Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed goes 1-on-1 with Josh Landon

The purpose of this conversation is to focus on you. The goal is to be compelling and a little challenging. On that note, I would like to challenge you for any question I present to you to keep your answers focused solely on you, your perspective, your approach without even mentioning your opponent. This is solely to understand you in a deeper way. Great. All right. On that note, Dr. El-Sayed, critics argue that you are radical, extreme, too dangerous. What do you believe is one of your biggest misconceptions? I'm a doctor who rebuilt the health department in the city of Detroit. They're spending $100 million already to try to paint me to be anything but. And I, like you said, I seek to be heard in the nuance of who I am. You know, you don't have to be a socialist, you don't have to be extreme to believe that people in this country deserve healthcare. You don't have to, it's not extreme to believe that we shouldn't be fighting stupid wars that they keep getting us into telling us that they're not. You don't have to be extreme to believe that people should be able to afford their gas and groceries and that corporations shouldn't be able to buy politicians. And you know, whatever they're going to say about me on TV, just remember who's paying for those ads. It's the DTEs who are raising your rates faster in Michigan than in 46 other states. It's the Blue Crosses who raised your premiums 15% alone last year. the Apex who want to send your tax dollars abroad to do war and genocide and apartheid rather than to spend them here to build schools here. So, you know, I've been in public service in this community for a long time. People have been knowing the work that I've done. Put glasses on kids, take on corporate polluters, eliminate medical debt. That's the work that I've been about. That's the work that I want to champion in the United States Senate. On a different topic, Dr. El-Sayed, it has nothing to do with you or your campaign. There was an incident in early September involving a car crash with an African-American woman and a younger Middle Eastern woman in the city of Detroit. You've seen the video based on your initial reaction. Harassment, racial slurs, again nothing to do with you or your campaign but please share your your feelings, your thoughts on that situation. There's an innocent woman who was in a traumatic accident and then these young men came and targeted her why I don't know but that kind of behavior is beyond the pale it's disgusting and those boys need to be held accountable for what they did I don't you know I think folks want to interpret that in the context of race and ethnicity and Josh you know you know this you're both black and Arab and you know too often we allow young men to get away with things they have no business getting away with and too often we as a community or as communities But I want to look the other way and this is not the kinds of things that you can look the other way on So to her I say I'm so sorry that this happened to you in In Michigan, and I'm sorry that You're not protected and we have a responsibility to make sure No matter who you are and what your circumstances if you're in a situation like that that you're going to be protected You're going to be safe and anybody who? Harasses you abuses you is going to be held accountable. I don't care the color of the skin I don't care if or how they pray. I don't care who the person who's abused is Because in these United States of America, we are a nation of laws, and when people violate those laws, they deserve to be held accountable. I also got to say, I don't know who raised these kids, but I got to tell you, if any one of those kids was my kid, they'd be held to pay. And I think we have a responsibility to make sure that kind of thing, right, that kind of thing does not happen to anybody in our state. When it comes to connecting to different communities, also including this situation, have you reached out to Susan Smith? Have you reached out to New Era Detroit? Yeah, I have. And, you know, ongoing conversations with New Era and, you know, Ms. Smith is going to be a constituent of mine. And I want to make sure she understands that what happened to her should never happen. And I haven't been able to share a conversation yet, but we've reached out and we'll continue to reach out. And it's important to understand we've got to build an America, Michigan, where we treat everybody like they were our child or our mother or our friend or our neighbor, because in the end they are. and the way we do that is both by investing in the things that people need no matter who you are you need health care no matter who you are you need a good school no matter who you are you need to know that you can breathe clean air drink clean water no matter who you are you need to know that you can get home safely and we also do that by building community together i think too often the choice that we make is one where we're not looking at the opportunity to bring people together when bad things like this happen and i hope that we can because i know that you know Now, those boys who did that deserve to understand the impact that they made in a woman's life. They deserve to be held accountable to the law. But they also need to apologize to her directly. You did a bad thing to me. And that kind of restorative justice is something we don't have to think about, right? Because at the end of the day, folks are neighbors. And the communities we build have to be the kind of places where when something like that happens, if somebody violates somebody else's rights and somebody else's sanctity that we're bringing people together around the opportunity to heal and to feel stronger through that. On the topic of potential frictional bond, how do we hold individuals accountable for their own actions without defining an entire community? I think, number one, you've got to know that the law is going to be applied equally. I think that's been the challenge that we've often had. Too often, law is not applied equally. too often you know the law is not applied evenly it's not applied equally to folk and you know you see a kind of differential policing or that the arm of justice isn't evenly applied and I think all of us need to know that if you're the victim of violent crime that the law is going to apply to the people who victimized you and that if you're someone out there you're not going to assumed to be guilty if in fact you are innocent and that when you do commit a crime that you're not going to be able to evade it simply because of who you are or the color of your skin or what community you're in. I think that's what we all want, right? We all want to get home safely and we all want to know that if somebody gets in the way of getting you home safely, they're going to be held accountable. I'm good? How do you work to rebuild or build from the ground up mistrust? Yeah, conversations. You know, I know too often when people interact with somebody who looks like me in the city of Detroit too often. That interaction isn't a good one. Behind a bulletproof glass, watching a kid get told to Lucy, being catcalled, it's wrong. And I think there needs to be an accountability for that, for individuals who engage in that, whatever they look like. But there also needs to be a community conversation about what does it mean to do business in a community with the community? How do you make sure that the business you do isn't just about a transaction that's pulling money from one place to another, but it's fortifying the local community? How do you make sure that the folks who work for you aren't making shady decisions on the back end? How do you make sure that you're a part of growing a local business infrastructure for everybody? And as a U.S. Senator, my hope is that I can help to usher some of these conversations through, to be able to have hard conversations with folks and talk about what it looks like to actually invest in. And I think those conversations have been sorely needed. And maybe if my candidacy has the opportunity to catalyze that, I hope it'll be for the best but i gotta be honest with you right i think about myself and my own opportunity set here my dad doesn't get to move here without organizing from inside of church pews in churches in this city we talk about the voting rights act and the civil rights act we don't talk enough about the Immigration Act which took the quota system off of folks like him moving from countries in Africa like Egypt where my dad came from so I owe a deep debt of gratitude and I've tried to serve that debt by the work that I've done rebuilding a health department in the city leading Wayne County's health department, eliminating medical debt, putting glasses on kids, fighting for better schools. That's the work that I've done. Now, I seek to be seen in the work that I've done, but I also recognize that in politics, you're often a symbol of something bigger. And so I hope I can use that to be able to both talk about opportunities and the past around what we want for the future. On that note, Dr. El-Sayed, when it comes to the primary, you lost in the city of Detroit. what do you feel black voters still need to hear from you so look you know a lot of what people heard about me was in attack ads you know we took a historic amount of money against us they spent 70 million dollars to try to beat me 70 million guys spent 11 to 1 so you know I've been serving in this community for over a decade my work includes rebuilding the health department after it's been shut down most folks out there will recognize the name Herman Kiefer first week of work I had to walk through Herman Kiefer looking for medical records, because the health department hadn't had a, appreciate you, thank you, the health department hadn't had a health department, I mean the city hadn't had a health department for years when I came to rebuild it. And we got to work leading alongside Detroiters, asking what is it that we need. We built a program to guarantee every child who needed a pair, a pair of glasses in the city. We took on the polluters who were polluting the lungs of our kids. We built programs to put Narcan in vending machines, eliminated medical debt. So I want them to know the work that I've done beyond the attack ads that were spent against me. I also want them to know why they saw those attack ads. I'm the only candidate who's never taken a dime of corporate money, Democrat or Republican, not one dime. So the DTEs of the world, the Blue Cross Blue Shields of the world, the big farmers of the world, the big techs of the world, all of them spent huge amounts of money to make sure that you thought one thing about me that was not what my work has made plain. So I'm just hoping that in the course of the next month, I get the opportunity to continue to have a conversation with Detroiters, both about how I've served and about what I want to continue to do to serve and to hopefully pay down that debt of gratitude that I have for the organizing in these communities that has built the kind of future that I want for my kids, that I got to live as a child, but also that we want for all of our kids. Because at the end of the day, if I got one goal, I want us to build what we would build if we treated all our kids like all our kids. It shouldn't be that you go 15 miles either way, and you've got kids who are going to live 10 years shorter lives, who have lower access to good jobs and good schools, who are breathing dirtier air. And I've tried to be on the right side of fixing that my whole career. All right, shifting the conversation. On 9-11, we lost nearly 3,000 lives on that day, a day we will never forget. And within that tragedy, a few hundred, roughly 200, give or take, Arab Americans worked at the World Trade Center. How come that's never talked about? I remember being a junior in high school when that happened and thinking, my God, I didn't know something like an airplane that's always, for me, been connected with joy. I get to go and see family and see a new place. That could be used as a weapon of war in a terrorist attack that is heinous. But you're right, our whole country got attacked that day. right and people who lost their lives they looked every which way white folk black folk arab american folk who lost their lives and it's important for us to recognize that in this country nobody gets to be more or less American, Josh, you're black and Arab, you and I are just as American as each other, born and raised in this place, love this place, bleed red, white and blue but there are some people who would say that, well because of the color of your skin, the color of mine because of how we pray, because of some people who they love, that they're less American, and I'm working for the kind of big America where no matter who you are, this is a place for you and I want that to be a place where you can afford your gas you can afford your groceries you can pay your rent, buy a house, you see a doctor, yeah and unfortunately a lot of the folks who want to point to some groups of people and say that we're less than, too often they've used that policy to justify exactly the wars that take our money to drop on other people instead of being invested here in our schools those wars that are raising our gas prices, wars that are the reason we can't for your groceries because of the price of diesel So I'm hoping that in this election, Michigan can prove yet again that we are this big place. Look, I've been a guy named Abdul almost my whole life, I've been a guy named Abdul my whole life but a guy named Abdul in Michigan almost my whole life. Michiganers are good people, man. They don't care how you pray. They're more interested in what you pray for. They don't care what your name is. They care if you care to know their name. They're less interested in what your background is than whether or not you care to invest across whatever background so that all of us can have nice things. And across this campaign, honestly, I've been so inspired by getting to just share meals and moments with folks all over the state. Some folks who know folks of Arab descent really well. Some who've never met somebody with a name like mine. All of them wondering, all right, like on your own terms, like what is it that you want to do? And being willing to step in and say you know what, like that sounds a whole lot better than that. And if you really want to bring down my gas and my groceries, you want to stop wasting my money on war, you you really want me to have health care, i'm gonna give you my the greatest stake in in our democracy which is which is my vote, i'm so honored and i carry that with with deep honor uh and michigan is going to prove again that we are a lot bigger than small-minded people want to make us out to be whether it was one appearance or a handful of appearances comments such as america deserved a 9/11 comparing america to al-qaeda or any terrorist organization what is your response for people those are dumb comments I have no basis and you know it's again and in an effort that a few people want to want to make to try to frame this campaign as being about some streamer in California this campaign is not about a streamer in California it's not even about me it's not about Mike Rogers this campaign is about whether or not you can afford your groceries you can afford your utilities you can pay for your groceries you can see a doctor when you get sick. That's what this campaign is about. And you've got to always wonder why is it that people are trying to distract you when they try to distract you? It's because they got nothing to say about the actual problems. For clarification, how involved is Hasan Piker in your campaign past, present, future? He's a streamer in California, right? I've campaigned with all kinds of people. I've had conversations like this with all kinds of people. You and I probably don't agree on everything. You probably agree on a lot of things. I mean, your coat's beautiful, but like we don't agree on everything. But that doesn't mean that in order to have a conversation with you that i have to agree with you on everything there are some folks out there who are talking about cancel culture right this cancel culture that and they're trying to now play cancel culture games my job is to go talk to everybody i go on fox news you think the folks on fox news agree with me on everything no but i go and talk to them you know why because i might just be able to reach across to somebody and be like hey you know that man's making some sense so in the same way right i've had conversations with all kinds of folks folks uh with whom i agree on a lot, folks with whom I don't agree on a lot. But my job is to have as many conversations as I possibly can about who we are and who we want to be. And right now, we want to be in America that is big enough to actually take on our health care issues, big enough to bring down the price of gas and groceries. And that's what I'm going to be focused on. Do you have any concern, appearances with certain individuals could cost you key votes? Am I? But like, you know, at the end of the day, I think we're all big enough and adult enough to realize that no one person speaks for you except for you i speak for myself i speak pretty clearly for myself so i want folks to understand what i'm about and what i've been about i'm the guy who rebuilt the health department in this city to eliminate medical debt to put glasses on kids to take on corporate polluters to protect our kids from lead after the Flint water crisis i'm the guy who wants money out of politics but wants money in your pocket wants medicare for all and i speak for myself so they're gonna try but like i'll also just say this i'm not the one who saw donald Trump's endorsement. Donald Trump being a guy who sat down with literal Nazis, who is fighting a war we have no business fighting, who has put us in this tariff war that's raising the price for everything, who is out here talking about drapes or a helipad. So at the end of the day, like, you know, if we want to talk about guilt by association, I'm happy to do it. But I just don't think that's going to look very good for my opponent. How do we, more so, how do we as a society, you as a leader potentially, defend the right of Palestinians, fight against Islamophobia while also confronting anti-Semitism? Well, I think we've got to start here. Judaism and the Jewish people are a light unto the world. Beautiful faith. I grew up in a heavily Jewish community. I'm so grateful for that. I got to spend my time at shul and bar and bat mitzvahs. I grew up in and among the Jewish community. Beautiful faith, beautiful people. There's this concept called tikkun Tikkun Olam, which is to heal or repair the world in the Jewish faith. I draw so much inspiration from that. But Judaism and the Jewish people are not the same thing as the government of another country. Those are not the same. And you can critique the government of Israel. You can critique AIPAC, who spends a lot of money to make sure that our foreign policy is aligned to the government of Israel. And you can do that separately from loving and appreciating and empowering Judaism and the Jewish people here in Michigan. So when it comes to the safety of the Jewish community, I am never going to back down to fight for their safety. When it comes to our money that is being sent over there to subsidize a foreign government, I oppose that. Why? Because I want my money spent here on our kids' school, on our health care, on opportunity here. And that's not about hating anybody. That's about loving everybody. That's about believing that whether you're Palestinian over there or black or white here, you deserve to know that money is being spent to do good things, right? Our money right now that should be spent on schools here is being sent over there to drop bombs on schools there. That to me makes no sense. So I believe in equal rights and peace, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike. I believe that the safety of all communities here is paramount as your next United States Senator. And for that reason, I want my tax dollars spent here to build schools here, to provide healthcare here, to provide childcare here, to build roads and bridges here instead of sent over there to drop bombs there. And this is not like an issue that's passed. Just within the last month alone, our federal government spent $2.8 billion of your and my tax dollars to buy 2,000-pound bombs. 1,000-pound bombs never fed anybody, never given anybody an education. All that's used for is to kill people. And I would rather our money be used for food and education here. It's not that hard. Recently at the University of Michigan, there was a passionate, somewhat tense exchange between you and a student of Middle Eastern descent. What was going through your mind during that conversation, during that exchange? You know, people think sometimes that our job as a government is to fix other governments. It's not. Our job is to fix our own government. So, you know, he wanted me to say that we should have a regime change war where I don't believe we should. And I don't think most people believe we should because we're paying for exactly that right now at the gas pump, through our taxes, at the grocery store. So, yeah, I just don't think we should be in the business of regime change. That's not my job. It's not yours. and every time we've ever tried, all we've done is failed and made things worse. So how's that helping us? It's not. So look, I appreciate that young man's passion, and I agree with him that we need to stand with movements for democracy. We need to stand against any effort by a foreign government to crack down on its own people. But that doesn't mean that we're in the business of regime change war. And the war that we're fighting in Iran was a bad decision. It is illegal. It's unjustifiable. And as much as a student at the University of Michigan wants me to justify it, I won't, Because it's wrong. It's unjustifiable. A few more minutes. What's your stance on Medicare for all? You know, I'm for. I literally wrote the book on it. I want everybody to have guaranteed health care in this country. How do we pay for it? Look, we pay 19 cents on the dollar for every dollar we spend in the entire economy on health care. We're already paying for it. But you know who's getting it? The CEOs of big hospital corporations and big pharma companies and big insurance companies. I want my health care dollar to be spent on our health care. It's not that hard. So we would pay less and get more. You wouldn't lose your health care if you got married, got divorced, turned 26, got a job, lost a job, turned 65. It would just be there for you. Folks wouldn't have to worry about trying to end around the whole doctor. Anybody listening knows that the minute you get sick and you've got to see a doctor, there's all kinds of questions that pop in your head. And all of them end in a dollar sign. That's crazy in the richest, most powerful country in the world. The $40 trillion deficit, does it add to that deficit? No, look, we could do it without adding to the deficit at all. You know what adds to the deficit? Dumb wars. You know what else adds to the deficit? Tax cuts for billionaires. And every time Mike Rogers and his friends get elected, what do you see? Dumb wars and tax cuts for billionaires. There's one big ugly bill act that, by the way, is about to cost people their Medicaid right now. Do you know what it did? It cut taxes for the richest people and paid for it by cutting health care for everyone else. That's insane. It's insane. It's like crazy making. And so, yes, you know what's going to happen to the deficit under the big ugly bill? It's going to go up. Donald Trump, his friends, they always do this. They tell you, oh, well, you can't have health care, but you can't have war? And a billionaire can have another billion? That's crazy, man. Final two questions. Your stance on ICE, and if elected, how do you plan to work across the aisle to bridge this huge gap? Yeah, well, let me tell you. Number one, when it comes to ICE, we can have a safe and secure southern border. ICE doesn't do that. ICE has been used as a paramilitary force on our streets. ICE is not about immigration. ICE, unfortunately, under Donald Trump, ICE is about normalizing the idea that you can have masked men on your streets, right, who can detain you without telling you why. Because they look like you, Josh. You know, you could be walking in a street, and because you look a particular way, people are like, well, that man must be from the Dominican Republic, even though you're not from the Dominican Republic, right? And they're going to be like, well, let's detain him, and then we'll figure out later. That's un-American. We, in America, we have a rule of law, so it's unconstitutional. So I think ICE needs to be abolished. I think we need to keep the border safe and secure, and then we need to go back to a system like INS when you didn't have government masked men shooting people in the face or the back of the head or running up on preschools or Home Depots or hospitals and clinics or courtrooms. We can have a good, safe, secure immigration system. This is not it. When you look at what's making people afraid, you know how many children I've talked to who have nightmares about ICE? American-born U.S. citizen children who have Nightmares about ICE? It should be like that. We have to work together. Republicans, independents, how will you work with them if elected? I'll work with anyone who wants to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for all. And I'm looking forward to having the conversation with the broader public because here's what I've learned on my campaign. You know how many three-time Trump voters have come up to me and said, you know, Abdul, I'm voting for you. In fact, the New York Times wrote a whole article about why we're performing so well among Republicans. Because most of the folks who voted for Trump didn't vote for Trump because they like Trump. They vote for Trump because they hate politics, as usual. I'm not politics, as usual. I've never taken a dime from the corporations. I ran against my own party in the primary. They spent millions and millions to beat me in the primary. I still won. And now we're here to try and actually offer a political vision that is of, by, and for the people like the way it was supposed to be in this country in the first place. So I think a lot of folks are excited about that. And they say, you know, I'm voting for you because you really are America first. I don't want my tax dollars being used to buy 2,000-pound bombs for some other country. I want it to be used on your schools and in your health care. And you really want me to have health care. Like, look, the work of my life is I want people to have health care. I'm a doctor twice over. I got to rebuild health departments for a living. I want people to have health care in this country. It shouldn't be this hard. Anything else you would like to add? Look, we got an opportunity in this race to actually fight for the things we deserve. Appreciate you. Thank you to fight for health care, to fight for affordable gas and groceries, to fight the idea that the government just takes you to wars. You got no business fighting. And I'm not supposed to run for office. I know that. I got the wrong name for that. But I also remember a guy named Barack Hussein Obama ran and won Michigan twice. And I know that in this state, people are willing to take a bet on somebody who really is for the people. And say what you will about me, I have been fighting for people and their well-being my entire career. It's what I became a doctor to do. It's why I worked to rebuild the health department in this city. It's why I led Wayne County's health department. It's why I'm looking forward to fighting for Michigan as your next United States senator. And I hope I get that opportunity. Dr. El-Sayed, I appreciate your time. Josh, thank you so much, man. It's been a privilege. Indeed.