’s a billionaire last I checked.” Those are Rogers’ characterizations of individual donors and groups, not findings of any court or agency.

Then came the line that drew the most attention. “How does a guy who’s had less than four years of work experience, who, by the way, on the campaign trail said he had 10, own a luxury property in the United Arab Emirates? He’s worth a million bucks. Somebody has to tell me how this math works.”

The property is real, and it is on El-Sayed’s own paperwork. His Senate financial disclosure, released July 28 just before a primary debate and after he sought an extension, lists a single-family rental home in Dubai valued between $100,000 and $250,000. According to the Free Beacon, the filing also lists a liability of $50,000 to $100,000 owed to Majid Al Futtaim Tilal Al Ghaf Phase A LLC, the developer of a resort-style Dubai community, labeled a “Developer Credit Balance” with zero percent interest. The Detroit News reported the property is owned in part by his wife.

El-Sayed blamed the delayed disclosure on the fact that his “wife and her family own property abroad,” which made it “complicated.” He has also suggested the focus is about his background: “I wonder why they’re so focused on ‘foreign’ properties for somebody with a name like mine.” Rogers’ figures for El-Sayed’s work history and net worth were his own claims; the disclosure itself is not in dispute.

El-Sayed’s counterpunches

El-Sayed did not sit quietly. He accused Rogers of voting to keep prescription drug prices high and of taking “a million dollars alone from Big Pharma. Another million dollars from the health insurance corporations,” and tried to paint him as a wealthy insider: “$14 million. Two yachts. A McMansion in Florida.” At another point he demanded, “How many yachts do you own? How many yachts?” Rogers shot back, “I never owned a yacht in Florida, brother.” When Rogers raised the Islamic American Relief Agency, a charity where El-Sayed’s mother reportedly worked that was designated by the Treasury Department and later pleaded guilty to illegally sending money to Iraq, El-Sayed answered, “Going after my mom, my sister. Got nothing to actually say about me.” She was never charged with any wrongdoing.

Why this race matters

Democrat Gary Peters is not seeking a third term, and Democrats have held this seat since 1979. Republicans have not won a Senate race in Michigan since Spencer Abraham in 1994. Rogers, a former congressman, has President Trump’s endorsement and came within roughly 20,000 votes of beating Elissa Slotkin in 2024. Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up, and public polling has shown a close contest.

Voters decide Nov. 3. Between now and then, El-Sayed will have to explain to Michigan why the word “physician,” a dual-citizenship claim and a Dubai rental all kept showing up in his own words and filings.

A candidate who can’t keep his own résumé straight is asking Michigan to trust him with a Senate seat.

Sources

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