The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 21 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
With less than two weeks until Election Day, Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign in Michigan is the target of huge amounts of spending, and the race is more or less on a knife’s edge. Amid all this, El-Sayed has had some hugely viral moments lately, tangling with a MAGA plant over a question about the Muslim Brotherhood and battling with JD Vance over the vice president’s vile attacks on him. We think El-Sayed is developing an interesting way of doing politics that seems attuned to the information wars of the Trump era. Will it work in a swingy state that’s coming down to the wire? We talked to the candidate himself about all of it.
Abdul El-Sayed, thanks so much for coming on.
Abdul El-Sayed: Greg, thanks for having me. Excited to be here with you.
Sargent: OK, so Senator Elissa Slotkin from your state of Michigan is getting hammered by Trump and MAGA for supposedly calling for the prosecution of young conservatives. What’s your reaction to that whole quote-unquote controversy?
El-Sayed: Honestly, it’s in keeping with exactly what MAGA tries to manufacture as controversy. I mean, they’re out here literally using the government against their political opponents, and they’re trying to make the argument that somebody else is doing that, except for they actually hold the power to do it.
The way that Donald Trump has wound himself around the justice system is frankly unprecedented. It’s ugly and it’s anti-democratic. And so I’ll take seriously what they’re up in arms about when they start taking themselves seriously around what Donald Trump is doing and every other congressional Republican just looks away. They’re not serious people.
Sargent: I just wonder whether more Democrats could be standing up for her, because this is the kind of thing—if you notice, and I think you understand how MAGA does politics, that’s one of the things that’s worked, I think, for your candidacy.
Every single Twitter feed of every party committee, every Republican in Congress, every single person is pushing this. And Democrats are a little bit MIA. I mean, shouldn’t they be defending her a little bit here?
El-Sayed: Look at this point, we know exactly what they’re trying to do. We know that they’re trying to distract us with this. And so if we were to stop paying attention to gas, groceries, the ability to see a doctor, Medicaid cuts, all of the ugliness coming out of the Big Ugly Bill, the ridiculous tariff policy, and the war—that’s exactly what they want.
So instead, what we’re going to do is exactly what Senator Slotkin is doing, which is prosecuting the case against their terrible, ridiculous policies, rather than fall into line around their absurd approach. This is what they do. They manufacture the issue of the day, and they expect us all to go and play defense on the issue of the day. That’s actually not the approach.
What we should be doing is going and playing offense on the issue of the last two years, which is that Donald Trump has corrupted himself, and therefore we all pay more for gas, groceries, and we can’t see a doctor.
Sargent: I want to come back to that theory of the case. Your race is entering its home stretch. Trump just announced this new $8 billion bailout for farmers. Obviously, one target of this is helping Mike Rogers, your opponent in Michigan. What’s your reaction to all that?
El-Sayed: Yeah, he makes your life way harder and then he gives you a Band-Aid. It’s like he opens up a gaping wound and then he says, here’s a Band-Aid for you, and expects you to be happy with the Band-Aid. Clearly, this is not working.
The reason—I’ve been talking to farmers for the last several weeks, I’ve been up North. And what they tell me is it’s the price of diesel. What they tell me is it’s the insane tariff policy. What they tell me is that they can’t afford basic inputs. And what they tell me is they can’t even get anybody on the phone from the federal government when it comes to the USDA because of DOGE.
So this $8 billion bailout, it’s a drop in the bucket relative to all he’s done to devastate American farmers. And they know better. They understand.
It’s the reason why in this race the farmers unions endorsed us. It’s the reason why in this race I’m hearing from rural folks. We’re getting 600 people in places like Caro, or in Petoskey, or in places like Sault Ste. Marie.
Folks are coming out because they understand that Trump’s policies have failed them. Because in the end, it’s really just about him and his chosen sock puppet of Mike Rogers, rather than about the rest of us.
Sargent: Well, you recently said you’re going to win by seven points. I think you’ve said that a number of times. The latest Marist poll has you up only two. Senate Majority PAC is spending huge money on the contest now. And there have been some questions about whether you can bring along the parts of the Democratic coalition that were skeptical of you, especially after the primary. Do you think you’ve succeeded at that at this point? And how close is the race now, really?
El-Sayed: Let’s have another conversation on the fourth of November, because that’s the only poll I pay attention to.
Sargent: Right, I understand. Do you think you’re bringing along the elements of the Democratic coalition?
El-Sayed: We feel really strong about where we are. You take a look at that Marist poll—the only thing that you should really interpret about polls is the crosstabs. And we feel really good about having consolidated our base, but we also feel really good about being able to build up turnout in places where you don’t expect it.
Getting 600 people to show up in Iron Mountain, Michigan, is not something that Mike Rogers could do in his wildest of dreams. We had a 1,500-person turnout in Port Huron. Fifteen hundred people. Donald Trump is going to be in Port Huron. I’m interested to see how many people he turns out, because people understand that right now they are being locked out of their politics.
And this campaign has been about getting money out of politics, putting money in your pocket, passing Medicare for All, standing up to the people doing the locking out. And Mike Rogers, he’s the guy who’s held the key now for a better part of 25 years.
He’s been in politics. And for him and his family, they’ve made $14 million. And for the rest of us, we’ve watched as our national debt has gone up $12 trillion when he was in office, and then watched him make $14 million. And the rest of us, well, we’re struggling to pay for gas and groceries. People understand the difference.
Sargent: Well, OK, Democratic Congress. Let’s say Democrats take one or both chambers. What should be done about Elon Musk? This is really becoming a big issue now. The Wall Street Journal just reported that Musk ordered the slowdown of Starlink in Ukraine.
Do you want to see Musk and his senior people subpoenaed? How far should Democrats go here? Should maybe stripping him of his contracts be on the table? What’s your sort of view of how this should be done?
El-Sayed: Look, we need to fully understand exactly all he’s done and how he’s profiteered off of the federal government. But the big issue right now is making sure that we’re getting relief for everyday Michiganders.
I’m talking to people who are saying, Look, I’ve got to choose between getting the gas to get to the grocery store and what I can buy at the grocery store. Can I see a doctor? What happens after I do? Those are the real issues that Michiganders are focused on, and that’s what I’m going to be focused on in the U.S. Senate.
Sargent: I’m going to ask you about something that is going to get you to say that again, but I’m going to try anyway. Do you think Dems should impeach and try to remove Trump if they gain the House and possibly the Senate as well? What about Cabinet officials?
El-Sayed: Rule of law has to mean something. So we need to understand exactly what they’ve done and why they’ve done it. And at the same time, the number one goal of Congress has to be to get some relief for people who are struggling under this affordability crisis that’s been created by Donald Trump’s war in Iran, by his tariff war with Canada, by his insane policies in the Big Ugly Bill. And that’s what I’m going to be focused on.
Sargent: OK. Well, you brought up the war. Should impeachment of Pete Hegseth be on the table? You just fought with RFK Jr. Should impeaching him be on the table? These are things Democrats need to look at, right?
El-Sayed: Yeah, well, look, impeachment is a decision that’s made after thorough investigation. I think it’s really important for us to understand exactly how they’ve made their decisions and what the inputs on those decisions are.
But when it comes to RFK Jr., the big question for me is, How do I make sure that we’re not having to worry about recalled blueberries and recalled lettuce and recalled meat? How do we make sure that the DOGE-ing that happened at the CDC and the FDA doesn’t continue to make people sick?
When it comes to Pete Hegseth, it’s the same story. Why were our servicemen and women left at sea adrift without basic food supplies? How do we make sure that we end this war, to actually get to a point where people can afford their gas and their groceries? In the end, what people are electing us to do is to make their lives easier, and that has to be our goal.
Sargent: Right. So you’re basically saying that one of the things that has to be done is genuine investigations to get to the bottom of what Pete Hegseth is actually doing, what RFK is actually doing, what Trump’s actually doing, right?
El-Sayed: That’s exactly right. And you need to understand it. We need to understand exactly what the decisions are that have been made, because it should guide also our legislation.
In the end, one of the problems with this administration is they’ve left us with a bit of a black box. We don’t actually know how decisions got made. We don’t actually know what the process is. We know what the outcomes are, and they suck for everybody.
But addressing those processes that are getting us these terrible outcomes, that has to be part of the process. But in the end, if it does not translate to being able to afford your gas and your groceries, if it doesn’t translate to being able to afford the basic means of a dignified life and better schools and the ability to see a doctor, then we’re missing the mark.
Sargent: OK. So you guys exercise oversight if you have the House and possibly the Senate. And Trump says no to everything. What happens then? He throws the subpoenas in the garbage. He tells his officials, Don’t go in front of any Democratic Congress, blah, blah, blah, they’re fake.
El-Sayed: Force him to say no. Force him to say no. And then we’ll have the next election. That’s how democracy works, right? I think the mistake that we often make is that we pre-negotiate with ourselves. I don’t want to pre-negotiate. I want to force him to say no.
I want him to tell the American public why he’s OK with them continuing to eat lettuce that is inedible. I want him to have to tell the American public why he’s OK with them having to continue to pay five dollars in gas. I want him to have to tell the American public why he cares more about some drapes than he cares about people being able to afford to see a doctor.
And then I want to make sure that the American people have their say again after that. So our job is always to take it back to the people and let them be the deciders. That’s how democracy is supposed to work.
Sargent: A hundred percent. But Democrats do have some powers. I mean, there’s a big debate about this right now, so I want to get your take on it. Should Democrats be prepared to defund parts of the government, maybe defund parts of agencies like DOJ and DHS, to force compliance with subpoenas? Is that something you’d want to see happen?
El-Sayed: You keep taking me into all these theoretical territories. What I want to see happen is, I want people to be able to afford their gas. I want them to be able to afford their groceries. I want them to be able to see a doctor. I want them to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And I will do anything as their next United States senator to make those outcomes possible.
Sargent: Understood. I want to ask you about JD Vance, because I think that what’s going on behind what the press calls “barbs”—they keep saying “they’re throwing barbs at each other”—but there’s an actual argument underway between the two of you about America. And I want to ask you about this.
When he says you should express gratitude for what the U.S. has given you, I think he’s really saying you’re lower on the American hierarchy than “heritage Americans” are, the ones who have ancestors buried in Kentucky or whatever he says. I want to give you a chance to respond to that deeper veiled point he’s making.
El-Sayed: Yeah, look, people like JD Vance think America is too small for some of us. I think America is big enough. I think America has been big enough to include people like JD Vance, to include people like me, to include people whose families came here and immigrated here and built a life here, or whose forefathers came here, or whose people were here before anybody else showed up, or people whose ancestors were brought here despite themselves.
I think America is big enough for all of us. His view of America is small. It’s small like him. It’s small-minded. It’s about pointing to other people and making the argument that the reason you don’t have is because of them. That’s what he’s been doing his entire political career. I understand America, and I certainly understand Michigan. Michiganders are a lot bigger than he thinks we are. He thinks by pointing to my name and my faith that he’s going to distract us from the terrible policies of their administration.
And in the end, right now, whether you are a child of immigrants, or your family’s been here for decades, or you’re Native, or you’re Black American, you need gas you can afford. You need to be able to afford your groceries. You need to be able to pay your rent, or believe you can own a home.
You need to know that you’re not going to drown in debt. You need to breathe clean air and drink clean water. And they want to distract us, because it’s their ridiculous policies that have left us where we are. I aim to consistently be talking about how we’re going to get gas prices down, make sure people can afford their groceries and that they can see a doctor.
Sargent: Well, I think you have a theory of how to do politics in the Trump era that maybe some Democrats don’t have. And I want to ask you about this. When that MAGA plant asked you the BS Muslim Brotherhood question, you engaged very briefly, and you’ve said it’s not a question worth dignifying.
But on the thinking behind that—how do you think about this? Is the idea here not to let MAGA bad faith frame the debate, and instead to set it on your own terms? I mean, you turned the question around by getting him to admit that he was a Christian nationalist. Can you talk me through how you think about the information wars a little bit?
El-Sayed: Look, at the end of the day, he was coming at this in bad faith. I wanted to come at this in good faith, and I wanted to ask and understand exactly why he would assume that somebody like me would not disavow a group like the Muslim Brotherhood, because I wanted to get to the deeper question about a commitment to the Constitution.
Implied there is that somehow I have dual loyalties. I know what my loyalties are. I love my country and I want to serve my country. And, you know, nobody understands what their country has given them like somebody who had a front-row seat to what my opportunities should have been, but not for the accident of history that allows me to be born here and American.
And at the same time, there are some people who ask these questions because, in the end, they actually want to do what they say that you are trying to do. They want to read their own faith into the law to restrict all the rest of our capacity to be and do under the Constitution in the way that it guarantees us.
And so I just think it’s important for us to actually have conversations, to actually have it out, discuss the issue. And I wanted to have that conversation in good faith. Clearly, it ends up that he was a plant and he wanted to have a bad faith discussion.
But when you are able to bring sunlight in, when you’re actually able to bring good faith to bad faith, what comes out is the truth. And I want folks to hear the truth. I’m not afraid of my positions. I’m not afraid of my commitment to the Constitution. I am not afraid to have a conversation. And I’m not afraid of the ability to actually persuade people to see it in a different light. And I think the more opportunities you have, the better.
Look, everybody tells me, It’s big risk to be taking questions down the stretch here. You’re two weeks away. Why don’t you just give your speech and walk off the stage? Well, because I believe people deserve the right to ask questions. Sometimes it’s going to be bad faith Republican plants.
Sometimes, and most often, it’s good faith folks who just want an answer to their question. But I’m willing to actually stand in and answer those questions. And I think we all are hungering for a politics that does that.
Sargent: Yeah. And I want to ask you, because this links back to the stuff we talked about at the very outset, involving Elissa Slotkin. You basically made the point that this is how they do politics, right? They try to get everyone to respond to what they’re saying. Can you talk a little bit about that?
I mean, they conceive of politics as an information war in a way that I think maybe a lot of Democrats don’t. I think some of the younger Democrats, you know, like yourself, do see this. And I want to ask you about that. Is that how you see this?
El-Sayed: That’s what they try to do. Their basic gist is this. Their thesis is that the more they can distract you, the more they can pick your pocket. So I want to make sure that we’re focused on the real issue. We should watch our pockets, because I want money out of politics so that you can have money in your pocket, and we can all have health care through Medicare for All.
Sargent: Abdul El-Sayed, thanks so much for coming on with us.
El-Sayed: Thanks, Greg.