Brad Starks

Chris: “dr. abdul el-sayed is joining us now live for his first tv interview since all that went down today. steven's endorsement of mike rogers. it's good to have you on the program. i want to ask you about what went down today, but there's some news that just broke, which is the new york times just released their last suite of senate polling. you know, a very reliable pollster. they have you up in this race by 11 points, 53 to 42, and i don't know if we're rerunning the primary, i'm gonna tell you off the top, i'm a little skeptical. what do you think?” Abdul El-Sayed: “yeah, i'm running like i'm 10 points down, but this race was never about me. it was never even about mike rogers. it's certainly not about haley stevens. this race is about the people in the state of michigan, the people that i've gotten to get to know in their churches and synagogues, in their basements and their living rooms, talking about what they need and deserve. we shouldn't have to worry about affording a tank of gas, shouldn't have to worry about groceries, shouldn't have to worry about seeing a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world. and it's the focus on those issues that i think helped us to succeed in the primary, despite a record $70 million spent against me in that primary, 11 to one outspent. but we were able to bring people together around the challenges we all face together to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass medicare for all. and we're out here talking about those issues in this general election as well. so, you know, i don't i don't i don't take polls very seriously after the primary. i'm a lot more focused on the work we can do, touching every last michigander so that they know who wants to actually address the challengers in their lives.” Chris: “you were asked today in a press gaggle after that event about reacting to haley stevens. and you said something along the lines of, look, there's 10 million people in michigan and i'm worried about the nine million nine hundred ninety nine thousand who are haley stevens. and i took that to heart. so i want to ask you this, there's some set of voters in michigan, i don't know how big they are, but there's some set that are still cross pressured or who are still undecided or are still on the fence between you and mike rogers in this race. and i think some of them might be people who consider themselves democrats who just have a good faith disagreement with you on some central issues on one or two possibly core issues. and so i'm curious what your message is to those voters, to those michiganders who are on the fence right now, who are watching this and who watch this entire spectacle play out today. what do you want to say to that?” Abdul El-Sayed: “you know, chris, the way i do politics is really quite simple. i tell people what i think. i'm very, very consistent. you could see me on a podcast, you could see me on instagram, you could see me on this show here, you could see me in a room of five or 50 or 500. i say the same thing so people know where i stand. and right now, it's a matter of priorities. do you prioritize defending our democracy? do you prioritize the ability to afford gas and groceries? because we've ended a war, we have no business fighting because we have a senate that's willing to stand up to the president. do you prioritize standing up against these ridiculous tariffs that we're paying $5,600 a year for here in michigan? do you prioritize standing up for the right to choose? do you prioritize standing up for the right to a union? do you prioritize more health care for more people or medicaid cuts? it really is that simple. mike rogers is going to be a vote for donald trump and if you don't believe me, just ask donald trump. he came here last sunday and said that he is on the ballot. in fact, he is on the ballot in the form of mike rogers. and so i'm asking folks to say what are your priorities? if there are issues that we disagree on that are more important to you than protecting democracy, protecting the right to choose, protecting the right to a union, protecting health care, then so be it. but if you believe in defending our democracy, defending health care, defending the insane attack on our politics, frankly, our democracy, then i hope that i can earn your support.” Chris: “you did an event today with james clyburn, obviously the legendary figure in democratic politics, house member from south carolina. and he's both a kind of icon, but he's also been a very prominent player in some of the internal battles in the democratic coalition, quite famously so, obviously his indictment of, his indictment, his endorsement of joe biden in 2020, enormously consequential. i'm curious, just what was your conversation with congressman clyburn today? what was that like to meet him and to be at an event with him?” Abdul El-Sayed: “so i actually got to meet him just after the primary and i got to spend some time with him in his office. and he is somebody who is relentlessly focused on building an america that is more embracing, more empowering of black folk in this country. and he has lived that life. he has fought that fight. and i wanted to share with him my work. i'm somebody who came back to the city of detroit to rebuild a health department back in 2015 after it had been shut down when the city went through emergency management and state takeover of its finances, built it to provide glasses for kids, take on big corporate polluters to take on the asthma epidemic, make sure that our kids weren't exposed to lead in their schools. in wayne county, we eliminated medical debt. upwards of a hundred million of the 700 million were slated to wipe clean. and the people i was working for, working alongside, being led by, were black folk in one of the largest predominantly black cities in the country. and when i got to share that perspective, it was really interesting because you stand on the shoulders of giants. when you sit with jim clyburn, you recognize you're literally talking to living history. but he said, ‘your fight is my fight. my fight is your fight. and i'd be glad to come to michigan with you.’ and so today was the culmination of that. and i was just so honored to get to stand with him, to see him engaging in the different churches that we visited, talking about the issues that have animated his life that he's been working toward, that have been the substance of my public service too. and it was just amazing, understanding the ways that his career and my career have rhymed. but we stand on the shoulders of giants and my job is to pick up the baton and run with it as fast as i can. and i hope that as we work together through the end of this campaign, of course, but then also in congress, that we can start putting pen to paper on the kinds of policies that really can uplift communities in detroit and south carolina.” Simone Sanders Townsend: “dr. abdul el-sayed, simone sanders townsend here. i'm very heartened to hear the way you are talking about your conversations with congressman clyburn. you know, i have spoken to him about you and he has said and many of the other members of congress from the cbc specifically who have been out there to campaign with you, congresswoman ayanna pressley, have said that you really seem to understand the coalition building work that needs to take place and needs to happen. and i juxtapose that with conversations that i've had with folks that i would call non-political professionals in detroit specifically who have said, mm, i don't know. i like him, but i still don't know him. and then they speak to some of the larger issues, frankly, that exist specifically within michigan amongst the black folks there and the arab american community. what would you tell a voter that is not on the fence about any of the issues that maybe haley stevens or others have, but it's just like, i don't know if voting for abdul el-sayed is going to change my life. what would you tell a young black person in detroit right now who's thinking about casting that ballot on tuesday?” Abdul El-Sayed: “well, i would tell them this. i'm somebody who's tried to serve in the roles that i've had the best i can to uplift and empower the community. there are 16,000 kids who've got glasses because of the work i've done. there are countless kids who got to go to school because they didn't have asthma exacerbations because we were willing to stand up to corporate polluters that nobody had stood up to before. there are kids who go to schools that i made sure were not leaded after the flint water crisis. there are families who are getting letters as we speak to eliminate medical debt. now, you might not have heard of me before, you know, i've tried to do my work quietly working alongside folks. i've never been an elected official. i've always been in appointed roles. i'm running for office now because i saw exactly the dangers being imposed on communities like the city of detroit from the well of the united states senate, laws that are stripping people of their health care, failing to empower their schools, the kinds of laws that people like mike rogers have written and passed. and so we have a simple choice here. one is you don't show up for your democracy at all and then ask why is it working for you? but the other is between two candidates, one who wants to bend to donald trump, who wants to continue to do the work that donald trump has executed upon us over the past two years, and one who wants to stand up to donald trump to make sure that he can continue on in the service that he started working in the city and wayne county. and i'll just finish here. i know that for too many people in the city of detroit, their interactions with people who look like me aren't very good. they're being catcalled behind bulletproof glass in a gas station or a liquor store watching kids get sold lucy cigarettes. but i'm asking to be judged by the content of my character, not the color of my skin. and i hope that in the in the u.s. senate, i can be somebody who brings communities together so that we can build together what we can't have alone.” Jen Psaki: “dr. abdullah said it's jen psaki. thank you. we all know how hard this is at this period of a campaign and you've had a hell of a day. so thank you for sticking with us. i'm curious. there are so many people out there who are claiming responsibility for your success. if you win on tuesday, despite what the new york times poll says, you will have overcome a brutal primary, the most islamophobic campaign against any candidate i can remember. a whole lot of skepticism about your ability to win this race. and again, voters have to vote on tuesday. but what do you think that victory would tell people?” Abdul El-Sayed: “well, that victory will belong to the people of the state of michigan. and i'm not asking you to be judged by winning a race. that's not really when the work ends. that's when the work starts. and so my hope is that six years from now, we can look out and say, we did something together for the folks in our state working alongside these folks. democracy is about the work we do together. there's no one elected official is going to save any of us. look, you know, i don't i don't know what it's going to say about where we are with our politics. that's really not my concern. but i do hope that it does say that when you're willing to listen to michiganders, when you're listening, willing to go into communities, you know, i've been to 700 public events, 120 different cities, when you're willing to actually sit down when it's a room of five or 50 to understand what people want. and you're willing to turn that into public policy that could actually solve problems. and you're willing to say the same thing to everybody, that you can build a coalition of the many against the money, right? the divide in our politics isn't left versus right. the divide in our politics is the people who are locked out versus the people who are locking them out. i'm trying to always be on the side of the people who are locked out against the people doing the locking out. now, you know, i have taken a lot of shots from a lot of the folks who want to keep the system locked. they've spent huge amounts of money, 70 million alone in the primary. that's a record for the amount of money spent in any primary in american history. by the end of this, i'm going to have been the candidate who took more outside spending against me than any candidate who ever ran in michigan. but at the same time, i'm not counting on their money. i'm counting on the many, and i hope that i can continue to serve and to coalesce and galvanize folks in that office so we can actually get legislation that's befitting of the movement that we're building.” Chris: “dr. abdul el-sayed, the democratic nominee in the state of michigan for the hotly, hotly contested senate race. voters going to the polls already and going on tuesday. doctor, thank you so much. like what jen said, it was a very long day and we really do appreciate you making time for us.” Abdul El-Sayed: “thank you all for having me.”