WOW: RFK Jr. FINALLY gets what he deserves

I'm joined now by candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. Thanks so much for joining me. Always a privilege to be with you. So I want to start off with RFK Jr. because as Health and Human Services Secretary, and this is a topic that I think you would be able to speak about better than anybody in politics right now. He has been promoting a lot of junk foods that have marginal, that he'll make some marginal benefit and framing it as some win. So I'm going to put a tweet right here on the screen. This is a tweet from Steak and Shake, which is for all intents and purposes, a fast food restaurant. And he wrote, starting August 1st, Steak and Shake will offer Coca-Cola with real cane sugar in glass bottles. America deserves the best. And Secretary Kennedy wrote, Maha is winning. So can I have your reaction to the fact that we have a Health and Human Services Secretary that is applauding marginal changes in these fast food or junk food or sodas and framing it as a win for the Maha movement? Hasn't that been the grift all along? Like, if you had a thesis for this administration, it's creating problems, then not really solving them, and then applauding the most marginal changes as a big victory for the American public. The idea that the Health and Human Services Secretary is peddling Coca-Cola, like full sugar Coca-Cola, is insane. And he did this before with beef tallow. Like, let me just be clear to everybody. Beef tallow is not some sort of health food, okay? It is just fat that you can use to cook stuff with. It's not any better than the other fats that people use to cook stuff with. Now, look, there is an argument to be made about high fructose corn syrup, which is itself not a good thing. But replacing it with sugar and then calling this a big win, that's kind of missing the point here. What we want is more people choosing to forego consuming sugar that they drink, whether it is high fructose corn syrup or it is real cane sugar. And so this is not some sort of win, but it is an opportunity to put on a pedestal some corporation that is now literally grifting off the federal government to get ups from the Health and Human Services Secretary to feed a troll army that this same person has been building for a very long time, telling us that things that are unhealthy are healthy and telling us that things are very healthy are unhealthy. Well, you know, there's going to be people out there, they did the same with removing a dye in Froot Loops. Froot Loops, like distilled sugar. You know what I mean? Like I ate it when I was a kid. I think if I tried to eat it now, I would be out of my mind because it's probably more sugar in one bowl of Froot Loops than I normally have in six weeks. But there are going to be people who say, you know, this is what the left does. They can't take a win. Getting this dye, getting high fructose corn syrup out of our foods is objectively a win. Why can't you just celebrate that? Yeah, well, I'll tell you, RFK Jr. is about as serious a health role model as Toucan Sam. So that tracks. And I'm not a hater on Froot Loops. Like I enjoy a bowl of Froot Loops like every once in a while. Yeah. But to promote Froot Loops because somehow you've removed some dye that is not really the reason that consuming Froot Loops consistently every day for breakfast is unhealthy for you is, again, it's a whiff, it's a miss. And so this is the game with RFK Jr. They are often right about the problems, meaning our food environment is not healthy. We don't eat healthy foods as a country. But the reason our food is unhealthy is not because of cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup or removing red dye from Froot Loops. It's that as a whole, we subsidize corn and soy products in ways that make them a huge part of our diet. And that leaves us eating large amounts of sugars. It leaves us not consuming the kinds of whole fruits and vegetables, the kinds of whole proteins that are a part of an actually healthy diet. So like right problem, food environment, wrong solution. It's not red dye or just high fructose corn syrup. It's the fact that our food environment tells us that somehow steak and shake or Froot Loops are healthy things to eat consistently. I mean, like when I was a personal trainer for almost a decade from college on to, you know, into when I moved to Los Angeles, it was my first job in L.A. And the first thing that I would tell my clients, especially as it related to their diet was, you know, I would ask what their goals were and they would mostly say weight loss. You know, there was a few hypertrophy, you know, muscle building clients, but they would say weight loss. And I would say, number one thing got to do right now is stop drinking soda, stop drinking Coca-Cola, whatever it may be there. You're looking at like 40 grams of sugar in each can. There is no nutritional value. Empty calories raises your risk of type two diabetes, rots your teeth. Like, I mean, the list goes on and on. There are zero nutritional benefits. Wouldn't it make more sense to use the platform that you have as the nation's top health official to instead of like cheering on or allowing some marginal change to an aggressively unhealthy food to instead just promote healthy food like whole foods, drinking water? I mean, wouldn't that be a better use of your platform as HHS secretary? You know, if you were serious about actually making the American public healthy, yes. But this has been the problem all along. RFK Jr. is not serious about actually promoting better health in America. He is serious about peddling a grift to grow his platform and his strength. And so one of the things he's learned from Donald Trump is that the best single way to make yourself look like a winner is to proclaim victory that's not actually victory. It's the same thing that Trump has done for a very long time to build a movement that has delivered him pretty close to ultimate power. And that's exactly what RFK Jr. is doing. But the hard part is this, for people like you, for people like me, who've been on the other end of trying to empower people to live their best, healthiest lives, that's actually really hard work. And one of the worst things about the effort that you and I have to put in is that we're working against an environment that has, frankly, corrupted what it means to eat healthy. And this is just adding to that corruption. It's literally making the work of people who are trying to improve people's actual health harder because you are delivering things that are not really wins as ultimate victories. And so it just shows that these folks are not actually serious about solving the problem. They're just serious about grifting on the existence of the problem. So I want to talk about another kind of problem that the MAHA movement has, and the MAGA movement more broadly, has begun to exploit. And that is just this issue of focusing on big pharma. And this actually has a lot of similarities to what we were just talking about, because I think they are right to recognize that there is a major problem with our healthcare system and the pharmaceutical industry with the wrong solution. So can you speak a little bit about your reaction to the vilification, not just of big pharma, but the products that they turn out? And I understand the well-placed ire on the pharmaceutical industry, but that's filtered down into the life-saving products that we rely on, into vaccines, into medicine. And so can you speak about the delta there between the industry's practices as a whole and the products that we rely on for life-saving healthcare? Yeah. Brian, you're not going to find a bigger critic of big pharma than me, right? I have spent my whole career ranting on about the ways that the pharmaceutical industry spends more money to sell us their medications than they do in researching and developing new medications. I've spent my whole career talking about how they force us to pay artificially high prices, higher prices than anywhere in the rest of the world for life-saving medications. But there's a trick that RFK Jr. and the Maha movement are playing. They're taking a well-founded critique of big pharma to turn it on its head. So where people like me are saying that pharma is a problem because they overcharge for critical medications that people need, they're saying that pharma is a problem because they're producing medications that people don't need. And that's just not the case. Whether you talk about vaccines or you talk about SSRIs, antidepressant medications, or you're talking about a whole number of medications like GLP-1s, things like Ozempic and Mugovi, these are really important medications that can really improve the health and well-being of the public. The issue is that they make them too expensive because they are greedy and want to return to their shareholders. Right? The point, though, is not that somehow these medications themselves are the problem. These medications are the things that we want more people to have access to. And by turning this on its head and playing this game, like everybody can control their own health, their own health future simply by making a couple changes from like high fructose corn syrup to real sugar or by taking red dye out of Froot Loops, that somehow people aren't going to need things like SSRIs or vaccines or GLP-1 agonists. That is just insane and not based on any real science. But it's easy, right? Because once you start weaponizing against the industry and telling people that somehow they can control their own future, that's a really enticing thing to believe. Meanwhile, you have people who are, well, they're just not making the decisions that are going to help them because they think that drinking Coke with real sugar is somehow healthier than drinking Coke with high fructose corn syrup, even though both of them are full of sugar, that folks are missing out on the opportunity to actually improve their well-being. And then the worst part about is this. They're letting the industry get a pass. This is the thing that kills me the most, is that rather than actually doing the hard work of standing up against the greed of the industry, they're letting the industry get a pass on their greed in this way by somehow transitioning the problem into something that it's really not. Right, right. I mean, they undermine their own position because then you create this culture war where you have people who just don't believe in modern medicine and you have people who do believe in modern medicine, and that becomes the fight, as opposed to the fight that everybody should agree on, which is that the pricing practices are what's screwing everybody. It's not that we don't need medicine. It's that we all need medicine. It's just that we're getting fucked by virtue of how they price that medicine. But really, the folks who are part of this movement that says like, oh, we don't need the vaccine schedule is unnecessary. It's causing autism. All of these fake arguments. The reality is that that actually does the pharmaceutical industry a lot of good because now everybody's focused on the wrong thing. Now it's a regular culture war. Now you have people arguing things that you have arguing things that are complete straw man arguments, but nobody is talking about the pricing practices because now we've devolved into like, you know, do we do we need medicine? Do we even need like it? It's just it diverts everybody's attention away from the thing where we could actually have an impact. And Brian, let me let me just put a fine point on that. Just a couple of weeks ago, they made this big announcement about pharmaceutical pricing. You know what that announcement was that they had achieved a handshake deal that pharmaceutical companies were not going to charge Americans more than they charge folks in other countries. A handshake deal. Yeah. As if somehow a handshake deal is actually going to bring down prescription drug prices. Meanwhile, they're trying to undermine prescription drug price negotiation. That was an important part of the Inflation Reduction Act, like literally policy that I helped to work on back when we were negotiating the Biden administration's health care policy before he got elected. And this is how you actually work against them. You empower government to negotiate down the prices of prescription drugs like governments in every other high income country in the world does. But instead, they want to undermine that and reach a handshake deal as if somehow, you And you know the reason why, because at the end of the day, what this administration cares about is proximity to power and proximity to wealth and corporate CEOs for pharmaceutical companies. They don't want to be pressed upon. And guess what? If you don't pressure them, then they're going to be your friends. And this is exactly how they've gotten all of these big corporate CEOs to come to heel, right? Because they're saying, hey, listen, why don't we reach a handshake deal? Then you all can continue to do exactly what you want. And we'll talk to you about what we want for it on the back end. And that's the quid pro quo, right? That quo part is what we don't get to see. And I just want us to be very, very clear about the game that's being played here, both in rhetoric and narrative, and then also when it comes down to public policy. Abdul, this is malpractice on my end. But can you please give some insight for my audience into your background for those who don't know and why we've engaged in this conversation? This should have been question number one. No, no worries. So I'm a physician by training and an epidemiologist. I spent my career working in public health. I rebuilt Detroit's health department and then led the largest municipal health department in Michigan in Wayne County. I wrote the book on Medicare for All, and I host a podcast called America Dissected, where we dig into these problems every single week. So, you know, I spent a lot of my time thinking about exactly these problems. Now, let's jump over to the U.S. Senate race in Michigan. There are a few candidates right now that are running. How do you distinguish yourself from Haley Stevens and Malorie McMorrow? Well, I think it's exactly this. I'm not a career politician. I haven't spent my life thinking about how to climb up the greasy ladder. I've spent my career thinking about how to make government work for people. And I've done exactly that. Rebuilding Detroit's health department to put glasses on kids' faces, you know, brought a program to Michigan that delivered 50,000 pairs of glasses across the state, stood up to some of the biggest corporate polluters in Michigan. And after the Flint water crisis, both made every school, daycare and Head Start test for lead in the water, and then also helped to rewrite the lead policy in the state of Michigan. Most recently, I've been doing work to eliminate medical debt upwards of $700 million for 300,000 people in our state. We built an air quality monitoring system that is state-of-the-art, delivers real-time information about air quality for folks. We're putting Narcan in 100 different locations across Wayne County. That's work to make government deliver to improve people's lives. And the reason I'm running for office is simply this. I think that our politics have been on the wrong side of a lot of the work that I've tried to do. Things like pharmaceuticals and how you stand up to them to get cheaper prescription drugs for people. Things like our healthcare system at large. How do you make sure that everybody has guaranteed healthcare in the richest, most powerful country in the world? And then also thinking about who has access to healthy foods, you know, in their grocery store and who can afford that? Who has a stable home in which to build a family and to empower them? Who has good schools so that they get the best education that they can achieve in their lives? These are the questions that ultimately end up in whether or not somebody gets to live a long, healthier life or not. And that's what's brought me into politics. And so, you know, if folks want a career politician or a corporate politician, I'm not that guy. But if folks want somebody who spent his entire career thinking about how to make people healthier and empower them with the means of a dignified life, maybe I am. And I think right now is a time where we as Democrats need to think differently about the kind of politics that we need and deserve. And I'm offering that option to folks across my state. Abdul, I'm interested what has been resonating among folks in Michigan. Obviously, you know, I have my own issues and, you know, that I focus on where I live in California. There are issues that are especially potent here. What what has been resonant in Michigan in particular that might not comport with what we talk about in the national news cycle? Certainly what might not comport with what I talk about in my coastal elite state of California. But what's been resonant there? You know, it's actually interesting because I think it's the same issues that resonate almost everywhere. And I'll tell you, just within my state, if you're talking to seniors or working people in a place like Sault Ste. Marie, way up north on the edge of Canada, or you're talking to seniors or working people at a black church in Detroit, they're telling you the same things. And frankly, the most important, most resonant one is I can't afford to see a doctor. I'm worried about being able to pay for my prescription. And the fact that we don't have guaranteed health care in the richest, most powerful country in the world is insane. So when I talk about Medicare for all, people don't think about that as a progressive or left issue. Like this is just an American issue in a country where we have 225 billion dollars in medical debt. That is more than the GDP of the majority of states in this country. But then that's part of a broader affordability crisis. If you're under 40, whether you'll ever be able to own a home. And if you're over 65, whether or not you can stay in your home, whether or not you can afford that second bag of groceries, afford the foods with the micronutrients that grow your brain versus just the macronutrients that grow your belly, about whether or not you'll be able to have the same job that you worked yesterday, tomorrow. And the last one that I just want folks to understand is that people finally get the game. They understand that corporations are buying each other up in ways that suppress how much money they pay you for the work you do and increase how much they can charge you for the things you have to buy from them. People understand that that is about corporate money in politics, whether it's about anti monopoly and antitrust, whether it's about the ability to build or scale a small business, whether it's about union busting or the ability to join or form a union, they understand all that goes back to money in politics. And I'm the only candidate in this race who's never touched a dime of corporate money and never will. And I think people understand the tie to the affordability of health care, the affordability of groceries, the affordability of housing and the ability to just breathe clean air or drink clean water. So those are the things that no matter where you go in Michigan, that people are really paying attention to. So I'm with you on Medicare for all. I also understand that, you know, look, we've been in a moment where we know the attacks that Republicans are going to wield against Democrats. And often it's the same attacks that we see over and over. And so how are you thinking about about promoting this issue, knowing full well that the right will deploy its usual attacks of A, how do we pay for it? B, this is what socialism looks like. I mean, you know, you've seen the whole the whole gamut. And so how are you thinking about that in terms of not just promoting the virtues of but also anticipating the attacks that are going to come from the other side that are intended to kind of make sure that we can keep in place this system that largely helps the wealthiest and has kept so many people in the richest country in the world away from the ability to seek health care? Ryan, I really appreciate the question. Look, I think part of the problem that Democrats have is that we always instinctively go on the defensive and we're afraid to throw a punch. And I'm not a guy who's ever been afraid to throw a punch. And so the reality of it is that Republicans are socialists. They're socialists for the richest, most powerful people in the world. And if you don't believe me, take a look at what this big, ugly bill does. It is socialism for the richest people in the world. I am a capitalist who believes that everybody ought to have a fair shot. Now, what does that mean? That means that the basic things that you need to live your life, like education and health care and infrastructure, that those things are available for you. And then you have the opportunity to take your human capital and do what you'd like with it. That that means you want to build and scale your small business. Fantastic. Amazing. That's great for all of us. But guess what shouldn't happen? Some huge corporation shouldn't be able to suffocate the very oxygen that you need to start your business. And that's what's been happening across our economy for a very long time because of the socialism of the Republicans. And so like when they come and tell us, oh, well, that's a socialist idea. I'm like, you clearly don't know a ---- about what capitalism is and how it works. So let me educate you here about how it how it should work. The idea that everybody should have insurance, but health care should remain private. That's not socialism. That's just a health care system that works. That is anti the power of huge corporations to corrupt our system. And so I just think we got to go on the offensive and we've got to fight on our ideals because the truth is on our side. And I find that when you do that, not only are you able to galvanize folks who already agree with you, but you're actually able to persuade people who don't to come along. You know, the number of conversations I've had with with doctors who've been skeptical about Medicare for all when I actually explained to them what it would mean for them, that they wouldn't have to compete against these huge corporate behemoths who get sweetheart deals from huge corporate insurance companies so that they squeeze out the private practitioner. When I talk about what that dynamic would mean for them, they're like, actually, yeah, you're right. Like, if you want capitalism to work in health care, you need everybody to be able to make their choice. And right now, that's just not how it works, because insurance companies will decide what doctor you can see and what doctors you don't. And guess what? They always decide the doctors with whom they have sweetheart deals. So we've got to we've got to take the fight back to Republicans on our policy. We've got to stop pretending like we don't have the truth on our side. We've got to stop being afraid of our own beliefs and our own voters. And I think when you do that, not only can you win elections, but more importantly, you can win the future and you can build the kind of America that is dignifying for all of us. Oh, yeah, that's great. How can folks who are watching, listening help your campaign? Well, I hope that folks will go on over to Abdul for Senate dot com. You can also text us at seven four eight one. And I hope that that folks will get involved. We're building a movement here in Michigan, and we're so excited to have you. And Brian is always a privilege to get to chat. I hope that someday we get to talk about all the amazing things we are doing rather than all the shitty things they're doing. Yeah, perfectly put. Abdul, as always, it's great talking to you. And thank you so much for the time today. And best of luck in the campaign trail. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you.