A regional field organizer for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was recorded on hidden camera saying the candidate has "people from overseas that donate to him," acknowledging that such contributions are not allowed under federal law, and warning that denouncing Hamas could cost the campaign the support of the people who funded it.
The recordings were released by James O'Keefe, the founder of the O'Keefe Media Group, who posted the undercover footage to his X account on Monday evening. O'Keefe Media Group, which has 934,000 followers on the platform, carried the same material simultaneously. The organizer, identified in the videos as Abdoul Beckwith, was described by O'Keefe as a regional field organizer for Abdul for Senate and, separately, as a full-time field organizer for the Michigan Democratic Party.
In the footage, an undercover journalist posing as a campaign volunteer asks Beckwith about the candidate's funding. "You know, he has people from overseas that donate to him," Beckwith says. When the journalist asks whether that is permitted, Beckwith replies: "I think it's not allowed. No, this is not allowed."
O'Keefe, narrating the video from Detroit, walked viewers through the relevant statute, citing 52 U.S.C. Section 3121, which bars foreign nationals from making campaign contributions, and noted that federal regulations also prohibit campaigns from knowingly accepting them. He acknowledged on camera that overseas donations are not automatically illegal — American citizens living abroad and lawful permanent residents may contribute under standard campaign finance rules — but argued that Beckwith's own characterization suggested the donors in question were not eligible.
The video then turns to the question of Hamas. According to the transcript, Beckwith tells the undercover journalist that the candidate cannot simply disavow the terrorist organization. "We can't just say, you know, no, I don't support Hamas. You know, I reject all of them because he's going to lose the people that bought him up in the first place," Beckwith says. O'Keefe characterized the remark as Beckwith explaining that the candidate "has to play a game" and must "deceive voters about his stance" on Hamas, and said Beckwith also explained why El-Sayed cannot denounce the Muslim Brotherhood.
During a car ride, Beckwith offered his own assessment of the people surrounding the candidate, singling out white and Jewish advisers. "There's a lot of white people around him. A lot of Jewish people around him," Beckwith says in the transcript. "And when you're around a circle of people for so long, you absorb, you know, the ideology that manipulates everything like that." He added that he worried such advisers would "hijack him" and that within a year the senator would be "doing what they want with him."
Beckwith also recounted what he said was a prior undercover visit to his office in 2020 during the Georgia Senate runoff, describing how he spotted a camera lens and red recording light on a visitor's backpack. O'Keefe identified himself as the journalist behind that earlier visit.
In a phone call with Beckwith included in the video, O'Keefe pressed the organizer on his recorded remarks. Beckwith rejected the characterization of what he said, answered "all of it" when asked which part was incorrect, and repeatedly asked who O'Keefe was to be asking. He did not clarify which overseas donors he had been referring to. The exchange included profanity and a comparison of O'Keefe to television host Chris Hansen.
O'Keefe said he contacted both the Abdul for Senate campaign and the Michigan Democratic Party before publication. The party told him Beckwith was "no longer employed with the coordinate campaign," according to the video. The El-Sayed campaign called Beckwith's comments "untrue," "wildly misinformed," and "not reflective of the campaign," and said the campaign is in full compliance with Federal Election Commission regulations. O'Keefe Media Group reported that Beckwith had been terminated as a result of its reporting, and the Michigan Democratic Party said the individual has no knowledge of the Abdul campaign's internal operations — though the hidden camera footage showed Beckwith inside a campaign office in Detroit coordinating with campaign officials.
The video also examines Beckwith's role in the party's coordinated campaign, which supports Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, including El-Sayed. Beckwith's LinkedIn profile, as described in the footage, lists him as a full-time field organizer for the Michigan Democratic Party. In the North Detroit campaign office, Beckwith was recorded alongside a man identified as Bob Hobart, whose posted resume lists work in Vice President Kamala Harris' scheduling office and on her 2024 presidential campaign. When O'Keefe reached Hobart by phone for comment, Hobart deferred to the Michigan Democratic Party's communications team.
O'Keefe noted that the campaign called the undercover journalist back days later offering additional volunteer work, which he described as evidence of dysfunction. The video also includes Beckwith alleging that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat running for governor, "works for the KKK" — an allegation he repeated — and suggesting that publicizing such views would damage campaign morale and fundraising.
O'Keefe said his team visited the El-Sayed campaign headquarters in person and that Beckwith assaulted a member of the news organization, placing staff in imminent harm. He said the footage has been provided to the Detroit Police Department and that a police report for assault has been filed.
The Washington Times editorial board weighed in on the same night, writing that "voters should have serious concerns about Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, and his family's reported views about the Muslim Brotherhood." The O'Keefe material also circulated through O'Keefe's own account, which has 3.6 million followers, and the network's main account.
The recordings land amid a broader fight over El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood. CNN reported that El-Sayed disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood on Saturday during a heated exchange at a town hall, and criticized implications that he holds "dual loyalty." Newsweek reported the same clash with a voter who asked him to disavow the movement. The Guardian reported that the man who heckled El-Sayed is Thomas Teepell, a former aide to Republican Senator Josh Hawley. The Guardian also reported that CBS News reporter Jan Crawford apologized and deleted a post praising the heckler, and that CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss had personally advocated for journalists to pursue story angles related to El-Sayed's supposed sympathy toward the Muslim Brotherhood.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claims made in the undercover recordings, including Beckwith's statements about overseas donations, the candidate's position on Hamas, or the identities of any donors.
Our Take
The O'Keefe tapes are a reminder that campaigns are not run by the candidate alone. A field organizer working inside a coordinated operation is paid to know the ground game, and voters are entitled to ask why a man on that payroll believed the campaign's money came from overseas and that the candidate could not say a word against Hamas without losing the people who "bought him up." The El-Sayed campaign's answer — that the comments are untrue and misinformed — is the right answer to give, but it is not sufficient. If Beckwith had no knowledge of the campaign's finances, the campaign should say plainly where its money comes from and let the record stand.
The press has spent days chasing hecklers and social posts about the Muslim Brotherhood while a hidden camera walked into a Detroit campaign office. That is the story the establishment outlets did not want to touch. Conservatives should keep asking the question the El-Sayed campaign would rather not answer: who is funding this Senate bid, and what has the candidate promised the people writing the checks?
