Stevens defends endorsing Rogers during tense CNN interview

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) on Sunday defended her endorsement of Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers (R) over Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a tense interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in a bitter primary, had assured Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) in a phone call Saturday night that she supported El-Sayed after the senior lawmaker asked Stevens not to attend a church event with the candidate Sunday morning.

Cooper asked Stevens what had changed overnight.

“Well, look, this is just a weight off my shoulders, OK?” Stevens said. “Abdul has been getting angrier and angrier. I was trying to help, I endorsed him … There are so many Democrats who want to vote for our Democratic nominee. And they’re just being told, ‘Hey, this is a party you don’t belong in,’ or ‘This is a campaign you don’t belong in.'”

“And I’ve never cast a present vote in the Congress,” she continued. “I’m making a decision here and that’s just where I landed on this. I woke up this morning, clear-eyed, fresh and focused on what was in my heart, and that’s that.”

Cooper pressed Stevens about the phone call. The lawmaker said she “wasn’t on the phone I think that late, but I know Debbie’s always working around the clock.” She said she was “with [her] thoughts” and “writing things out” before bringing up “this level of anger, and the things that we are seeing.”

She stated her loyalty to the party and said “nothing with me changed, Anderson.” Cooper pressed her again on his question.

“Oh Anderson, you certainly weren’t on the phone with me at midnight, and I don’t think I was on the phone either,” Stevens said. “But I have great respect for Congresswoman Dingell, and you know, she is a pillar…”

Cooper repeated the question twice as Stevens continued speaking before contextualizing what happened and asking the question a third time.

“Anderson, this is a broader point about what’s going on in our party,” Stevens said.

“It’s actually not, it’s just a question about why you would change your mind,” Cooper interjected.

Stevens said she has not cast her vote yet, prompting Cooper to ask, “So you might change your mind again?” Stevens said her mind was “made up” and that she still loves the Democratic Party “a whole lot.”

Cooper then pointed to a post on the social platform X from Stevens against giving “MAGA another Senate seat in November” and asked “why is it OK now?”

“Well, why is it OK to have the Democratic Party, and a top nominee, ejecting –– you know, this type, or injecting, rather, this type of anger and lack of kindness? That’s all,” Stevens replied, before later saying it sounded like Cooper was upset with her.

“No, I’m not,” he said. “You’re really not answering any of my questions so it’s somewhat frustrating.”

The back-and-forth continued, with Stevens saying she could not condone El-Sayed campaigning with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and pointed to comments made by him and Piker’s uncle, “The Young Turks” co-founder Cenk Uygur, as reason for people to “feel hurt” by El-Sayed’s campaign.

“Look, I appreciate all the introspection on how I make my decisions and how I reached this moment,” Stevens at one point said.

Cooper asked about staffers leaving Stevens’s congressional office over the endorsement. She called her team “incredible” and that she was “under transition,” as she is leaving at the end of her term.

“These are great individuals who I care a lot about and, certainly, they’re free to share their views on this,” she said. “I am not trying to upset anyone.”

Stevens dismissed President Trump’s praise toward her endorsement, telling Cooper that she voted to impeach the president twice.

The interview reached a long pause, followed by Stevens accusing Cooper of editorializing while he asked her about the call again. The interview ended shortly after.

Dingell appeared next, calling the interview between Cooper and Stevens “one of the most painful interviews I have ever watched.” She said that the flurry since the endorsement “has all become a distraction” but that it was “backfiring,” saying El-Sayed has “raised more money today, more than a million dollars.”

Cooper asked if the two spoke. Dingell said they spoke late Saturday night and said many others “were embarrassed” by the news on Sunday morning. He asked the senior lawmaker if Stevens said on their phone call that she was not going to endorse Rogers.

“Yes, she did,” Dingell said. “Multiple times.”

Dingell said she “loves” Stevens and operates differently than her as a lawmaker and emphasized the division seen on the campaign trail. But she urged Democrats to vote for their party candidates.

“By the end of the day, I thought Abdul was going to win, but I felt a shift just being out, as I always am, this afternoon,” she said. “So, I think this race is going to be close. Anybody watching should not think that they shouldn’t go to the polls, that their votes don’t matter –– but I think it’s been a very difficult day and it’s been very painful for many people to watch.”