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

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was confronted about his past instances of appearing to support "defunding the police" efforts on CNN's "Inside Politics" Sunday.

In a resurfaced radio interview cited by CNN, El-Sayed explicitly called for defunding the police in the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd riots.

"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. "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."

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CNN host Manu Raju asked El-Sayed about his comments in the clip despite previously claiming to have never supported defunding the police.

"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." 

"I believe in investing in retention and retirement for law enforcement. I've done work with law enforcement during my time in Wayne County —"

"But wouldn't that ... wouldn't that issue of defunding the police become an electability issue in November?" Raju interjected.

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"Let me finish my answer, Manu," El-Sayed answered. "I actually don't think it is. 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." 

"So maybe instead of investing in war material for police, we invest in a safe retirement for them," he continued. "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," El-Sayed added. "That's what I defined. And I think that's exactly what people want. 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."

Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed's campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

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Prior to his campaign, El-Sayed deleted several tweets criticizing law enforcement.

"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," El-Sayed wrote in one June 2020 post on X just several weeks after the death of George Floyd.

When asked by CNN about the tweets earlier this month, El-Sayed denied he took part in any efforts to defund the police.

"Judge me by my work, I funded the system because it needed to be funded," he said. "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."