CNN anchor Manu Raju confronted Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday over his past support for defunding the police after newly highlighted audio contradicted El-Sayed’s recent claim that he had never advocated the position.
During the interview, Raju pointed to scrutiny surrounding several deleted social media posts and recent reporting on El-Sayed’s previous comments about law enforcement.
“I want to ask you about some scrutiny you’ve gotten for past social media posts that you deleted, including about defunding the police,” Raju said before referencing comments El-Sayed made to The Detroit News. Raju noted that El-Sayed had recently insisted he had “never, never called for defunding” the police.
However, Raju said CNN’s K-File team had uncovered multiple interviews from 2020 in which El-Sayed explicitly supported the idea in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.
CNN then aired a portion of a local radio interview from 2020 in which El-Sayed advocated for defunding police departments while explaining what he meant by the phrase.
“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 the archived interview. He added that he believed more government resources should instead be directed toward public schools, libraries and social services.
After playing the clip, Raju questioned El-Sayed about the apparent contradiction between his past remarks and his recent denial.
“So why did you say you never called for defunding the police, when it sounded like you did in the past?” Raju asked.
El-Sayed argued that his comments were being interpreted too literally and said critics were focusing on a single word rather than the broader point he was attempting to make.
“You know, what’s interesting about that comment is I go as far as defining what I mean by that,” El-Sayed replied. “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 materiel that we made too much of during the war in Iraq.”
He continued by arguing that surplus military equipment had been transferred to local police departments because there was an excess of it after the Iraq War.
El-Sayed also emphasized that he supports investing in law enforcement officers in other ways.
“I believe in investing in retention and retirement for law enforcement,” he said, adding that he had worked with law enforcement during his time in Wayne County.
As Raju attempted to ask whether El-Sayed believed the issue could become an electability problem during the Senate race, the Democratic candidate interrupted.
“Let me finish my answer,” El-Sayed said before dismissing the suggestion that the controversy would hurt his campaign.
El-Sayed argued that society has increasingly relied on police officers to respond to problems that may be better addressed by other professionals.
“I think the way that we have thought about law enforcement is we answer every social problem with somebody with a gun,” he said. According to El-Sayed, officers he has worked with have told him they do not want to respond to situations involving individuals experiencing mental health crises.
Instead of investing in what he described as military-style equipment for police departments, El-Sayed said governments should prioritize officer retirement benefits and expand the use of trained mental health professionals to respond to certain emergency calls.
“So maybe instead of investing in war materiel for police, we invest in a safe retirement for them,” he said. “And then, instead of sending a guy with a gun, we send a trained mental health professional.”
Before the exchange concluded, El-Sayed again criticized the focus on his earlier use of the phrase “defund the police,” suggesting that too much attention was being paid to what he described as a term that was “en vogue,” rather than the substance of his broader policy views.
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