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AIPAC, 'Murky' Donors Spend $50 Million to Help Stevens Beat El-Sayed in Michigan
"They may have the money," said the progressive primary challenger. "But we have the many."
Jul 16, 2026
In what one congressional reporter described as a "full-court press" to stop progressive US Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other outside groups have spent nearly $50 million in support of fourth-term Congresswoman Haley Stevens ahead of Michigan's August 4 Democratic primary.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance filings, El-Sayed—the former director of Wayne County's Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services—raised more than double Stevens’ fundraising haul over the last three months. El-Sayed's campaign reported $4.6 million for the second quarter, while Stevens' team said it brought in $2.2 million.
However, outside spending for Stevens from what the Detroit Free Press described as "murky" groups has dwarfed the amount spent for El-Sayed. The political advertisement tracker AdImpact said that of the $46 million spent or reserved by the two campaigns for television ads, nearly three-quarters has been spent on behalf of Stevens or against El-Sayed.
Since the end date on the FEC disclosures, additional outside spending in support of Stevens is estimated to have soared to roughly $50 million, according to an analysis by Punchbowl News congressional reporter Ally Mutnick.
Last Friday, United Democracy Project (UDP), which is affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), disclosed that it has spent nearly $15 million on the Michigan US Senate race so far, including $9.3 million in support of Stevens and $5.7 million against El-Sayed.
El-Sayed has called Israel a “rogue state” that is committing “genocide and apartheid,” while urging an end to “unilateral blank checks” from the US. His claims are supported by findings from United Nations experts, an International Court of Justice advisory opinion, and governments and human rights groups around the world.
A separate political action committee, A Stronger Michigan, reported spending more than $12 million so far in support of Stevens' campaign, according to the nonprofit media outlet Bridge Michigan. Sludge's Minnah Arshad reported last month that the dark money group appears to be connected to Jeffries Murray, a longtime lobbyist whose clients have included the American Gas Association, Facebook parent company Meta, and military-industrial complex titan Northrop Grumman.
FEC filings show former Congressman Mike Rogers, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Senate, received $10.7 million in combined outside expenditures.
El-Sayed appeared undaunted by the outside spending disparity. "They might have the money," he said on social media Thursday. "But we have the many."
Citing Stevens' Wednesday vote against a failed amendment to cut off US military aid to Israel and new polling from Data for Progress, El-Sayed's campaign said that "86% of Michigan primary voters are less inclined to vote for a candidate who supports continued funding to Israel."
"Congresswoman Stevens had a choice: stand with the majority of Democrats who oppose unconditional military aid to Israel, or stand with the special interests funding her campaign," El-Sayed said after the vote. “She chose to side with AIPAC and Republicans to continue to fund a war machine that has taken the loved ones of many Michigan families."
"She made her choice. I’ll make mine," he added. "As Michigan’s next senator, I want to keep our hard-earned tax dollars here in Michigan to invest in Michigan healthcare and Michigan infrastructure rather than continuing to send bombs to a foreign government.”
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'World's Most Famous Sore Loser': Ossoff Delivers Preemptive Smackdown of Trump's Election Speech
"If the president declares Georgia's elections illegitimate, or if the president declares Georgia's sitting United States senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate."
Jul 16, 2026
Sen. Jon Ossoff on Thursday delivered a preemptive rebuttal to President Donald Trump's planned Thursday night speech on election security in the United States.
While speaking with reporters, Ossoff (D-Ga.) predicted that Trump would use the speech to once again peddle lies about the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.
"Here's what's going to happen tonight," Ossoff began. "The world's most famous sore loser will deliver a primetime presidential sour-grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control, the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country."
Ossoff: "Here's what's going to happen tonight: the world's most famous sore loser will deliver a prime-time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his 6-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of… pic.twitter.com/isF9qqrLz0
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2026
The Georgia Democrat said he expected Trump to "reheat debunked conspiracy theories" about the 2020 election, while all but daring the president to declare the results in his home state illegitimate.
"Let me be very clear about this," said Ossoff, who was elected in 2020 and is up for reelection this year. "If the president declares Georgia's elections illegitimate, or if the president declares Georgia's sitting United States senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate."
Ossoff then reminded reporters that it was Trump who attempted to steal the 2020 election when he called Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to "find" the votes necessary to overturn Biden's victory in the state.
"It's Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election," the senator said, "Donald Trump who tried to commit election fraud."
Ossoff's broadside against Trump's 2020 election lies came one day after he cornered Jay Clayton, Trump's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence, during a Senate confirmation hearing over his refusal to say who won the 2020 election.
"Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question?" Ossoff asked Clayton at one point. "To have to indulge the president’s delusions?"
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Public Citizen Once Again Calls Upon the CFTC to Enforce Insider Trading Laws on the Prediction Markets
Jul 16, 2026
Today, multiple news outlets reported that President Trump’s teleprompter operator has been placing profitable bets on Kalshi regarding the content of Trump’s forthcoming speeches. Public Citizen has repeatedly appealed to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the prediction markets, to investigate and enforce the laws against insider trading. On March 5, 2026, Public Citizen filed an insider trading complaint with the CFTC following highly suspicious trades on the timing and developments of the American invasion of Iran. On April 30, 2026, Public Citizen and Better Markets urged the CFTC to conduct rulemaking on prediction markets trading activity.
Craig Holman, Ph.D., government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen issued the following statement:
“Betting on political events on the prediction markets has become highly profitable for a small handful of anonymous bettors. Ever since the American invasion of Venezuela and Iran, a few people have been placing very large bets moments before the events take place, and scoring millions in profits. The timing and accuracy of these bets strongly suggest insider trading, probably by a few individuals in the know within the Trump administration.
“News just broke that Trump’s teleprompter operator has been placing such bets on the content of Trump’s upcoming speeches. This is further evidence of illegal insider trading on the prediction markets – an industry that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has let operate like the Wild West.
“Public Citizen again calls on the CFTC to wake up and do its job of overseeing the prediction market industry and enforcing the insider trading laws.”
US Gov Report Details 'Robust' Ties Between Climate Crisis and Extreme Weather Events
“The next time your community is hit by a heatwave or flash flood, lay some blame with Big Oil. This report is yet another sign that we need to break away from this dangerous, polluting industry,” one scientist said.
Jul 16, 2026
A landmark report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Thursday concludes that the science of linking individual extreme weather events to fossil fuel-driven climate change has advanced considerably in the past decade, findings that bolster the efforts of communities to hold oil and gas companies accountable for climate damages.
The report follows on the heels of deadly heatwaves in Europe and the US that were both deemed to be "virtually impossible" without the climate emergency.
“The new report makes clear that the science linking ever-worsening extreme weather events to climate change is rigorous and sound,” John Fleming, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “The next time your community is hit by a heatwave or flash flood, lay some blame with Big Oil. This report is yet another sign that we need to break away from this dangerous, polluting industry.”
The report from the National Academies, or NASEM builds on a 2016 report on the same subject and tracks the progress made since then in linking specific extreme weather events such as hurricanes or heatwaves to human-caused global warming—a field known as extreme event attribution (EEA). It found that a combination of improvements in tools, datasets, and methods had made such attributions increasingly reliable, especially for events clearly related to rising average temperatures such as heatwaves, cold spells, and heavy rainfall.
“The science is clear: The extreme heat killing thousands of people in the Northern Hemisphere this summer is neither an unpredictable event nor an accident—it is the result of corporate crime."
“Significant progress has been made over the last decade, with major advancements in methods and modeling that allow for more robust assessments of extreme events,” James Hurrell, who chaired the report committee and serves as the Scott presidential chair of Environmental Science and Engineering at Colorado State University, said in a statement.
EEA could still improve when it comes to analyzing the climate footprint on smaller-scale weather events like thunderstorms and tornadoes, as well as attributing events in parts of the Global South where climate data is less available.
Hurrell continued: "The field still faces challenges, and addressing them is necessary to fully realize the value of attribution science. We hope our recommendations will guide those efforts.”
Unaffiliated climate scientists and environmental advocates welcomed the report's findings.
"The robust conclusions that have been reached by the mainstream climate research community betray the dismissive claims that continue to be made by fossil fuel industry groups, right-wing think tanks, and Republican operatives who feel threatened by the scientific progress in this particular area," wrote climate scientist and University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mann. "They have long understood... that Americans will increasingly demand meaningful policy action on climate as they come to understand the profound role that fossil fuel burning is playing in the worsening climate crisis."
Mann continued: "Nothing connects the dots better that the increasingly dangerous, damaging, and deadly climate change-fueled extreme weather events. As an aside, I could see and smell the hazardous wildfire smoke that blanketed the northeastern US while on vacation with my family in New Hampshire this week. Increasingly, Americans are connecting the dots between our reliance on fossil fuels and the hazards we face, whether its costly and dangerous wars of choice in far-flung lands like Iran, or the threat of increasingly extreme weather events."
Carly Phillips, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) who has co-authored attribution studies, said in a statement: “Attribution science confirms what billions of people around the world have experienced firsthand—deadly events like extreme heatwaves are occurring more often and tropical cyclones are more intense due to climate change. Despite efforts by the fossil fuel industry and its cronies to intimidate panelists and misrepresent the research, the academies’ report affirms the scientific consensus: Attribution science is based on rigorous peer-reviewed methods and provides critical information about how climate change is driving increases in the frequency or severity of extreme events."
The report is notable not only for its findings but for their context. It's publication comes amid the Trump administration's aggressive climate denial, including the Environmental Protection Agency's repealing of the so-called "endangerment finding" connecting carbon dioxide emissions to climate and public health harms.
At the same time, the fossil fuel industry and its right-wing political allies are scrambling to find a way out of the increasing number of lawsuits attempting to hold them accountable for the harms caused by the climate crisis. This has included pushing bills in the House of Representatives and Senate that would grant the industry immunity from any lawsuits over damages caused by the use of their products.
Both the fossil fuel industry and climate justice advocates see the NASEM report as a potential weapon in the fight over climate liability. Argus Insight, an opposition research firm co-founded by former Trump staffers that has a history of working to undermine climate lawsuits, sent at least nine records requests to public universities where NASEM report authors work, as Politico reported ahead of its release.
Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, advised that journalists covering the NASEM report "not frame any story as 'Can we believe extreme event attribution research?' The actual story is: Fossil fuel interests are wetting their pants about this and will do anything to try to stop it."
Yet climate justice advocates argue that the report gives the advantage to communities over the industry.
“For decades, Big Oil knowingly poisoned our atmosphere and deceived the public about the impacts of burning fossil fuels—all the while lining executives’ pockets as communities continue to suffer from extreme heat, floods, and fires," Stephanie Brancaforte, climate accountability campaign director with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, said in a statement.
Brancaforte added: “The science is clear: The extreme heat killing thousands of people in the Northern Hemisphere this summer is neither an unpredictable event nor an accident—it is the result of corporate crime. With the backing of the National Academies, survivors of climate catastrophes now have strong evidence to pursue justice against fossil fuel polluters to pay for the devastation they have unleashed.”
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, said: "The National Academies just gave courts, cities, and communities something they've long needed: the full weight of the country's most authoritative scientific body behind attribution science. It affirms what researchers and international bodies like the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] have long recognized—that we can say, with real confidence, which extreme weather events were made worse by fossil fuel pollution, and how much damage that pollution caused."
DiPaola continued: "The fossil fuel industry understands exactly what this means. That's why they've spent years trying to discredit attribution science as a field, and why they and their allies in Congress and state legislatures are racing right now to pass liability shield laws. They can't out-argue hundreds of peer-reviewed studies backed by the country's most respected scientific institution, so instead they're trying to make the law immune to the science. They know this research doesn't just describe a hotter world, but draws a line from their products to specific floods, heatwaves, and deaths, and from there to who should pay for the damage."
"Attribution science now underpins how cities plan for disaster, how insurers price risk, how public health officials prepare for heat deaths, and how courts weigh accountability," she concluded. "The only people with an interest in pretending otherwise are the ones being asked to pay for the damage they caused."
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