The Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan has a trio of candidates on the ballot, including radical left-winger Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Thursday afternoon, El-Sayed was a guest on CNN's The Arena, where Host Kasie Hunt, treated him like a Republican, repeatedly raising issues that made El-Sayed uncomfortable, and pressing him when he didn't answer the question asked. It was very unusual.
Hunt began by asking if he can win a general election in the purple state of Michigan should he win the primary, noting some party leaders are concerned about that. When he stressed he'd support "Medicare for All" (nationalized health care) as a Senator, Hunt fired back, "The reality is there's no way Medicare for All passes Congress if Democrats don't control the Senate. And if you don't win that Senate seat in Michigan, it's very hard to see how Democrats win the Senate at all."
Hunt then moved on to El-Sayed's criticism of President Trump, noting that he won Michigan in 2024, "Is there anything that he's done in this second term in office that you can identify as being good for the country?" Wow. This from a woman who routinely criticizes the President.
Hunt then turned her attention to comments he has made about women and his opponent, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, and played an ad attacking him for it. Rather than address its contents, and Hunt's question of whether he regrets things he's said about women, his response was to point out who he says paid for the ad, UDP, an AIPAC super PAC. This led to Hunt to the topic of Israel, and she continued to press her guest.
HUNT: Do you believe Israel has a right to exist?
EL-SAYED: It's interesting because nobody's ever asked me whether or not I believe Palestine has a right to exist.... Israel exists.
HUNT: You say it exists, but does it have a right to?
EL-SAYED: I didn't say that. I just said the question of Israel's existence is not a question. I'm not I'm not going to play this gotcha game about whether or not it has a right to exist.
HUNT: You're not going to play the gotcha game, but you're not going to say you think Israel has a right to exist.
EL-SAYED: The question about whether or not Israel has a right to exist is actually quite secondary to whether or not they have a right to our tax dollars. And people don't ask that question in good faith.
Then Hunt pressed him on his deleted tweets which called for defunding police, which really hit a nerve.
Hunt asked: "I also wanted to ask you about some of the tweets that you deleted, as you were in the course of this race, just before, around this question of defunding the police, this is also something likely to come up in a general election should you win this primary. Do you stand by what you had previously said that that police, in support of defunding the police, or do you believe police should be funded? She later asked, "Why did you delete the tweets"?
El-Sayed shot back: "I deleted all the tweets because I didn't want them to be taken out of context, like this, o that you could distract from the actual conversation that Michiganders really want to have."
Then more pressing from Hunt.
HUNT: I think the question is just if you're leading, would you fight to defund the police or would you not?
EL-SAYED: I've already told you what I did. Judge me by my work....And I think this debate about 2020 and the ways that tweets are going to play are really nice on CNN, if you want to get clicks.
HUNT: So voters shouldn't look at the fact that you deleted the tweets as evidence that you no longer were for the things that you said then?
After more back and forth Hunt concluded with, "I understand, but you deleted the tweets, right? That's what I'm asking you. I'm asking you about an action that you took, okay."
And after asking if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has endorsed El-Sayed, will be campaigning with him, she asked him about one of his earliest supporters Hasan Piker, who has said America deserved 9/11: "You also, of course, have campaigned alongside Hasan Piker. Do you believe that the statements that he has made about September 11th are accurate?"
An impressive display by Hunt, but why? Maybe she too believes that if El-Sayed wins the primary, he and the Democrats will lose the Michigan Senate seat they currently hold.
