Kid Rock compared Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to the 9/11 hijackers during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night, prompting Maher to interrupt with a fact-check — which Kid Rock then pushed back on.
The exchange came as Maher and his panel discussed El-Sayed, the Muslim physician and former Detroit health director currently running against Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open Senate seat. Former President Barack Obama campaigned with El-Sayed in Detroit on October 24th as Democrats make a late push ahead of the midterm elections.
Maher argued that reactions to Muslim candidates in American politics often veer toward opposite extremes, before bringing up recent attacks on El-Sayed from Donald Trump. When Maher asked Kid Rock whether he actually believed the candidate posed the sort of threat Trump had described, the musician pointed to El-Sayed’s education and assimilation into American society before invoking the September 11th attackers.
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Kid Rock said El-Sayed appeared well-assimilated, but argued that the 9/11 hijackers had been as well. He went on to say Islamic extremism “scares the hell out of me” and questioned whether El-Sayed might be hiding more radical beliefs.
Maher challenged the comparison. “The 9/11 hijackers weren’t here assimilated,” he told Kid Rock, adding that they had come from Saudi Arabia. Kid Rock responded incredulously, questioning whether the men who flew the planes were actually Saudi.
They largely were. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, while the remaining four came from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. The 9/11 Commission says most of the 15 muscle hijackers entered the US between late April and late June 2001, just a few months before the attacks, while the four pilots had generally arrived earlier, so not exactly assimilated Americans, as Kid Rock characterized.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Kid Rock came to the defense of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after Maher criticized his leadership of the Pentagon. Questioning the credentials of military generals who have opposed Hegseth, Kid Rock asked, “How many of those generals actually served like Hegseth?” before bringing up their military academy backgrounds. Maher didn’t correct him in real time, but it’s worth noting that all the generals and military officers who questioned the Defense Secretary during those hearings have served in the military.
Maher pointed to a possible reason for the musician’s loyalty: Hegseth’s handling of an incident in March, when Army Apache helicopters hovered near Kid Rock’s Tennessee home — which the musician shamelessly called “fucking awesome.” The flyby prompted an investigation and the suspension of the crews involved, only for Hegseth to intervene and shut down the inquiry. Weeks later, Kid Rock and Hegseth each took rides in Army Apache helicopters at a military base in Virginia, furthering the scrutiny around the use of military resources.
Ironically, the comments came less than two weeks after Kid Rock described Halfway 2 Jesus as part of a conscious effort to become “less polarizing” and said he was trying to “give people more grace on their beliefs.” He also argued that Americans can disagree politically without cutting one another off, adding that “you can always find common ground somewhere, with everybody.”
Kid Rock appeared on the October 30th episode of Real Time alongside Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei, following an interview with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. See the segment below.
Kid Rock has Bill Maher’s audience hanging on every word as he delivers a surprisingly thorough takedown of Abdul El-Sayed.
Bill Maher tried to interject. Kid Rock didn’t let him.
KID ROCK: “Can I tell you about Abdul El-Sayed? … He wrote an op-ed in college supporting the… pic.twitter.com/xW3rGNOptb
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 31, 2026
