Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed fires back at CNN choosing to 'fixate' on 'defund the police' comments

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed faced renewed scrutiny Sunday over his past support for defunding the police, as a resurfaced 2020 radio interview put him at odds with his more recent public statements on the issue.

During an appearance on CNN's "Inside Politics," host Manu Raju confronted El-Sayed with a clip from a radio interview conducted in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests, in which the Democratic candidate used the phrase "defund the police" explicitly. In the resurfaced audio, El-Sayed said, "I believe that we do need to defund the police insofar as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating or killing them on the streets, and in investing more in the means of educating and empowering, engaging communities with the means of being able to take on systemic poverty, that we've allowed systematic racism to allow to fester in too many communities."

The comments drew attention because El-Sayed had previously said he had never supported defunding the police. When pressed about the discrepancy, El-Sayed offered an extended defense, telling Raju that he had "defined" what he meant by the term at the time. He argued that his position centers on redirecting public spending rather than eliminating law enforcement.

"You fixate on the word 'defund,' but what I'm talking about is war material that we made too much of during the war in Iraq. And then, because we had too much of it, we had to find somewhere to sell it. So we sold it to a whole bunch of local police departments," El-Sayed said. "I believe in investing in retention and retirement for law enforcement. I've done work with law enforcement during my time in Wayne County."

Raju then asked whether the defund position could become an electability problem for El-Sayed in the general election.

"I actually don't think it is," El-Sayed responded. "I think the vast majority of people agree that they want to get home safely every night. I think the way that we have thought about law enforcement is we answer every social problem with somebody with a gun, and you talk to folks in law enforcement with whom I've worked very closely, they'll tell you they don't want to go on those runs where they know that somebody is in mental crisis."

He continued, "So maybe instead of investing in war material for police, we invest in a safe retirement for them. And then, instead of sending a guy with a gun, we actually send a trained mental health professional. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I defined. And I think that's exactly what people want."

The exchange comes amid broader scrutiny of El-Sayed's record. Before launching his Senate campaign, he deleted several social media posts criticizing law enforcement. One archived post from June 2020 read: "Most major US cities spend WAY TOO MUCH on police departments to police poverty & WAY TOO LITTLE on public schools, health departments, recreation departments, & housing to eliminate poverty. Fixing that is what the #Defund movement is about."

Asked about those earlier posts by CNN earlier this month, El-Sayed denied having supported defunding the police. "Judge me by my work, I funded the system because it needed to be funded," he said at the time. "Too often the conversation we have is fund or defund. The question that we don't ask is, what kind of system do we really want? I want us to be investing in the kinds of interventions that actually protect people."

El-Sayed's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest interview.