At a Saginaw town hall, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed addressed major voter concerns surrounding public safety, policing, prescription drug costs and government surveillance. El-Sayed discussed law enforcement recruitment and retention, behavioral-health responders, community violence intervention and corrections funding while answering questions from Michigan voters.
The town hall also focused on prescription drug affordability, Medicare drug-price negotiation and El-Sayed’s proposal to eliminate pharmacy benefit managers. He additionally addressed privacy concerns surrounding Flock surveillance cameras and license-plate reader systems, arguing that Americans should know when their information is being collected.
With public safety, healthcare costs and surveillance emerging as issues in Michigan’s 2026 Senate campaign, El-Sayed’s comments offer a closer look at his positions and proposals.
#AbdulElSayed #AbdulElSayed2026 #MichiganSenate #MichiganSenateRace #MichiganPolitics #MichiganElection #2026Election #SaginawMichigan #SaginawTownHall #MichiganVoters #PublicSafety #Policing #LawEnforcement #PrescriptionDrugCosts #Medicare #DrugPriceNegotiation #PharmacyBenefitManagers #GovernmentSurveillance #FlockCameras #FlockSurveillance #LicensePlateReaders #PrivacyRights #CommunityViolenceIntervention #MichiganNews #Election2026 #USSenate
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The town hall also focused on prescription drug affordability, Medicare drug-price negotiation and El-Sayed’s proposal to eliminate pharmacy benefit managers. He additionally addressed privacy concerns surrounding Flock surveillance cameras and license-plate reader systems, arguing that Americans should know when their information is being collected.
With public safety, healthcare costs and surveillance emerging as issues in Michigan’s 2026 Senate campaign, El-Sayed’s comments offer a closer look at his positions and proposals.
#AbdulElSayed #AbdulElSayed2026 #MichiganSenate #MichiganSenateRace #MichiganPolitics #MichiganElection #2026Election #SaginawMichigan #SaginawTownHall #MichiganVoters #PublicSafety #Policing #LawEnforcement #PrescriptionDrugCosts #Medicare #DrugPriceNegotiation #PharmacyBenefitManagers #GovernmentSurveillance #FlockCameras #FlockSurveillance #LicensePlateReaders #PrivacyRights #CommunityViolenceIntervention #MichiganNews #Election2026 #USSenate
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm actually pro-life and I tend to vote more conservatively. Why should I vote for you?
00:05Appreciate your question. You know, I think it's important that, first of all,
00:11it's a brave thing you just did, right? Because not everybody agrees with you in this room,
00:15you know that, but you shared your perspective and it's, we need to be able to have these
00:21conversations openly and honestly. And I just want to call out your bravery for asking your question.
00:37I respect your position insofar as it's founded in the idea that you want to protect and empower life.
00:46The question we have to ask ourselves is what's the best way to do that?
00:49And whose life gets destroyed in that process? Because too often when government says that you
00:57cannot have reproductive care, you are creating a circumstance in which a
01:07adult or sometimes even a juvenile human is being reduced into simply a carrying vehicle
01:14for a fetus that has not ever breathed air in the world. And that has real implications for both lives,
01:22right? And so to me, the question is, where should our public policy go? How do you do that best,
01:32this goal? And I think it is important for us to realize that the life of the mother,
01:41the currently existing life of the mother, that life can't be curtailed because our public policy
01:48has turned that person simply into a carrying vehicle for a fetus.
01:57The second thing I'll say
02:00is that the best way to prevent an abortion is to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.
02:06When you disinvest in science, you're disinvesting literally in the future.
02:11There is a future world that she is working toward in which that is no longer a problem that we
02:17all
02:17really kind of want. And we want people who love science, who are excited about science to be
02:24working on science every day. That is like an ideal outcome in a society. And then you ask yourself why
02:31they're pulling back on NIH research. And I assume that's who funds your lab that you worked in.
02:38Well, for what? To what end? Oh, we don't have money for that? So we can pass a tax cut
02:44for a
02:45billionaire? Because that's the argument. Or so we can raise the war budget to $1.5 trillion so that
02:52we can spend $2.8 billion on 2,000 pound bombs that go to a foreign government? That's why?
03:01So the point that I'm making here is that
03:05budgets are about priorities.
03:08And if we are a society that doesn't prioritize
03:12investing in people who want to build the future where
03:15people don't get retinal damage, or at least we know how to heal it,
03:20then we've got to invest in that thing. And I'd argue that's a pretty darn good investment.
03:26And instead, we're invested in literally the bombs that cause the ocular trauma that take away
03:34people's sight, if not worse.
03:40We got choices, y'all.
03:43So I believe in the NIH. I'll probably be one of very few. My medical education was funded by the
03:49NIH.
03:50I probably one of very, very few members of the U.S. Senate to ever have an NIH grant,
03:55or who visited the NIH before I was in the U.S. Senate, or the CDC, or the FDA.
04:00And I believe in science. Like, it's pretty good. Science is pretty good.
04:04Does good things, right? The fact that I can speak to you through this little thing, that's science.
04:12And so we've got to be thinking about not just how to make the NIH whole,
04:17but also to use this opportunity to say, what do we want the NIH and the FDA and the CDC
04:22to look like
04:23in the future? Because I will say this. One of the frustrations that is real is that these are
04:29institutions that were ossified in the past and haven't been able to really build for the kind
04:34of future we want. So my hope is, as the first democratic doctor in the U.S. Senate in nearly
04:4150
04:41years, who started my career in healthcare science, to be able to be thinking about how do we rebuild
04:50this thing and invest in this thing for the future we want, and learning from and with scientists
04:56about what they need and how they need funding to be able to support their work, their careers,
05:02and the institutions that support them. You need to know exactly what your rights are going to be,
05:09and this needs to be enforceable. And I also think you deserve to be able to form a renter's union
05:17so that you can withhold your rent if, in fact, your renter or your landlord is not meeting your
05:26obligations. And then beyond that, part of the reason rent is so expensive is because we just
05:32don't have the housing that we need in America. It drives up the price of buying a home, and it
05:37drives up the price of rentals as well. There's been some really good legislation that Senator
05:44Elizabeth Warren championed that just got passed into law that I think will have a real impact on
05:49it. But I do want to talk about one part that doesn't get addressed, which is Airbnb and Verbo.
05:54So I was just in South Haven. Everybody know where South Haven is? So it's a beautiful part of our
06:01state on the third coast of this country, which is the west coast of the state of Michigan. And
06:07housing is a huge crisis there in part because anybody with a bit of extra capital, whether they're
06:12in Michigan or New York or California, can use that money to buy a home, turn it into an Airbnb,
06:18rented out as a sort of hotel. And it takes that housing unit off of the market, which pushes up
06:26the price for everybody else. And we've got this whole big techification of the housing market
06:32because of this. We've got to be able to hold Airbnb and Verbo accountable in ways that limit
06:38exactly how many units they can offer in certain communities and forces them to take that money
06:43that they make and invest some of it in building affordable housing that replaces the units that
06:49they take offline. But we've got to be thinking about where this is all going and what's driving
06:54a lot of these markets. And it's an issue that, especially in communities where you have a tourist
07:00community, like Kalamazoo being one of them, where you have tourists who want to come for whatever
07:04reason, it's starting to mess with the housing stock in the housing market in ways that are just
07:14inflating the prices.
07:20So now we're going to move on to just question and answer. So can you raise your hand if you're
07:25looking
07:26to ask? That was the quickest I've ever seen. Right here in the middle, we have a question.
07:31Uh, green hair? You raise your hand. You know, Adam, you can just, um, Bryce Underwood it
07:42over there. Too soon, I'm sorry. Um, hello. I was wondering, um, what you plan to do to support
07:53your LGBTQIA plus constituents in your time in Congress? Um, how you plan to support our rights
08:01as a trans person who is on hormones? Um, I'm wondering what you will do to protect our rights
08:07to be able to access the life-saving medication and health care that we need. Thank you.
08:17Thank you for your question. So first, let's be clear, right? Rights are rights, are rights,
08:22are rights. If you assent to them taking one group's rights, even if those are not rights that you make
08:28use of every single day, do not be surprised when they come for your rights. And so we have to
08:33make
08:33a decision in America that everybody's rights are everybody's rights. And when it comes to access to
08:40healthcare, you know, let me just say Dr. Long John and I both went to medical school, right? Many of
08:45our colleagues after medical school, school spent years and years and years in residency and fellowship
08:51training to be experts on the patients that they see. And I believe that they're the experts on the
08:57patients that they see rather than the government being able to step in and say, no, you cannot
09:01provide so-and-so health care and you'll only provide so-and-so health care. And it's not just
09:06me who says this. In fact, conservatives also believe this. It's why they push so hard for what's
09:11called right to try legislation in which the government could not deny you access to medications
09:17that a doctor and you decided you need it. So I believe that healthcare decisions ought to be made
09:22by a doctor and a patient. And if the patient's under 18, their parents, and those are the only
09:26people who get to make those decisions, not to the government telling what you what you
09:30cannot have. And then we just need to codify protections for LGBTQ folk in federal law.
09:44Next question. Okay. All the way at the top. Could you stand up?
09:54Hi, my name's Amaya. I'm a senior here studying arts administration. I was just wondering if you had
10:01any ideas of how you can combat the ways that the OB-3 bill has impacted our ability to get
10:08to
10:09financial aid. I've been a Pell Grant student, work study, et cetera. And in this past year, it's been so
10:15difficult to try to find ways to make it more affordable to get my education. And if there's
10:20a way that we can work on that on this level, like that is not federal, is there a way
10:26that you can
10:26combat that? Well, first, I'm really sorry for your experience. You know, the way that this bill
10:32operated, it literally pulls the rug from underneath folks. So OB-3 is the one big beautiful bill act,
10:39which is the one big ugly bill act, which basically did the following. It cut a whole lot of support
10:46for everything from healthcare to educational support to pass tax cuts for the richest people
10:51in our country. You know what I want to do? I want to run the play in reverse. Let's tax
10:55some
10:55billionaires to provide healthcare and educational opportunity for folks.
11:06Because here's the thing about it. You know, if you're a billionaire and you tax a billionaire at
11:118%, you know what they still are? Still a billionaire. Like if you're a billionaire right
11:16now, your, your billion is making like 10% on the market. Okay. That means that for not doing
11:21anything, your billion makes how much? Are you calculating this? A hundred million dollars
11:28for doing jack shit. So if I tax at 8%, a billionaire, you know what they make? Just $20
11:36million for doing jack shit. Like you're going to be okay. Billionaires will be fine. I think it is
11:42time for us to realize that our country was its most prosperous when we were willing to tax folks
11:51who had won at the game of capitalism to invest so that everybody else could play the game
11:56of capitalism. You know, a lot of people like to call me a socialist. I'm actually not a
12:01socialist. Anybody here know who Adam Smith is? Any econ majors? Who's Adam Smith? Yeah, he's
12:09the guy who coined the term capitalism. You know, he said, he said, there's no markets without
12:13morals. Even Adam Smith knew that the biggest risk to capitalism was not government regulation.
12:19The biggest risk to capitalism was always monopoly and oligopoly. We don't live in capitalism.
12:27I'm a capitalist. We don't live in capitalism. We live in corporate socialism. So if you're a
12:34corporation, you can buy a politician to get that politician to rig the system for you so that you
12:40make more money and you X out every other market in which you compete. That's the system.
12:46So I think we need to make sure that we actually do have capitalism. And the best way to invest
12:52in
12:52capitalism is the morals that even Adam Smith understood, which is we invest in the basic
12:58substrate for people. You need good health care. You need a good education. We need child care. We
13:03need good roads and bridges. We don't need to send our money to big corporations to subsidize them.
13:08We need to be invested in people so that they have the human capital to be able to do all
13:12the things
13:13as they graduate and come out. That's how the system should work. And that's not what we've had
13:17for a very, very long time. So yes, we need to reinvest in that grant infrastructure. I'm just going
13:23to finish here. Raise your hand if you've got student loans. Keep your hands up if your student loans
13:31are, by the time you graduate, going to be more than $50,000. This is a public university.
13:39This is a public university. Now imagine what that would have looked like if we were at a private
13:44school. The big reason why we have so much educational debt is because we've disinvested
13:49in exactly programs like the one she's talked about. And what's crazy to me is you'll talk to
13:55older folks and they'll say, well, I don't know what the big deal about education debt is or student
14:01debt is. And that's because too often they came up in a time where education was far better.
14:08subsidized. And we've pulled all that up behind. I talked to a guy and he told me, he's like, look,
14:17I just think kids these days don't want to work hard enough. I'm like, oh, okay. He's like, I went
14:21to
14:21the University of Michigan, graduated in 1968. I used to have to work all summer. I scooped ice cream.
14:29And with my money, I was able to pay for my tuition and pay for room and board and have
14:36some walking
14:37around money afterwards. I was like, sir, that's, that's great for you. I'm like, really, that's,
14:42that's amazing. Do you know how much you'd have to make in a summer to be able to afford that?
14:49Six figures. If you can make six figures scooping ice cream, just keep scooping ice cream.
14:55Don't go back to school. Whatever ice cream you're scooping, just keep scooping it.
14:59You're going to have a great life. We don't live in those times anymore. And it's because we've
15:05made decisions to under invest in exactly these kinds of programs, to pull up investments in
15:11healthcare, to pull up investments in all these things. And then what we do is we pass tax cuts
15:15for billionaires. So they make a, make a, they can make a second billion. It's not right.
15:22So thank you for your question. Right up there in the green sweatshirt. Yep. That's you. Stand up if
15:33you can. Thank you. I need to know what your shirt says. Hi, Dr. El-Sayed. My name is Giovanna.
15:47I am a
15:47second year PhD student studying biological sciences. As I'm sure you're well aware, we've
15:53seen many cuts to research and restrictions oppose, or impose, excuse me, on scientific research, both in
15:59things like neuroscience, but also in climate, as well as environmental studies, agriculture, sort of
16:06across the board. I'd love to know, as we've seen scientists leaving and seeing grants be taken away
16:13from our colleagues or just harder to find funding, I'd love to hear if you have a plan to address
16:19how we're going to bring ourself back from this gap in scientific research. So before I answer the
16:25question, do you know what you're writing on yet? I'm sorry? Do you know what your PhD is going to
16:30be on specifically yet? Yes, I do. My colleague and I, we study retinal regeneration. So we work on
16:37diseases like glaucoma, as well as a blast induced ocular trauma. Um, we're hoping to restore vision
16:43loss. So can you tell me about the moment you realized that you wanted to be a scientist?
16:56I'd love to, um, certainly as a kid, I grew up with like the national geographic geodes and
17:02random science kids. I remember being introduced to my first microscope in the sixth grade when we
17:08were, uh, studying, you know, pill bugs and other things with methylene blue dye. And I just sort of
17:13fell in love with it. I met my PI actually while I was here at Western studying physiology. Uh, I
17:19got to
17:19learn so much under her. And as I, I actually started as a master's student, um, and as I progressed
17:25through research, I really just fell in love with investigating those scientific questions. So I think
17:29my journey as a scientist has really been my whole life, but probably just as a kid, I think my
17:35education
17:35has really shaped who I am. Do we all agree that she should be invested in as a scientist?
17:54So for folks who, who don't know what she's talking about, right? When you are hit with a gigantic
18:01trauma, the back of your eye, which is what processes visual light and transfers the message into your
18:09brain, that that part of your eye can get, um, torn off of the neural background so that you can't
18:18actually process that anymore. So she's working on research to try to understand that better so that
18:23we protect people so that they can still see if that happens to them. Do we all agree that that's
18:27an important problem that somebody should be working on? And the reason I keep, I raise this,
18:42the reason I'm asking those questions is because when you disinvest in science, you're disinvesting
18:48literally in the future. There is a future world that she is working toward in which that is no longer
18:54a problem that we all really kind of want. And we want people who love science, who are excited
19:00about science to be working on science every day. That is, that is like the, an ideal outcome in a
19:06society. And then you ask yourself why they're pulling back on NIH research. And I assume that's
19:12who funds your lab that you worked in. Well, for what? To what end? Oh, we don't have money for
19:19that.
19:21So we can pass a tax cut for a billionaire because that's, that's the argument or so we can raise
19:27the
19:28war budget to $1.5 trillion so that we can spend $2.8 billion on 2000 pound bombs that go
19:33to a foreign
19:34government. That's why. So the, the, the point that I'm making here is that budgets are about
19:44priorities. And if we are a society that doesn't prioritize investing in people who want to build
19:51the future where people don't get retinal damage, or at least we know how to heal it, then we've got
19:58to invest in that thing. And I'd argue that's a pretty darn good investment. And instead we're invested
20:06in literally the bombs that cause the ocular trauma that take away people's sights, if not worse.
20:17We got choices y'all. So I believe in the NIH. I probably be one of very few. My medical
20:26education
20:26was funded by the NIH. I probably want to very, very few members of the U S Senate to ever
20:31have an
20:32NIH grant or who visited the NIH before I was in the U S Senate or the CDC or the
20:36FDA.
20:38And I believe in science. Like it's pretty good. Science, pretty good. Does, does good things,
20:43right? The fact that I can speak to you through this little thing, that's science.
20:50And so we've got to be thinking about not just how to make the NIH whole, but also to use
20:56this
20:56opportunity to say, what do we want the NIH and the FDA and the CDC to look like in the
21:01future?
21:02Because I will say this, one of the frustrations that is real is that these are institutions that
21:07were ossified in the past and haven't been able to really build for the kind of future we want.
21:12So my hope is as the first democratic doctor in the U S Senate in nearly 50 years,
21:20who started my career in healthcare science, to be able to be thinking about how do we rebuild this
21:28thing and invest in this thing for the future we want and learning from and with scientists about
21:35what they need and how they need funding to be able to support their work, their careers and the
21:40institutions that support them. So thank you for your work. Thank you for your love of science.
21:44Thank you for your research.
21:47And thank you for the question.
21:49As an environmental scientist, thank you. We're going to go into the back first. Someone who
21:54messaged me days ago to ask the question, right in the back over here. That's like a generational hand
21:59raise.
22:04Hello, Dr. El-Sayed. My name is Ezekiel, and I'm a student here at Western Michigan.
22:08I am on the policy law track looking to help unions and workers all over the world.
22:15I have a question that I feel needs to be on the forefront of every progressive candidate.
22:20We've seen time and time again, many successful and unsuccessful worker protests,
22:25strikes, boycotts, organizations, but successful or not, a common thread is that they don't hold
22:30long-term working class solidarity through the ups and downs of the news cycle when there isn't a
22:35well-known or nationally regarded protest and movement. So my question is, how do you think,
22:40as hopefully the next senator of this great state, you can help build solidarity in Michigan workers
22:45that are maintained over time and can lead to concrete change that may supersede possibly
22:51a legislative win that can be overturned next election or Senate vote?
22:55Thanks for your question and thanks for your work. Look, I don't have to tell you all here in
22:58Michigan that unions built the middle class. They built the 40-hour work week. They built the fact that
23:04our kids go to school instead of going to work, built the weekend. I don't get any more, but you
23:09know,
23:10I should, somebody, I said that once and somebody's like, get a union. I was like, no, no unions for
23:14candidates. I don't technically have a job. But unions can do it again. And it's not a coincidence
23:24that we are at historically low union participation and historically high inequality. Those two things go
23:31hand in hand. When I talk about money in your pocket, the number one most important thing we can do
23:37to put money in your pocket is to normalize and empower union organizing in every sector of American
23:45life. And there's three ways to do that. Number one, it's legislation. We got to pass the PRO Act.
23:57The PRO Act would normalize union organizing in every sector of American life. It would empower unions
24:03against corporate or, frankly, any kind of union busting. Two, we got to say the word union. We got to
24:11say it
24:11everywhere. My job is not just to be like, yeah, yeah, let's get the policy done. Politics is the conversation
24:18we have in a democratic society about who we are and who we want to be and how we allocate
24:22scarce resources
24:23in that society. That's what this is. And I think too often we think that politics is some kind of
24:30destined, predestined thing. But politics is a negotiation. It's a conversation that we share
24:35together. And the problem is, is that too often my party hasn't been very good at actually inspiring
24:43people to believe in what we're for. Because we don't go out and talk about it. Because too many consultants
24:49tell us, oh, you shouldn't say that word. It's not popular. The job is not to say what's popular.
24:52The job is to make popular what's right.
25:04And so it's the willingness to go out there and talk about unions and talk about labor and empower
25:10labor unions and to show up to union protests and carry those messages.
25:15It's to make it normal to have a union and to fight for unions. That's what it takes. And then
25:21number three, it's to invest in the future of unions. And what I mean by that is to create
25:29pathways by which people are joining and forming unions, but doing that in a way where you normalize
25:35the interaction between our politics and unions. There's this thing that has happened over the past 30
25:41years, which is when a politician is involved in unions, we somehow say that that is corrupting,
25:49even though unions are literally the vessel for working people. And then we've normalized the power by
25:53which corporations literally buy Mike Rogers. And we say that's just normal. That's how politics should
25:59work. In fact, it should be quite the opposite. If we want a government that works for working people,
26:07you've got to normalize the relationship between working people and our political system.
26:12Right? Normalize it. So I'm proud to be endorsed by the UAW. I'm proud to be endorsed by the AFT.
26:18I'm proud to be
26:18endorsed by the MEA. I'm proud to be endorsed by the building trades. I'm proud of carrying those union
26:25endorsements. And my job is to carry that union message everywhere I go and carry it with me into the
26:29U.S. Senate.
26:36Go over here in the gray sweatshirt. Yep, you. Mike Renner is coming down. You could stand up real quick.
26:48So I'm actually pro-life and I tend to vote more conservatively. Why should I vote for you?
26:53Thank you. Appreciate your question. You know, I think it's important that, first of all,
27:00it's a brave thing you just did. Right? Because not everybody agrees with you in this room. You know
27:04that. But you shared your perspective. And it's, we need to be able to have these conversations openly
27:12and honestly. And I just want to call out your bravery for asking your question.
27:26I respect your position insofar as it's founded in the idea that you want to protect and empower
27:32life. The question we have to ask ourselves is what's the best way to do that? And whose life
27:40gets destroyed in that process? Because too often when government says that you cannot have
27:49reproductive care, you are creating a circumstance in which a adult or sometimes even a juvenile human
27:59is being reduced into simply a carrying vehicle for a fetus that has not ever breathed air in the world.
28:09And that has real implications for both lives. Right? And so to me, the question is, where should our
28:18public policy go? How do you do that best, this goal? And I think it is important for us to
28:25realize
28:26that the life of the mother, the currently existing life of the mother, that life can't be curtailed because
28:36our public policy has turned that person simply into a carrying vehicle for a fetus.
28:46The second thing I'll say is that the best way to prevent an abortion is to prevent an unwanted
28:55pregnancy.
28:59And what frustrates me often is that the very same people who say, and I'm not saying you're
29:06saying this, right? But the very people, the same people who say I'm pro-life are also against
29:11contraception, which to me says, look, if you want to prevent an abortion, the best single thing you can do
29:18is make sure that people have the means of preventing an unwanted pregnancy.
29:23And so why are we disinvesting in those things if that's the goal here?
29:30And then the last thing I'll say is that the pro-choice position empowers all outcomes.
29:41If somebody chooses to carry forward a pregnancy, that is their choice. But if somebody chooses not
29:46to carry forward a pregnancy, that should be their choice. And if you look at the Roe standard,
29:52the Roe standard was entirely about fetal viability. See what I'm saying? Because the
29:59minute that a fetus is created, literally sperm penetrates egg and you have a fetus, that fetus
30:07is not viable for several weeks. The line keeps changing, but 21 weeks, 22 weeks now. So the idea
30:17that you can't prevent the end outcome of the pregnancy when the fetus is not a viable living
30:25human being outside of a womb and that the person who's carrying that fetus has to carry it to
30:38conclusion, that's really problematic. And then I'll also just say that too often the ways that
30:47abortion bans get enforced create so much harm. Because here's the thing about it. If somebody
30:55wants an abortion and an abortion is illegal, they're going to get the abortion anyway. It's just not
30:59going to be safe. Right? And then you have people who really desperately wanted to carry a fetus to
31:11term. And because of some catastrophe outside of their control, they are going to have to spontaneously
31:18abort. And then they're now in a situation where they need immediate healthcare. And everybody who
31:27could provide them that healthcare is too afraid to take care of them because they're afraid that the
31:32law is going to come after them. And it creates situations in which not just the fetus is going
31:41to be aborted, but possibly the life of the mother is at risk simply because the physicians and the
31:49providers who could care for them are too afraid of violating the abortion ban. That creates real harm for
31:55people. So I'm asking for your support because if you've ever sat in the circumstance where somebody's
32:03making a decision about whether to carry a pregnancy, and I have, you realize it's a big decision.
32:11People don't make these decisions lightly as much as people like to cherry pick, right? People don't
32:15make these decisions lightly, but it ought to be that person's decision and that person's decision alone.
32:28Here's the last thing I'll say.
32:31One of the things I appreciate when people articulate a pro-life position is that you want people to live.
32:36That's a good thing. The hard part I often have is what else gets carried with that decision.
32:42The same folks who talk about being pro-life are also not wanting to invest in childcare,
32:48not wanting to invest in healthcare. You know, the most pro-life decision in America would be to
32:54support Medicare for all. It's hard, right? When people want to give more agency to a non-viable
33:07fetus than they want to give to a living human being who can't afford their healthcare. And so
33:12I'm just looking for some consistency. See what I'm saying? So if you're pro-life and you want to
33:17value human life, I hope that you're looking at my platform and say, Hey, look, he wants everybody
33:23to have childcare. That's good for kids. He wants everybody to have healthcare. That's really good
33:29for pregnant moms. He wants to invest in people so that they can have their best pathway to a long,
33:35healthy life. That's really good for life. And even if we might disagree on the right of somebody
33:41to choose whether or not, when, where, and with whom to have a baby, there is so much more about
33:47the preservation of human life that sits in my platform than will ever sit in Mike Rogers'
33:52platform. So I hope I can earn your support. Okay. So we have like five minutes or less to go.
34:01Your hand has been up that entire time. So we're going to go to you for this final question over
34:06here. Can I get a mic runner? Right. Could you stand up real quick?
34:20I want to vote for you for the right reasons. I don't want to vote for you just because you're
34:28Arab, because you look like my brother and my husband, because you speak Arab-y. I want to vote
34:35for you for the right reasons. And when we talk about consistency, something that I've seen
34:40consistent in a lot of elections is the hype of the candidate. And then they get in, and then they
34:45start pulling back. And then they start accepting money from AIPAC, for example.
34:53...with you, because I have to...
34:55...to vote. I'm not ready to vote until he believes what is being said. And I'm the same way.
35:04So I'm worried. I'm scared. I'm really scared about this next election and then the presidential
35:10election that comes after it, because I don't know what it holds based off of the history of
35:14our election cycles in the past several years.
35:28I really appreciate your question. You definitely shouldn't vote for me simply because of my
35:34identities. I wish nobody voted on those purposes. It's about principle and about values.
35:42And not everybody who looks like you
35:46thinks about you
35:49and vice versa, right? Not everybody who doesn't look like you
35:52doesn't think about you.
35:56I'm sorry that politics has let
35:57all of us down.
35:59Too often, you have an exciting politician who gets worn down
36:04by the current system and does what they're going to do.
36:08I'll also tell you, there has never been more money spent against a single politician by AIPAC.
36:15So if I was going to bend to AIPAC, I probably should have done it before they spent $32 million
36:19to beat me.
36:23And I'll just tell you, we beat AIPAC so bad that not even Mike Rogers wants to take AIPAC money.
36:32But the bigger point is, I actually can't guarantee you anything.
36:36Nothing I say here is going to guarantee you much
36:38because every politician would sit here and tell you the same thing.
36:40I'll just follow that through.
36:41Every single person asking for a vote is like, I'm going to do X, I'm going to do Y, I'm
36:44going to do Z.
36:45And you really just don't have accountability over that politician
36:48until the next time they're up for re-election.
36:51I will ask you to look at my past
36:53because that's the best indication of somebody's future.
37:01And I didn't just run for office this time.
37:04I ran for office eight years ago.
37:06Now, I don't know how old you are.
37:08I assume you probably did not vote in that eight years ago election.
37:14Anybody here vote in that eight year ago election?
37:18Anybody remember what I was saying eight years ago?
37:22Do I sound any different now than I did eight years ago?
37:26Or am I saying literally the same things?
37:29I had a nice lady at church walk up to me.
37:31She's like, Abdul, you keep saying the same thing.
37:34I was like, that's a good thing in politics, right?
37:37She's like, no, you need to talk about new stuff.
37:41I'm like, I'm not like a comedian.
37:42I don't need a new bit.
37:43You know what I mean?
37:44We solve these problems.
37:45I'll talk about new problems.
37:46But right now, these are the problems.
37:47I want money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.
37:49I said the same stuff when I ran back in 2018.
37:53I didn't take corporate money then.
37:56I was running on guaranteed health care, state level single payer then.
38:01I talked about the role of unions and monopolies then.
38:05And then in the interim, I lost my race.
38:08And guess what I did?
38:09I went back to public service.
38:11I worked in Wayne County.
38:13We put glasses on more kids.
38:17We stood up to polluters, put in air quality.
38:22I wrote a book on Medicare for all.
38:25And so the thing I would say is, I can't promise you.
38:29But I can tell you what I have been doing.
38:32And I can say what I have stood up against to do it.
38:37The $70 million that they spent against us in this primary
38:40is more than has ever been spent against any candidate running for statewide office
38:46in the history of our country.
38:50And I did not change my message one bit.
38:55So, like, let me just finish one bit.
39:06And I'll just also say this.
39:08I'm not that excited about the job.
39:11Like, the job of being a U.S. senator, like,
39:14I'm going to have to hang out with Chuck Grassley.
39:16I mean, Chuck Grassley, the one thing I can say is that he enjoys ice cream
39:20and I enjoy ice cream.
39:22We are both from Midwest states.
39:24And that is about as much as Chuck Grassley and I have in common.
39:26Don't forget his vacuum.
39:28That's right.
39:29I'm not nearly as excited about vacuums.
39:33I could become maybe.
39:34Maybe this is the thing.
39:35Maybe this is the thing that will make me very excited.
39:37All of it is to say I'm not excited about the job.
39:39I'm excited about the work.
39:42You know, and I used to, you know,
39:50sometimes my dad will tease me.
39:52And his joke has some seriousness to it.
39:54He's like, you know, you could have been a surgeon.
39:57And sometimes I'm just like, I could have been a surgeon.
40:02And surgeons work really hard.
40:04But, like, surgeons make a lot more money than I've ever made.
40:07And nobody ever yells at them for being a surgeon.
40:09Like, you're still doing really important work.
40:12I just couldn't justify being a surgeon when too few people can get surgery.
40:19And the reason it mattered so much to me is just because my grandmother is still the smartest person I
40:29ever met in my life.
40:31And she never got to go to school.
40:34She had eight babies, and two of them died before their first birthday.
40:39My dad watched two siblings pass before he turned five.
40:43And I remember spending time with my grandmother in Egypt, and she'd pull me aside, and she'd take great care
40:49to remind me that, you know, one of my cousins is smarter than me.
40:54Many, several of them are actually, they work harder, at harder jobs, just as athletic, taller, better looking.
41:06And I'd ask her, I was like, okay, what do I have going for me?
41:09She'd be like, you have the best thing of all.
41:10I said, you get to go back to America at the end of the summer.
41:14Your cousins stay here.
41:16And here's the thing about it.
41:16She had the, like, gauzy 1950s view of what America was, like what we portrayed.
41:21She couldn't have imagined that there were kids growing up in America whose opportunities looked more like my cousins in
41:27Egypt than mine.
41:29And when you grow up with a front row seat to what your life should have been but the accident
41:34of history that allowed you to have the privileges that you had,
41:37you start to realize that it's not about being smart and working hard.
41:41It's about having the opportunity to allow being smart and working hard to actually do something for you.
41:52So, in my career, I've kind of always tried to make decisions about trying to put all the chips back
41:58at the center of the table, right?
42:00I graduated from Columbia University's medical school called the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
42:04Could have gone and done that.
42:07Then I became a professor.
42:09I was on the track to be one of the youngest tenured professors in Columbia University's, like, school's history.
42:15And I left that to rebuild a health department in the city of Detroit.
42:18Everybody said, that's crazy.
42:19Then I left that to run for governor.
42:21Everybody said, that's crazy.
42:23And then I went back to public service.
42:25And I'm back running for office.
42:27So, I hope what I'm showing you is a certain consistency, not just about the what I'm trying to do
42:33but the why I'm trying to do it.
42:35And I hope that means something about what I hope I can do when I'm in the U.S. Senate.
42:39So, I can't promise you anything about the future.
42:41Nobody can.
42:42But all I can tell you is that the best predictor of what somebody does in the future is what
42:45they've done in the past.
42:46And I hope my past speaks for something.
42:53Well, that is a wrap, everyone.
42:55Thank you for coming out to this nonpartisan conversation.
42:58And thank you, Abdul, for coming.
43:02One more ask.
43:03If you have not seen, if you have not joined our Students for Abdul group, join the group.
43:08If you see any of our folks with the Students for Abdul t-shirts on, go talk to them about
43:12how to get involved.
43:13We've got 43 days, and since this is a nonpartisan conversation, I am just going to say that you and
43:19your voice and your vote are some of the most important things you've got in these next 43 days.
43:27And I need you to use it.
43:28And not only use it, but use your voice to have the conversation with other folks in your community about
43:34what this means for us.
43:36If your vote wasn't as important, they would not be trying to take it from you.
43:42So, let's use it.
43:43Thank you so much.
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