Abdul El-Sayed — FULL INTERVIEW: Abdul El-Sayed joins Katy Tur on MSNOW

Thank you for joining us. I imagine you're going to argue that this can be a decision based on your head and your heart. Why? >> Well, I'm actually not. I think we need to vote with our heart. And when we build a movement of people who come together around the things these seats were for were for, that's how we win. It turns out that to win an election, you have to have enough people who want a thing. And the problem with our politics is that we assume that people don't want the same things as we do. I've been out of 101 different cities up and down my state. You could be at a VFW hall in Escanaba or church in Detroit or a living room in Grand Rapids, and people say the same thing. They just show me this heart. And so, I'm asking people, what is it that you want from your government? Maybe if we broke the chokehold that corporations have had on our government for so long, maybe if we actually used this to put money back in in in our pockets rather than into our politics, and we guaranteed everybody health care, maybe life could be a little bit easier. And if you believe that, I promise you your neighbor down the street believes it, too. >> Can you guarantee health care in just the state of Michigan? Uh uh Massachusetts did do it at one point. >> Well, look, we need a nationwide movement. And here's the thing about it. No matter where you are in this country, our medical debt is $225 billion. That's more than the GDP of half of US states. And the best single way to do this is actually to guarantee it at the federal level. That being said, there's a lot that states could do, but guess who's holding them back? Federal politics. So, we need a movement at the federal level that says, actually, this is about what we can do when we're not sending our money to drop bombs on other people and their kids, if we're using that here at home. >> You need a um supermajority in the Senate to do this and control of the House and control of the presidency. Maybe you guys in the Democratic Party get a supermajority, maybe we take the House, but you're not going to have the presidency for at least two more years. So, what do you do about that? >> Katie, I'll tell you this. That means we got a two-year runway to actually do the things that Democrats haven't been doing for a very long time, which is about persuading people. I think Democrats we do this thing where we we we have these polls, and then the poll tells us what's popular, and then we just say the thing that's popular, and we wonder why nobody wants to join us. Well, it turns out you actually have to have a righteous fight to get people to say, "Actually, you know what? I I can't have those things." And we have given up on the idea that you can actually persuade people. There's a reason that I go to 101 different cities. It's not because they're all Democrats. It's because I want to prove that if you're willing to take your message, if it's authentic to you, if you believe in it, and have that conversation with folks in places where they say you can't, you actually start can can start to change people's minds. We need more of that in our politics. >> Michigan is an interesting state. You've got a Democratic governor. You've got um a lot of Republicans in the state. Donald Trump won the state. Um and this race is going to be really tight. Slotkin beat um Mike Rogers, who's going to be the Republican nominee, by 0.3 points. I mean, that's that's nothing. And there is concern that you might not be right for as purple or potentially lean red as the state can be because of your progressive politics. How do you convince Democrats and that once you get to a general election, you'll be able to win over the independents needed, maybe the um Republican wavers that you're going to need to win the Senate seat? >> You know, when I first kicked off this race about 14 months ago, everybody counted me out, too. And now we're leading in almost every poll. What that shows you is that campaigns themselves matter. Being able to have a conversation with the voters really matters. Now, I know I was not supposed to run for office. I got the wrong name. I got the wrong skin color. I pray the wrong way. My family comes from the wrong place. But, I'm also not going to use this seat to tell you what you cannot have and should not fight for. And I know that when we're willing to have a conversation across the divides they tell us we can't breach, that we really can build big things. That's the story of this country. I'll also tell you this. I I don't know what progressive means. I don't know what left and right is. I don't know what purple is or blue and red. What I do know is this. There are a lot of people who feel locked out of their politics, and there are folks who are locking them out. And too often it's the establishment, I hate to say it, on both sides of the political aisle. So, I'd rather be with the people who are locked out unlocking the system against both establishments than have to ask this question about like, well, if we if we hedge our bets and find this in theory political middle, then maybe we can win an election. But, that's not inspiring to anyone. >> You referenced this religion and the way you pray. There are people who pray very differently in Michigan as well. A lot of big Jewish population in Michigan and a lot of them, you know, feel uncomfortable in this moment about anti-Semitism, about the the way that campaigns sometimes speak about what is anti-Semitism and what is not. What do you say to the Jewish community who you're going to want to vote for you about your positions on Israel, on AIPAC funding, etc. And and how they shouldn't feel alienated by a candidate like you? >> Well, Katie, I'll tell you this. Nobody understands what it's like to be discriminated against for how you pray like someone who gets discriminated against for how we pray. And most of the time we don't ask how we pray. Most people are asking what do you pray for? And I pray for peace and dignity and basic goodness for all of our kids, whether they're Jewish kids who are neighboring couple of houses down from me or my kids who are Muslim. And I'll tell you that it's really important for us to be able to differentiate between Judaism, the Jewish people, Jewish culture, and Jewish contributions to this country, which are vast, and AIPAC and Israel. Those are two different things. I, when I'm elected, will be the chief opposition to what the Egyptian government does. Now, my family immigrated from Egypt. That doesn't make me anti-Egyptian. That just means that I want my tax dollars to be spent here rather than sent over there to cement the chokehold of a military dictatorship on its own people. And I apply the same exact principles to Israel. I don't want my tax dollars being spent to backstop backstop apartheid and genocide when they could be used to provide things like glasses or health care or schools for our own kids. And I worry that a lot of times people want to use the the word anti-Semitism to spread to defend a foreign government. And I think it's just really important for us to differentiate between those two because I don't want to be held accountable to what another government does simply because I share ethnicity with the people who live there. And I know the same for my Jewish sisters and brothers. >> Um you've got support of of Bernie Sanders and a lot of other progressives in the caucus are more >> My favorite Jewish uncle. >> There are more [clears throat] moderates in the Democratic Party who are who are worried that if primary voters elect you in Michigan, they're going to lose that seat. Um I guess how will you feel if you are elected, the general election happens, and and it goes to Mike Rogers? >> Well, we're going to do everything we can to beat Mike Rogers. I'll just tell you this. Who better to take on a guy who voted 60 times to raise prescription drug prices and then helped to architect the legislation that kicked off the opioid epidemic and then took a $14 million payout to be a pharma lobbyist than a guy who's a doctor who rebuilt the health department in the city of Detroit, eliminated $700 million of medical debt, and put Narcan in 100 locations. There is nobody better to prosecute that case than I will. So, we're going to beat him by seven. We're going to beat him up and down the state, and we're going to show them what it looks like to actually campaign on strength rather than fear. >> If Democrats win in November, how should they treat Donald Trump's presidency? Should they start investigating him? Should they impeach him? Should they try to convict him? Should they go after this administration as furiously as they did the first time around when power changed hands? Should it look different? You tell me. >> We have two responsibilities the day I take office in 2027. Number one, put as much sand in the gears into what Donald Trump and his acolytes are doing. And number two, build the conversation with the American public that gets us to the after Trump foundationally. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We really have to. And I'll tell you this. Conservatives, MAGA like to tell us that the rule of law only means something when you enforce it. So, the rule of law only means something when we enforce it. And the man has done way past enough to be enforced upon. The guy was trying to give himself a what? A $1.8 billion Department of Justice trust fund, trying to excuse him and his kids uh from being uh investigated by the IRS. If that's not a violation of basic public corruption law and our Constitution itself, I don't know what it is. Then there's ICE, then there's this this illegal unjustifiable war. There is so much that he has done that needs to be held accountable because I worry that the next version of Trump, if we failed to hold this one accountable, will actually be smart. >> Abdul El Abdul El-Sayed, candidate for Michigan Senate, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Good to have you in person. >>