Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed Is “Not a Burn-It-Down Kind” of Candidate

0:00Okay, here's a question. Are you getting rewarded for paying your rent or mortgage right now? If your answer to that was, wait, what? You need to check out BILT. Becoming a BILT member means earning points on every housing payment, no matter where you live. BILT points can be redeemed towards flights, lift rides, fitness classes, student loan payments, hello, and more. Me, I would use them towards a hotel room. Why not let paying for where I live help me visit somewhere where I don't? And BILT gives every member access to its neighborhood concierge in the BILT app. It doesn't just give you information about your home and neighborhood, it gets things done.

0:32It's connected to your home and over 50 ,000 merchant partners, so you can ask it to pay your rent, make a dinner reservation, and so much more. It'll tell you about exclusive member benefits at restaurants, fitness studios, on your Lyft rides, and more around your home. And for the homeowners out there, Bilt works for mortgages too. Your housing payment is one of your biggest monthly expenses, so why wouldn't you want to earn points on it? Download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com slash newyorker. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash New Yorker. Use our link so they know we sent you.

1:11You're listening to The Political Scene. I'm David Remnick. Early each week, we bring you a conversation from our episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. If polling averages are to be believed, Democrats are likely to reap a big windfall in November. President Trump's approval ratings are swamped by the war in Iran and other news. And the GOP seems to be struggling to enact some sort of agenda, even while controlling both houses of Congress. And yet it wouldn't be the Democratic Party without constant infighting.

1:55The moderate establishment wing of the party is in constant conflict with its left flank. And now they're contending with the Democratic Socialists as a rising energetic political force, what's been called the Mamdani effect. The debate centers on electability. Both sides are absolutely convinced that they have the formula for returning their party to power. Abdul El-Sayed is running for one of Michigan's seats in the Senate. He's a former public health officer, and now he's ahead in the polls for the Democratic primary. But that's raising concern among some Democrats who say that he may be too radical for a swing state.

2:35Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan's very popular governor, just endorsed his primary opponent, Haley Stevens. Conservatives like the columnist George Will claim that El-Sayed winning the primary would be just dandy for the Republican in the race, Mike Rogers. The stakes are undoubtedly high. Michigan is considered a must-win for Democrats if they want to control the Senate. I spoke with Abdul El-Sayed this past week. Now, I want to start by going back to a moment, a formative moment in 2007, when you were the commencement speaker for your class graduation at the University of Michigan. And Bill Clinton addressed the class that day, and he approached you afterwards, and he told you that you were not only a terrific speaker, but that you should consider a career in politics.

3:25Abdul El-Sayed:I'll be honest with you, I literally laughed in his face. I mean, my name is Abdurrahman Muhammad Al-Sayed. I got three names. Two of them nobody knows how to pronounce. The first one is 11 letters long. And to learn how to say it, you've got to realize that you've got parts of your throat you didn't know you have. and there's not only not only like one part of it like the first letter itself is ain right most people don't know that they can make that sound people like me didn't get to run for office and that was 2007 i so you know the first thing he asked me is why are you going to medical school which you know when you're a graduating senior who was the top student in your class people don't usually ask you that question right like why are you doing that as if to steer at your life choices i was like wait this what um i'm like don't you understand i'm brown and muslim it's what we do but I was just grateful for the implicit compliment, but I kind of just told him, I was like, I don't get to run for office.

4:22Abdul El-Sayed:And he kind of thought about it for a minute. Then he kind of chuckled and walked away. Were you a Bill Clinton fan at that time? I had really appreciated a lot of the global health work that he had done. And obviously like he was the president of my childhood. I was 21 years old in 2007. Like I had not seen Barack Obama. I had seen him. I mean, I watched him give the 2004 DNC floor speech, but I hadn't seen him like on the national stage. And that was still an untested hypothesis. And also, as much as I, you know, enjoyed politics, I never saw myself as a participant. I wanted to be a doctor's doctor.

4:54Abdul El-Sayed:Like I thought I wanted to be a surgeon. I thought I wanted to take care of kids with spinal malformations, working in underserved places and probably doing research in the area. And that's what I thought. So you didn't feel yourself to be a person of the left. You weren't critiquing Clinton and eventually even Obama as neoliberal, as the critique often goes from the left. You were looking at politics as something that you were interested in only as a kind of more narrow way. Is that what you're telling me? I was, but not in the sense that there was anything I could do about it. I was more likely to be the kid you saw on the stacks at like 11 p.m.

5:34Abdul El-Sayed:than the kid you saw at the protest. You know, we did some protesting when I was in college, but for me, it was always like the way I want to change the world is as a doctor. And by getting health care to people who don't have it, that was always the way I thought I was going to change things. And in some respects, you know, in so many ways, as a government official and now running for office, a lot of folks want to paint me as, oh, he wants to burn down the systems. Like, no, I don't. I want to bring my screwdriver and systematically deconstruct the parts of the system that are malforming and working for the wrong people.

6:05Abdul El-Sayed:And I want to take the parts that we have being misused there. And I want to rebuild that whole system so that it works for the people it needs to work for. I'm not a burn it down kind of personality. I'm a lot more of a study it, understand how it works, think about how you could rebuild it and then rebuild it. Now, are you getting advice telling you that you need to say that too? Because I think some people, I think it's fair to say, the press that I've read, Abdul, do see you as a burn it down kind of guy. And maybe, and running in the state of Michigan, maybe that's not of universal appeal.

6:38Abdul El-Sayed:I'll tell you this, David. the best single way to caricature me as someone who has qualms with the system is to try to flatten my personality into what they say they want me to be. And there are parts of me that says that, look, when I come with my toolkit to try and deconstruct it and you want to stop me from doing it and you get in my way, you know, we're going to have words, but I'm not afraid of a fight, but I also am not the kind of person who's just coming to destroy anything. I'm coming to build things that people need and deserve. And look, obviously the narrative is what it is. When you get$60 million spent against you, they're going to burn it to the ground.

7:15Abdul El-Sayed:I mean, they've tried to construct all kinds of narratives about me as a function of my personality, as a function of my background and a set of tropes that are easily told about somebody like me. The thing I have learned after having run for office now twice is that there's going to be a narrative built around you. And the best thing that you can do is just to show up and be who you are. Tell me this. You mentioned the Obama ascension, the Obama speech in 2004, and then his presidency from 2008. How do you look at that presidency? What was the constructive about it, and what's your critique of it?

7:49So I just got to tell you, like, I don't get to do what I'm doing

7:52Abdul El-Sayed:without President Obama doing what he did. The parallels are kind of uncanny, and I remember watching that 2004 speech and just being like, I didn't know politics would look like that or sound like that. His dad immigrated from Africa. My dad immigrated from a different part of Africa. He had mixed parents. I was raised by my dad and my stepmom, Jackie, who's the daughter of the American Revolution. He had a funny name. I got a funny name. The one place it doesn't work is he's tall and skinny and I'm pretty short and thick. But, you know, I don't get to do what I do without him. And at the same time, when you love somebody like that, you're going to look at them and say, could we do more?

8:27Abdul El-Sayed:It's kind of like the way you think about your parents. You know and revere your parents and you're grateful for all they did to help you. And at the same time, anybody who watches their parents will always look and say, there are some things about what they did that I want to do differently. And I kind of think about President Obama the same way. And I'll tell you, I was in medical school during the ACA fights. Affordable care. And the big frustration I had is like, why are we not going all the way? Why are we pre-negotiating with these folks who are never going to give an inch because at the end of the day, they are so bought off by the powers that be.

8:59Abdul El-Sayed:Why are we accommodating the private health insurance industry? And that to me was a righteous, you know, kind of frustration. And at the same time, you know, I have had my career in the world of the ACA and I can't imagine just how much worse it would be had we not gotten that. So you can both say the ACA was incredible. And as the president said, this was a starter home. So I think it's about damn time we move out of the starter home, I think. We've outgrown it. I only have an ounce of an understanding of like what it would have been to be the first Black president in 2008. And so he was up against it in a way I only got a small taste of.

9:35Abdul El-Sayed:And so, you know, he was in his particular circumstances, but, you know, he ran so that I could. And in some respects, we stand on the shoulders of giants. So I spent some time with him and writing about him. And temperamentally, you can see he's a very, very deliberative, careful guy. What about that do you admire? And what about that do you depart from? You know, I ran for governor in 2018. And I was 32, never run for office in my life. And I learned what it was like to be in the public eye to that level. If I speak at all about righteous anger, then I'm an Arab guy speaking about anger. If I criticize my male Republican opponent and also criticize my female Democratic opponent, then the only thing that is talked about is my criticism of my female Democratic opponent, specifically around her gender.

10:31Abdul El-Sayed:And, you know, it's just the nature of what this system is and how our politics are transacted in soundbites. So I empathize entirely. And I'll tell you this time around, I do think that we're operating in a very different moment than he was operating in because of the ubiquity of social media. And so I can move a lot more of myself and the full dynamism of myself to tell my whole story. And this time when I decided to run, there's still always this question of like, how mad on behalf of other people can I be? I'll be honest with you, I'm pretty damn pissed off on behalf of other people. I went to medical school because I wanted to be a doctor only to realize that our healthcare system was actively, actively pushing out the people I wanted to take care of.

11:21Abdul El-Sayed:And I'll be honest with you, it's like very few people say they got radicalized in med school. But like when I watched our healthcare system, like on the ninth floor of the extremely prestigious hospital that I was training in, we had people playing pianos for foreign dignitaries coming to get heart procedures. And then in the basement, watching indigent New Yorkers get, in effect, pushed out of the healthcare system before they got the care they needed. It really changed the way I thought about our system. And this woman came up to me on this campaign trail this time. She's a lovely older white woman.

11:52Abdul El-Sayed:And we were in mid-Michigan somewhere. And she pulls me aside. She's like, you know why I like you? I was like, why? She's like, well, because you're like the family dog. And from the middle of the day, oh. Oh, great. And she's like, no, I know that if the kids were taking rides on your back, you would give them rides on your back forever and ever and ever, and you would love it. And I know that if an intruder came into our home, you would maul them. I'm like, you got me. And that's the side of things that I've had to struggle with. How righteously mad can I be on behalf of people who've had a system that is architected against them in ways that actively lies to them?

12:30and that shit pisses me off.

12:33Abdul El-Sayed:I mean, it just - Well, is there in the global picture of things a healthcare system that you look at and you'd like to transplant into the United States? There are parts of different healthcare systems I'd like to. And here's the thing about it. Let me step back. My life's an accident of history. I know what my life would have been but for the accident that I get born in America. And my grandmother, when I'd go to Egypt, she would do everything she could to hammer that in. To be like, the only thing you've got over any of your cousins, who are just as smart, just as anything as you, is that you get to go back to America at the end of the summer.

13:06Abdul El-Sayed:And the thing about America is that we don't do things like other people. We do them better. I mean, I love that about our country. And it's funny when we talk about healthcare, there's always this sense of like, well, whose healthcare system do you want then? I'm like, I don't know. I want an American healthcare system that's just better. I think we could do a single payer system better than any country in the world. You know why? We already spend 19 % of our whole GDP on healthcare. I'm just like, why do we ever limit ourselves on anything? We are the richest, most powerful country, most innovative country in the history of the world.

13:37Abdul El-Sayed:And you want to tell me that the best we can do is charge people so much effing money that we owe$225 billion of medical debt as a country. That's the best we can do? Come on, y 'all, this is America, right? I've seen what America can do for people. I also see too often what America does not do for too many of her kids. And that's why I'm doing this. We're right now looking at a healthcare system that's not only characterized by all the faults that you're describing, but also the specifics of having RFK Jr. and the Maha movement as the most prominent voices in the health sphere. How do we go about rebuilding trust in public health?

14:17Abdul El-Sayed:Let me tell you a story, David, because I think it helps to explain this. During the height of the pandemic, I was talking to a group, you know, outdoors, fully masked, et cetera, about taking the vaccine. And I'm never going to forget this gentleman. You know, I had been the health commissioner for the city of Detroit, talking about getting this vaccine, how critical it was. He said, look, man, I know you, I've seen you. You know, I was on CNN at the time. Like, I trust you. I'm going to get my vaccine. But it's just weird to me that you all are out here trying to get me to take a vaccine that didn't exist a year ago for a disease that didn't exist a year ago when I can't afford my insulin, which is a medication that's existed for like 100 years and that for a disease I have my whole life.

14:57Abdul El-Sayed:when are you all going to show up to make sure I get to get to take my insulin? And I was like, damn, like you're right. I'm not quite clear what you're saying. You're saying Abdul that what the mistrust was such that it opened the door to conspiracy thinking. Exactly. Is that once you don't trust the industry because it's so expensive and they're so clearly trying to pick your pocket at that point, it's not that hard for somebody like an RFK junior to come in here and then say, well, you don't even need the things that they make anyway. Like here are some of these alternatives that they're keeping you from.

15:28Abdul El-Sayed:They don't want you to know, right? And I think to build trust again, we have to address the greed part in the system because once people feel like they can get access to the things that science has delivered, I think it becomes a lot easier than to have an honest conversation about what is the best way to prevent measles? What is the best way to protect ourselves from, I don't know, cyclosporiasis? But like, you know, we live in a moment right now in Michigan, which is crazy to me, where we're dodging lettuce. and we just had the worst air quality of our history for the second summer in a row.

16:03Abdul El-Sayed:I mean, air quality and lettuce were the two things that I tried to dodge in my summers in Egypt. And so I think we're at a moment right now where we're seeing the end outcome of disinvesting in public health. And I think we have an opportunity if we're serious about taking on the corporations that have been monetizing our healthcare system and killing trust to actually be able to rebuild trust again. Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan. We'll continue with more in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

16:47This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking with Abdul El-Sayed, a Senate candidate for Michigan. His chief opponent for the Democratic nomination is Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who enjoys the support of the Democratic Party establishment, people like Chuck Schumer in the Senate. And Michigan's very popular governor, Gretchen Whitmer, just endorsed her too. So the dynamics of the race could change. Meanwhile, AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, has absolutely flooded the Senate race with money to defeat El Saad, who's from an Egyptian immigrant family, grew up around Detroit, and has been very critical of Israel's behavior, particularly in the Gaza War.

17:30And there's a real question, a real question, about whether a progressive agenda can win in a state that went for Donald Trump in 2024. I'll continue my conversation now with Abdul El Saad. Now, a freshman senator, much less even a second-term or third-term senator, if they're lucky, I mean, they can vote on everything, but in order to make real headway, usually come down to one issue. One issue. Would you say that health care is going to be yours?

18:04Abdul El-Sayed:Health care and the thing that's keeping us from having health care, which is money and politics. Tell me what your first steps are. So God willing, we take the majority. We're in the Senate. I got two jobs from that point on. And I also want to remember that politics is path dependent. There's a story that's constantly being told. And the fact that you and I are having this conversation is a function of the fact that this is not just any Senate race. AIPAC and all the powers that be have effed around and made this the highest stakes Senate race, probably this cycle and for a long time. And when you spend $60 million to beat one person, you just turn that person into David.

18:44Abdul El-Sayed:You gave me a gigantic platform. Thank you so much, APAC donors. I'm so grateful for you. And that means that I have an opportunity here to use that platform to move a set of conversations. I got two jobs when I get to the U.S. Senate. Number one, throw as much sand in the gears into the Trump administration as possible, right? If I get a seat on that help committee, which I hope I will, then it's the opportunity to haul up a guy like RFK Jr. and start asking and start connecting dots to how much money he's actually made on the grift. And people around him have made on the grift. It's hauling up big pharma and talking about how much money they've made on their grift.

19:19You're accusing of RFK and making money on the grift. What do you mean?

19:22Abdul El-Sayed:Well, I mean, that reporting is out there around his many connections to folks who have profiteered off of an anti-vaccine movement. And then for big pharma, I mean, this is an obvious grift. They just are able to buy off politicians on both sides of the aisle to make sure that they can continue to have very little pushback when they want to raise prescription drug prices. And then the other thing I got to do in those first two years is use the incredible platform that APAC and all these mega donors are giving me to move the conversation about who we are and who we want to be to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for All and lay the groundwork through the state of Michigan for a president who is going to act on day one to do these things.

20:01Abdul El-Sayed:That's the first two years of my job. Abdul, your name has been connected quite often with the kind of left-leaning energy in the party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Oren Mamdani, and yet you have not joined the democratic socialists, the DSA, why not? Too much of a scientist, I guess. I'm a capitalist who read about capitalism. And when you read about capitalism, it is very clear, even to the originators who coined the idea, that the biggest risk to capitalism was not going to be government regulation as much as the corporatists want you to think it is. It was always going to be monopoly.

20:41Abdul El-Sayed:And we know that hypercapitalism tends toward monopoly. We also understand that that happens in part because when a corporation gets big enough, it has enough power to start rent seeking, which is a fancy term of saying, influencing government action to protect its own interests. And that's the place we are right now in capitalism. Like I think small business is amazing. I think it's a really efficient way to move capital into the areas where it can be really efficient to create a lot of jobs. I'm just not a socialist. And so I'd want capitalism to work the way it was supposed to work, not the way that the corporations tell us it's supposed to work right now.

21:16Abdul, forgive me. I'm sure people in Michigan know the answer to this, but the presumptive Republican candidate in the race, Mike Rogers, recently told supporters in, I think it was a private call, that if you win the nomination, he is, quote, in good shape.

21:32Abdul El-Sayed:It hasn't been in good shape since the 90s, but yeah. Well, this was reported by CNN, I think. What's your reaction to that? And why do you think he says it? And why do you think he might be wrong? I think he says it because all of his base understands the risk of actually having to go up against somebody who's willing to take the fight to them. And here's why he's wrong. In the 90s, you asked for tens of millions of dollars from your benefactors. Then you put 30 second ads on TV. And then you won because you were able to get more money and spend more on TV. And I think what you're showing is that if you can move your message and it is consistent and authentic to who you are, people see past the 30 second ads on TV because guess what?

22:15Abdul El-Sayed:Nobody likes the commercial part of a TV show. Nobody's ever like, man, I can't wait to watch the commercials. So all that is to say that like, he's just got an old fashioned view of politics. And this is why, in fact, it's that old fashioned view of politics, which is itself so hypocritical and damning. This is a guy who took six figures from the pharmaceutical industry, voted I don't know how many times to raise prescription drug prices, helped to architect the opioid epidemic, and then made$14 million after his time from Florida where he moved to in a McMansion. I mean, the guy would rather be golfing in Florida.

22:46Abdul El-Sayed:And even there, like he's probably like one of those, I don't know, he's like the beta character in the show. He's like the one who laughs extra loud. And then the other part of it is like, he's just confused about who he is. Like he wants to be ultra MAGA, but he was very against Donald Trump, which is why his own base is kind of circumspect about him, and I'm going to force him into conniptions. And it's going to be a lot of fun. Abdul, for the sake of clarity, because we get this kind of information in bits and pieces in the way of the information universe here, I totally understand your outrage about the Gaza War.