Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed fired back at CNN last night over the network’s focus on his past “defund the police” rhetoric, arguing that the media outlet was trying to “fixate” on a single phrase rather than engage with his actual policy positions.
During an appearance on CNN’s “Inside Politics” on July 12, El-Sayed was confronted by host Manu Raju about resurfaced audio from 2020 in which he explicitly called for defunding the police. “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,” El-Sayed said in a 2020 radio interview, according to CNN’s KFile investigation published July 7.
When Raju pressed him on the comments, El-Sayed responded: “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.” He argued that his position was about redirecting resources from military-grade equipment given to police departments toward social services, mental health, and education.
El-Sayed has faced mounting scrutiny over his 2020 statements as he runs as the Democratic front-runner ahead of Michigan’s August 4 primary. CNN’s KFile review documented that in 2020 and 2021, El-Sayed repeatedly endorsed the substance of the defund movement in interviews, speeches, and social media posts—not just uttering the phrase but supporting the principle of reinvesting police funds into public health, education, and anti-poverty programs.
Earlier this month, when pressed by CNN’s Kasie Hunt on whether he still supported defunding police, El-Sayed did not directly answer. Instead, he said he deleted the old tweets to prevent them from being taken “out of context.” “I deleted all the tweets because I didn’t want them to be taken out of context like this so that you could distract from the actual conversation that Michiganders really want to have,” he said, according to Fox News reporting.
CNN documented that El-Sayed deleted thousands of old social media posts. One June 2020 tweet stated: “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.” Another post read: “The police have become standing armies we deploy against our own people.”
El-Sayed’s campaign has said his perspective “has become more nuanced.” Campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner told CNN that El-Sayed now believes in improving law enforcement recruitment, retention, and retirement funding, while also rejecting militarized policing and supporting community violence intervention and behavioral health responses.
The defund movement remained deeply unpopular even when El-Sayed was advocating for it. A 2021 Axios/Ipsos poll found that just 27% of respondents supported “defund the police,” with 70% opposed. In a battleground state like Michigan—which Trump carried in 2024—the issue poses a political liability for Democrats in the general election.
Sources
- Fox News — El-Sayed’s July 12 CNN interview and his response about the “fixate” comment, his deleted tweets, and his claim that he “funded the system.”
- CNN KFile — July 7 investigation documenting El-Sayed’s 2020 radio interviews and explicit statements supporting defunding police, his deleted tweets from June 2020, and his campaign’s statement about his “nuanced” perspective.
- Mediaite — Reporting on El-Sayed’s repeated calls to defund police in 2020 interviews despite recent denials.
