Abdul El-Sayed says he hopes to campaign with Obama after 'warm and inspiring' call

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, confirmed Sunday that he spoke to Barack Obama following his primary victory last week and said he hopes the former president will join him on the campaign trail this fall.

"It was a really warm and inspiring conversation," El-Sayed told NBC News' "Meet the Press" about his call with Obama.

"I was grateful for his advice," he added. "It was very warm, very inviting, and I know that he knows the critical role that Michigan is going to play in holding [President Donald] Trump accountable, in winning back the Senate, and in building forward the future that we need."

Asked by "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker whether the former president plans to join El-Sayed on the campaign trail this fall, the Democratic Senate nominee said, "I really hope so."

On Sunday, El-Sayed dismissed concerns about his support in Michigan after Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who ran in the primary but suspended her campaign in July, drew more votes combined than the eventual Democratic Senate nominee in Tuesday's primary.

"Five hundred thousand more Democrats voted than did Republicans in that election," El-Sayed told Welker. "If that happens [in November], we are going to win in a landslide."

El-Sayed also drew scrutiny for his friendship and campaign appearances with progressive media figures like Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who previously said on a livestream that "America deserved 9/11." Piker has since apologized for the remark.

On Sunday, El-Sayed called Piker's comments about 9/11 "dumb" and said the resurfacing of those statements was "gotcha politics." He didn't commit to campaigning with or without Piker during the general election, instead saying that he'll need a broad coalition of voters to win in November, including those who follow Piker.

"I'm less concerned now with who I'm campaigning with [and] a lot more concerned about who I'm campaigning to. We've got a lot of work to do to continue to build the coalition that's going to beat Mike Rogers," El-Sayed said.

He added, when pressed by Welker, "I think we have this notion sometimes on shows like this that we cannot or should not talk to certain groups of people, and I will tell you that the 3 million people who listen to Hasan are people I want to make sure understand that there's a pathway into our politics around getting money out of politics."

"I'm going to continue to have the conversations with those folks who we desperately need to reach out to. Just like I'm going to continue to have conversations with seniors in senior homes, folks up north, folks in Detroit, folks in Grand Rapids," he said.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who appeared later on "Meet the Press," said he was excited to join El-Sayed on the campaign trail and that he expected that a lot of his fellow Senate Democrats would travel to Michigan this fall.

"I think you'll see a lot of my colleagues in Michigan, I'll be there supporting him because he's presenting a strong contrast with a candidate who is pro-corporate, who is pro-Trump, who is pro-war," Murphy told Welker. "I think he's going to do incredibly well in that campaign."