Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) said Thursday that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed doesn’t know what “real men know” while spouting falsehoods about El-Sayed’s college football acumen.

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy showed a 2023 clip of El-Sayed, a Democrat, doubting the U.S. was the land of opportunity while suggesting that Canada was a better place for the American dream.

“Is playing to Canada or socialism, is this gonna win him a general election?” she asked.

Blagojevich gladly took the bait but shifted gears.

“Some of their positions are as inauthentic as they are,” Blagojevich said. “This candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, even in that video you just showed when he talked about beating Ohio, you mean Ohio State. He doesn’t really know football. It’s Michigan-Ohio State. ... That’s what real men know. That’s not an alpha-male thing. This is all contrived, and it’s so phony and so transparent.”

“These Democratic candidates are trying to become one of the guys because they are not one of the guys,” he continued. “Any guy who refuses to call his mother ‘mother, mom or mama’ because they are afraid of the woke warriors and they have to call them birthing persons have no testicular virility and need more testosterone. .. It’s fake, and it comes across just like this guy, who doesn’t even know college football.”

First thing: In this case, it’s Blagojevich who doesn’t know college football. Michigan fans routinely refer to Ohio State as “Ohio,” as El-Sayed, a Michigan grad, has explained. The former state leader is also wrong for suggesting that El-Sayed doesn’t say “mama.” “Love you, mama,” the progressive is shown saying in a Mother’s Day video.

Second thing: Consider the source. Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years for corruption that included trying to sell an appointment to Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence to eight years in 2020 and pardoned him in 2025.

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