Abdul El-Sayed, a leading Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, is currently engaged in a bold experiment to see whether you can un-ring a bell by simply insisting the bell was never rung. As Trending Politics reported, CNN dug up a collection of El-Sayed's 2020 media appearances and deleted tweets that make his current denials look, shall we say, adventurous.
El-Sayed told the Detroit News recently, "I want to be clear, I actually never, never called for defunding." He even doubled up on the "never" for emphasis, which is a nice touch. The problem is that a CNN fact check found him saying, in a recorded radio interview from 2020, "We do need to defund the police." That is what we in the business call a direct contradiction.
It gets better. In a June 2020 appearance on Detroit Public Radio, El-Sayed went into considerable detail about what he meant. "I believe that we do need to defund the police in so far as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating someone or killing them on the streets. And in investing more in the means of educating and empowering, engaging communities with the means of being able to take on systemic poverty, that we've allowed systematic racism to allow to fester in too many communities," he said. That is not a man being taken out of context. That is a man providing his own context at length.
Then there are the deleted tweets. CNN found posts where El-Sayed wrote things like, "Most major US cities spend WAY TOO MUCH on police departments to police poverty & WAY TOO LITTLE on public schools, health departments, recreation departments, & housing to eliminate poverty. Fixing that is what the #Defund movement is about." He deleted them, explaining to CNN's Kasie Hunt that he didn't want them "taken out of context" and called them "clickbait in DC." The context, of course, is that he wrote them and meant them.
When Hunt asked him directly whether he still supports defunding the police, El-Sayed did not answer the question, instead pivoting to his record running Wayne County's Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services, where he says he "funded the system because it needed to be funded." So his defense against supporting defunding is that he once funded something. Case closed, apparently.
His campaign spokesperson, Roxie Richner, told CNN that El-Sayed's perspective "has become more nuanced." The statement added, "One simple word has never been enough to fully explain the reforms we need for a challenge as complex as our criminal legal system." That is a creative way of saying the word "defund" polls terribly and they would like everyone to forget it. A July 2020 Fox News poll found 82 percent of Michigan registered voters had a favorable view of their local police, and a 2021 Axios/Ipsos poll showed only 27 percent support for the defund movement against 70 percent opposition.
You can evolve on an issue. That is fine. You can say you changed your mind. What you probably should not do is insist you never, never said something that is sitting right there on tape, waiting for a reporter to press play.
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