Surfaced videos of Dem Senate candidate backing ‘defund the police’ contradict recent denials
The front-runner in Michigan’s complicated Democratic primary has repeatedly said he was not calling for defunding the police, but interviews and videos that emerged years ago tell a different story.
Abdul El-Sayed, who is running against Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., for the Democratic nomination in Michigan, has been adamant throughout his push for the Senate that he does not want to take tax revenue away from police departments, going so far as to say he has deleted old tweets espousing that ideology.
However, a video released five years ago for the University of Michigan included the following headline: “Systemic Racism as a Public Health Problem” El-Sayed argued that police funding and use of force are an aspect of systemic racism and constitute a public health problem.
Michigan Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed spent his campaign denying that he wanted to defund the police, but in an unearthed clip he asked: “Do the police really need to use guns?”
“Why are we investing so much more in people with guns and less in people with the means to be able to invest in youth, empower people with their livelihoods, and empower them to live their best lives?” El-Sayed questioned.
“Do the police really need to use guns? Do we need that much police force?” he continued. “And if we ask ourselves how we spend money in public, where that money goes, where it comes from, we need to make much better decisions about investing in things that will eliminate poverty rather than investing in poverty protection.”
The video follows a report from CNN during the summit. “Defund the police” movement In 2020, El-Sayed turned to this business.
During an interview with Detroit Public Radio As of June 2020, El-Sayed maintained that he had never directly called for “defunding the police” but that the principles behind the movement were difficult to express online in a tweet.
“So pay attention, I didn’t say ‘fund the police,’ I just explained what needs to be done,” El-Sayed said. “And I think we need to really focus on defining or explaining rather than risking one side or the other behind a hashtag.”
“Defunding the police is about shifting away from investing in the tools of incarcerating someone or killing someone on the street, and investing more in the tools of educating, empowering, and engaging communities with the tools to take on the systemic poverty that we have allowed to fester in too many communities.”
El-Sayed attempted to frame his position as “payback” to the police to prevent taxpayer dollars from flowing to “buy war materiel to wage war on our streets.”
“What we call it is less important than what we do about the issues on the ground,” he said at the time.
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Chicago police officers patrol downtown on August 26, 2025 in Chicago.
Roxie Richner, El-Sayed’s campaign spokeswoman, told Fox News Digital that she worked closely with law enforcement during her tenure as director of Health, Human and Veterans Services in Wayne County, Michigan, and that “her perspective has always become more nuanced as hands-on experience allows.”
“One word has never been enough to fully describe the reforms we need to combat a problem as complex as our criminal justice system,” he said.
“Just like he did in Wayne County in 2023, Abdul believes we need to improve law enforcement recruitment, retention and retirement funding so that law enforcement officers come from the communities they serve,” Richner said. he continued. “He also believes we must reject militarized policing, pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and favor civil violence intervention, behavioral health intervention, and public health improvements to reduce violence and protect the lives of communities and law enforcement.”
Still, El-Sayed has sought to clear his position on the issue as he runs ahead in one of the world’s most important races. 2026 midterm cycle.
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He and Stevens are running to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) for a seat Republicans are hungry for.
And more broadly, El-Sayed is part of the wave of progressives flooding into the Democratic Party and has support from progressive heavyweights. Senator Bernie Sanders I-Vt. and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DY.
However, the candidate seems unable to give up this idea. posts and interviews Despite this support since years ago.
Just last week, during an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt, El-Sayed pressed her old posts and said she “deleted all the tweets because I didn’t want them to be taken out of context like that.”
He blamed the problem on “clickbait in DC”
“I think this discussion about 2020 and the ways that tweets will play on CNN if you want to get clicks is really cool,” El-Sayed said. “They’re not that effective, and no one asks me about them on the streets or in communities in Michigan.”
Original article source: WATCH: Emerging videos showing Democratic Senate candidate supporting ‘defunding the police’ contradict recent denials
