The leading Democrat in the Michigan Senate primary race has a dishonesty problem. Now, I know this is a thing with pretty much every Democrat. But in the case of Abdul El-Sayed, he's so "extra" in this department that even Democrat-compliant media outlets are calling him out on it.
For instance, during a recent interview with Zeteo media company founder and ex-MSDNC host Mehdi Hasan, the former Wayne County health department director was grilled on why he chose to call himself a "physician" when he wasn't one.
As RedState reported, Hasan noted that "you don’t have a valid state medical license in New York or Michigan, which apparently is what you need legally to call yourself a physician." El-Sayed, who does have a Doctor of Medicine degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, incredulously proclaimed that his words didn't matter. "At the end of the day, it’s not about whether or not I’m a physician or a doctor," he stated before diving into a canned response about healthcare and education.
SEE ALSO: The Michigan Senate Race Is Heating Up - and So Is the Scrutiny of Abdul El-Sayed
As we also reported, CNN, too, called out the Bernie Sanders-backed candidate for repeatedly claiming he had never advocated for defunding the police, something they found was wildly false after digging and finding interviews from 2020 where he talked extensively about it. El-Sayed had also posted tweets supporting the Defund the Police movement that he deleted before he declared his Senate candidacy.
On Sunday, El-Sayed sat down for an interview with CNN, where he promptly got agitated when their network correspondent, Manu Raju, dropped receipts on him and asked him to explain why he was saying now that he never called for it even though it "sounded like you did in the past."
El-Sayed then went on a bizarre rant about how defund supposedly didn't mean what we know it means:
"You know, what's interesting about that comment is I go as far as defining what I mean by that," El-Sayed said. "Do you disagree with investing in libraries and public services and social services? 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 to local police departments."
[...]
"Now, if you want to keep talking about one particular word that was in vogue that I tried to define at the time, sure. But I think if we're having a serious conversation about public safety, you'll see that my perspective is in keeping with exactly what most people who are rational about this question are talking about, and what they want."
Watch:
Manu Raju: *Shows clip of Abdul saying he supports defunding the police* and “So why do you say you never called to defund the police?”
— DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch) July 12, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed: Do you disagree with funding public libraries? pic.twitter.com/2gBS7zDLGl
What these Defund the Police proponents always leave out is the fact that when they call for more investment in social services and the like, what they usually want to do is fund it by yanking hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, from police department budgets. We've seen it happen in blue cities like Oakland and Los Angeles with disastrous results.
DIVE DEEPER: Democrats Should Shut Up and Listen to Oakland Police Chief's Emotional Response to Devastating Budget Cuts
The Defund the Police movement will always be toxic for Democrats, so some of the ones who still believe in it have had to try and come up with a way around it by playing word games and suggesting defunding does not mean what the American people know it means.
I always go back to what Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), who has endorsed El-Sayed, once said about defunding the police after New York City fell short of fully doing so when Democrat Bill de Blasio was mayor:
“Defunding police means defunding police,” the congresswoman said in a statement. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math."
I think that just about says it all.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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