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The New Yorker Radio Hour
Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed Is “Not a Burn-It-Down Kind” of Candidate
00:35:12
The midterms are becoming a referendum not just on Trump but on the Democratic Party. Will the Senate candidate be a savior of the Party—or a spoiler?
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- [00:01]
Abdul El Sayed
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- [00:33]
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- [00:36]
Do you have a business idea? Well, Shopify is here to take that little light bulb going off above your head right now and turn it into reality. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready to go from day one. I'm cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein and I thought I was intimidated by anything having to do with business and or the the Internet. But Shopify is so simple and intuitive that even a Luddite scribbler like me found my way around. I click start my trial and I see these friendly little pop up buttons. Add your first product, choose your store design and then over in the corner, ask anything. So I do I type in prints because that's what I want to sell and I get all these great questions immediately. What's the image? Artwork? I can describe it or, or I can just upload an image. A dream. Things like Shopify checkout make it easy for customers to pay you. And when they return, their details are already saved. One tap and they're done. With Shopify handling, setup and checkout, you have time to focus on the stuff that actually matters. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial@shopify.com New Yorker
- [01:52]
David Remnick
the
- [01:52]
Sponsor/Announcer
New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC and the New Yorker.
- [02:00]
David Remnick
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. If polling averages are to be believed, Democrats are likely to reap a big windfall in November. President Trump's approval ratings are swamped by the war in Iran and other news. And the GOP seems to be struggling to enact some some sort of agenda, even while controlling both houses of Congress. And yet it wouldn't be the Democratic Party without constant infighting. The moderate establishment wing of the party is in constant conflict with its left flank, and now they're contending with the Democratic socialists as a Rising, energetic political force. What's been called the Mamdani effect. The debate centers on electability. Both sides are absolutely convinced that they have the formula for returning their party to power. Abdul El Sayed is running for one of Michigan's seats in the Senate. He's a former public health officer, and now he's ahead in the polls for the Democratic primary. But that's raising concern among some Democrats who say that he may be too radical for a swing state. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan's very popular governor, just endorsed his primary opponent, Haley Stevens. Conservatives like the columnist George Will claim that El said winning the primary would be just dandy for the Republican in the race. Mike Rogers, the stakes are undoubtedly high. Michigan is considered a must win for Democrats if they want to control the Senate. I spoke with Abdul El Sayed this past week. Now, I want to start by going back to a moment, a formative moment in 2007 when you were the commencement speaker for your class graduation at the University of Michigan. And Bill Clinton addressed the class that day, and he approached you afterwards and he told you that you were not only a terrific speaker, but that you should consider a career in politics.
- [03:56]
Abdul El Sayed
I'll be honest with you, I literally laughed in his face. I mean, my name is Abdurrahman. My Muhammad. Hey, I got three names. Two of them nobody knows how to pronounce. The first one is 11 letters long. And it, you know, to learn how to say it, you've got to realize that you got parts of your throat you didn't know you have. And there's not not only like one part of it, like the, the first letter itself is ain, right? Most people don't know that they can make that sound. People like me didn't get to run for office. And that was 2007. So, you know, the first thing he asked me is, why are you going to medical school? Which, you know, when you're a graduating senior who was the top student in your class, people don't usually ask you that question, right? Like, why are you doing that? Life choices. I was like, wait, this what I'm like, don't you understand? I'm Brown and Muslim. It's what we do. But I was just grateful for the implicit compliment. But I kind of just told him, I was like, I don't get to run for office. And he kind of thought about it for a minute. Then he kind of chuckled and walked away.
- [04:56]
David Remnick
Were you a Bill Clinton fan at that time?
- [04:59]
Abdul El Sayed
I had really appreciated a lot of the global health work that he had Done. And obviously, he was the president of my childhood. I was 21 years old in 2007. I had not seen Barack Obama. I had seen him. I mean, I watched him give the 2004 DNC floor speech, but I hadn't seen him on the national stage. And that was still an untested hypothesis. And also, as much as I enjoyed politics, I never saw myself as a participant. I wanted to be a doctor's doctor. I thought I wanted to be a surgeon. I thought I wanted to take care of kids with spinal malformations, working in underserved places and probably doing research in the area. And that's what I thought.
- [05:36]
David Remnick
So you didn't feel yourself to be a person of the left. You weren't critiquing Clinton and eventually even Obama. As neoliberal, as the critique often goes from the left. You were looking at politics as something that you were interested only in a kind of more narrow way. Is that what you're telling me?
- [05:54]
Abdul El Sayed
I was, but not. Not in the sense that there was anything I could do about it. Like, I was more likely to be the kid you saw in the stacks at, like, 11pm Than the kid you saw at the protest. You know, we did some protesting when I was in college, but for me, it was always like, the way I want to change the world is as a doctor and by getting healthcare to people who don't have it. That was always the way I thought I was gonna change things. And in some respects, you know, in so many ways, as. As a government official and now running for office, a lot of folks want to paint me as, oh, he wants to burn down the systems. Like, no, I don't. I want to bring my screwdriver and systematically deconstruct the parts of the system that are malforming and working for the wrong people. And I want to take the parts that we have being misused there, and I want to rebuild that whole system so that it works for the people it needs to work for. I'm not a burn it down kind of personality. I'm a lot more of a study it, understand how it works, think about how you could rebuild it and then rebuild it.
- [06:52]
David Remnick
Now, are you getting advice telling you that you need to say that too? Because I think some people, I think it's fair to say the press that I've read, Abdul, do see you as a burn it down kind of guy. And maybe. And running in the state of Michigan, maybe that's not of universal appeal.
- [07:08]
Abdul El Sayed
Well, I'll tell you this, David. The best single Way to caricature me as someone who has qualms with the system is to try to flatten my personality into. Into what they say they want me to be. And there are parts of me that says that, look, when I come with my toolkit to try and deconstruct it, and you want to stop me from doing it, and you get in my way, you know, we're going to have words, but I'm not afraid of a fight. But I also am not the kind of person who's just coming to destroy anything. I'm coming to build things that people need and deserve. And look, obviously the narrative is what it is. When you get $60 million spent against you, they're going to burn it to the ground. I mean, they've tried to construct all kinds of narratives about me as a function of my personality, as a function of my background, and a set of tropes that are easily told about somebody like me. The thing I have learned after having run for office now twice, is that there's going to be a narrative built around you. And the best thing that you can do is just to show up and be who you are.
- [08:07]
David Remnick
Tell me this. You mentioned the Obama ascension, the Obama speech in 2004, and then his presidency from 2008. How do you look at that presidency? What was the constructive about it, and what's your critique of it?
- [08:20]
Abdul El Sayed
So, actually, I tell you, like, I don't get to do what I'm doing without President Obama doing what he did. The parallels are kind of uncanny. And I remember watching that 2004 speech and just being like, I didn't know politics would look like that or sound like that. His dad immigrated from Africa. My dad immigrated from a different part of Africa. He had mixed parents. I was raised by my dad and my stepmom, Jackie, who's the daughter of the American Revolution. He had a funny name. I got a funny name. The one place it doesn't work is he's tall and skinny, and I'm pretty short and thick, but, you know, I don't get to do what I do without him. And at the same time, when you love somebody like that, you're going to look at them and say, could we do more? It's kind of like the way you think about your parents. You know what I mean? You love and revere your parents, and you're grateful for all they did to help you. And at the same time, anybody who watches their parents will always look and say, there are some things about what they did that I want to do differently. And I kind of think about President Obama the same way. And I'll tell you, I was in medical school during the ACA fights, the Affordable Care. And the big frustration I had is like, why are we not going all the way? Why are we pre negotiating with these folks who are never going to give an inch? Because at the end of the day, they are so bought off by the powers that be? Why are we accommodating the private health insurance industry? And that, to me, was a righteous kind of frustration. And at the same time, you know, I have had my career in the world of the aca, and I can't imagine just how much worse it would be had we not gotten that. So you can both say the ACA was incredible. And as the President said, this was a starter home. So I think it's about damn time we move out of the starter home. I think we've outgrown it. I only have an ounce of an understanding of what it would have been to be the first Black president in 2008. And so he was up against it in a way I only got a small taste of. And so he was in his particular circumstances, but he ran so that I could. And in some respects, you stand on the shoulders of giants.
- [10:13]
David Remnick
So I spent some time with him and writing about him. And temperamentally, you can see he's a very, very deliberative, careful guy. What about that do you admire? And what about that do you depart from?
- [10:29]
Abdul El Sayed
You know, I ran for governor in 2018, and I was 32, never run for all office in my life. And I learned what it was like to be in the public eye to that level. If I speak at all about righteous anger, then I'm an Arab guy speaking about anger. If I criticize my male Republican opponent and also criticize my female Democratic opponent, then the only thing that is talked about is my criticism of my female Democratic opponent, specifically around her. Her gender. And, you know, it's just. It's just the nature of what this system is and how our politics are transacted in sound bites. So I empathize entirely. And I'll tell you, this time around, I do think that we're operating in a very different moment than he was operating in because of the ubiquity of social media. And so I can move a lot more of myself and the full dynamism of myself to tell my whole story. And this time when I decided to run, there's still always this question of, like, how mad, on behalf of other people can I be I'll be honest with you, I'm pretty damn pissed off on behalf of other people. I went to medical school because I wanted to be a doctor only to realize that our healthcare system was actively, actively pushing out the people I wanted to take care of. And I'll be honest with you, it was like. Very few people say they got radicalized in med school, but, like, when I watched our healthcare system, like, on the ninth floor of the extremely prestigious hospital that I was training in, we had people playing pianos for foreign dignitaries coming to get heart procedures. And then in the basement watching indigent New Yorkers get, in effect, pushed out of the healthcare system before they got the care they needed. It really changed the way I thought about our system. And this woman came up to me on this campaign trail. This time, she's a lovely older white woman, and we were in mid Michigan somewhere in. And she pulls me aside. She's like, you know why I like you? I was like, why? She's like, well, because you're like the family dog. And for a minute, I was like, oh, good. And she's like, no, I know that if the kids were taking rides on your back, you would give them rides on your back forever and ever and ever, and you would love it. And I know that if an intruder came into our home, you would maul them. I'm like, you got me. And that's the side of things that I've had to struggle with. How righteously mad can I be on behalf of people who've had a system that is architected against them in ways that actively lies to them? And that shit pisses me off.
- [13:04]
David Remnick
Well, is there in the global picture of things, a healthcare system that you look at and you'd like to transplant into the United States?
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Abdul El Sayed
There are parts of different healthcare systems I'd like to. And here's the thing about it. Let me step back. My life's an accident of history. I know what my life would have been but for the accident that I get born in America, and my grandmother, when I'd go to Egypt, she would do everything she could to hammer that in. To be like, the only thing you've got over any of your cousins who are just as smart, just as anything as you, is that you get to go back to America at the end of the summer. And the thing about America is that we don't do things like other people. We do them better. I mean, I love that about our country. And it's funny, when we talk about healthcare, there's always this sense of like, well, whose healthcare system do you want then? I'm like, I don't know. I want an American healthcare system that's just better. I think we could do a single payer system better than any country in the world. You know why? We already spend 19% of our whole GDP on healthcare. I'm just like, why do we ever limit ourselves on anything? We are the richest, most powerful country, most innovative country in the history of the world, and you want to tell me that the best we can do is charge people so much effing money that, that we owe $225 billion of medical debt as a country? That's the best we can do? Come on, y'.
- [14:18]
Sponsor/Announcer
All.
- [14:18]
Abdul El Sayed
This is America, right? I've seen what America can do for people. I also see too often what America does not do for too many of her kids. And that's why I'm doing this.
- [14:25]
David Remnick
We're right now looking at a healthcare system that's not only characterized by all the faults that you're describing, but also the specifics of having RFK Jr and the MAHA movement as the most prominent voices in the health sphere. How do we go about rebuilding trust in public health?
- [14:47]
Abdul El Sayed
Let me tell you a story, David, because I think it helps to explain this. During the height of the pandemic, I was talking to a group outdoors, fully masked, et cetera, about taking the vaccine. And I'm never going to forget this gentleman. I had been the health commissioner for the city of Detroit, talking about getting this vaccine, how critical it was. And he said, look, man, I. I know you. I've seen you. You know, I was on CNN at the time. Like, I. I trust you. I'm going to get my vaccine. But it's just weird to me that you all are out here trying to get me to take a vaccine that didn't exist a year ago for a disease that didn't exist a year ago, when I can't afford my insulin, which is a medication that's existed for like a hundred years, and that for a disease I have my whole life, when are you all going to show up to make sure I get to get to take my insulin? And I was like, damn, like, you're right.
- [15:33]
David Remnick
I'm not quite clear what you're saying. You're saying, Abdul, that the mistrust was such that it opened the door to conspiracy thinking?
- [15:41]
Abdul El Sayed
Exactly. Is that once you don't trust the industry because it's so expensive and they're so clearly trying to pick your pocket at that point, it's not that hard for somebody like an RFK junior to come in here and then say, well, you don't even need the things that they make anyway. Like, here are some these alternatives that they're keeping you from. They don't want you to know.
- [16:00]
David Remnick
Right?
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Abdul El Sayed
And I think to build trust again, we have to address the greed part in the system. Because once people feel like they can get access to the things that science has delivered, I think it becomes a lot easier than to have an honest conversation about what is the best way to prevent measles, what is the best way to protect ourselves from, I don't know, cyclospiriasis. But like, you know, we live in a moment right now in Michigan, which is crazy to me, where we're dodging lettuce and we just had the worst air quality of our history for the second summer in a row. I mean, air quality and lettuce were the two things that I tried to dodge in my summers in Egypt. And so I think we're at a moment right now where we're seeing the end outcome of disinvesting in public health. And I think we have an opportunity, if we're serious about taking on the corporations that have been monetizing our health care system and killing trust, to actually be able to rebuild trust again.
- [16:55]
David Remnick
Democratic Senate candidate Abdul EL Sayed of Michigan. We'll continue with more in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
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- [21:33]
David Remnick
this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick and I've been speaking with Abdul El Sayed, a Senate candidate from Michigan. His chief opponent for the Democratic nomination is Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who enjoys the support of the Democratic Party establishment. People like Chuck Schumer in the Senate, and Michigan's very popular governor Gretchen Whitmer just endorsed her too. So the dynamics of the race could change. Meanwhile, aipac, the pro Israel lobbying group, has absolutely flooded the Senate race with money to defeat El Saad, who's from an Egyptian immigrant family, grew up around Detroit, and has been very critical of Israel's behavior, particularly in the Gaza war. And there's a real question, a real question about whether a progressive agenda can win in a state that went for Donald Trump in 2024. I'll continue my conversation now with Abdul El Sayed, now a freshman senator, much less even a second term or third term senator if they're lucky. I mean, they can vote on everything. But in order to make real headway usually come down to one issue, one issue. Would you say that health care is going to be yours?
- [22:49]
Abdul El Sayed
Health care, and the thing that's keeping us from having health care, which is money and politics,
- [22:54]
David Remnick
tell me what your first steps are.
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Abdul El Sayed
So God willing, we take the majority. We're in the Senate, I got two jobs from that point on. And I also want to remember that politics is path dependent. There's a story that's constantly being told and the fact that you and I are having this conversation is a function of the fact that this is not just any Senate race. AIPAC and all the powers that be have effed around and made this the highest Stakes Senate race probably this cycle and for a long time. And when you spend $60 million to beat one person, you just turn that person into. David, you gave me a gigantic platform. Thank you so much. APAC donors. I'm so grateful for you. And that means that I have an opportunity here to use that platform to move a set of conversations. I got two jobs when I get to the U.S. senate, number one, throw as much sand in the gears into the Trump administration as possible.
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David Remnick
Right.
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Abdul El Sayed
If I get a seat on that help committee, which I hope I will, then it's the opportunity to haul up a guy like RFK Jr and start asking and start connecting dots to how much money he's actually made on the grift and people around him have made on the grift. It's hauling up Big Pharma and talking about how much money they've made on their grift.
- [24:05]
David Remnick
You're accusing of RFK of making, making money on the grift. What do you mean?
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Abdul El Sayed
Well, I mean that reporting is out there around his many connections to folks who have profiteered off of an anti vaccine movement. And then for Big Pharma, I mean this is an obvious grift. They just are able to buy off politicians on both sides of the aisle to make sure that they can continue to have very little pushback when they want to raise prescription drug prices. And then the other thing I gotta do in those first two years is use the incredible platform that AIPAC and all these mega donors are giving me to move the conversation about who we are and who we want to be to get money out of politics. Put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for all and lay the groundwork through the state of Michigan for a president who is going to act on day one to do these things. That's the first two years of my job.
- [24:49]
David Remnick
Abdul, your name has been connected quite often with the kind of left leaning energy in the party. Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Oren Mamdani. And yet you have not joined the Democratic Socialists, the dsa. Why not?
- [25:09]
Abdul El Sayed
Too much of a scientist, I guess. I'm a capitalist who read about capitalism. And when you read about capitalism it is very clear even to the originators who coined the idea that the biggest risk to capitalism was not going to be government regulation as much as the corporatists want you to think it is. It was always going to be monopoly. And we know that hyper capitalism tends toward monopoly. We also understand that that happens in part because when a corporation gets big enough, it has Enough power to start rent seeking, which is a fancy term of saying influencing government action to protect its own interests. And that's the place we are right now in capitalism. Like, I think small business is amazing. I think it's a really efficient way to move capital into the areas where it can be really efficient to create a lot of jobs. I'm just not a socialist. And so I want capitalism to work the way it was supposed to work, not the way that the corporations tell us it's supposed to work right now.
- [26:02]
David Remnick
Abdul, forgive me, I'm sure people in Michigan know the answer to this, but the presumptive Republican candidate in the race, Mike Rogers, recently told supporters in a, I think it was a private call that if you win the nomination, he is, quote, in good shape. In other words, that hasn't been in
- [26:18]
Abdul El Sayed
good shape since the 90s.
- [26:19]
David Remnick
But yeah, well, this was reported by CNN, I think. But what's your reaction to that and why do you think he says it and why do you think he might be wrong?
- [26:28]
Abdul El Sayed
I think he says it because all of his base understands the risk of actually having to go up against somebody who's willing to take the fight to them. And here's why he's wrong. In the 90s, you asked for tens of millions of dollars from your benefactors, then you put 30 second ads on TV and then you won because you were able to get more money and spend more on tv. And, and I think what we're showing is that if you can move your message and it is consistent and authentic to who you are, people see past the 30 second ads on TV because guess what? Nobody likes the commercial part of a TV show. Nobody's ever like, man, I can't wait to watch the commercials. So all that is to say that like, he's just got an old fashioned view of politics. And this is why, in fact, it's that old fashioned view of politics which is itself so hypocritical and damning. This is a guy who took six figures from the pharmaceutical industry, voted I don't know how many times to raise prescription drug prices, helped to architect the opioid epidemic, and then made $14 million after his time from Florida, where he moved to in a McMansion. I mean, the guy would rather be golfing in Florida. And even there, like, he's probably like one of those, I don't know, he's like the Beta character in the show. He's like the one who laughs extra loud. And then the other part of it is like he's just confused about who he is, like he wants to be ultra maga. But he was very against Donald Trump, which is why his own base is kind of circumspect about him. And I'm going to force him into conniptions and it's going to be a lot of fun.
- [27:48]
David Remnick
Abdul, for the sake of clarity, because we get this kind of information in bits and pieces in the way of the information universe here, I totally understand your outrage about the Gaza war. I totally understand your critique of October 7th. It's not like you endorsed October 7th, as unfortunately some people have. But it seems that you get very prickly when you're asked the question does Israel have a right to exist? And similar questions like that. Your family comes from a country, Egypt, that in the late 70s made its accommodation a kind of rough peace with Israel, as did Jordan. And God knows there's still problems in the region and among those countries. But what is your hope for a resolution in the Middle East? Is it two states? Is it one state? What underlies your sense of the situation there?
- [28:49]
Abdul El Sayed
Well, David, since you're giving me some time for nuance, I deeply appreciate it. Allow me some nuance.
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Sponsor/Announcer
Sure.
- [28:56]
Abdul El Sayed
Number one, I think we often frame the conversation around what's happening there rather than what's happening here. And what's happening here is that there are communities where the median income is $14,000 a year and those kids go without good schools and those kids go without functional infrastructure. And I think the foundational question to me is what do we owe those kids around their tax dollars, number one. Number two, I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity and self determination for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike. And I believe that it is not my job as a American policymaker to get to decide what the ultimate peace should be, but it is my job to make sure that our resources are stewarded correctly for the people. I'm responsible for those kids going to those broken schools. And I also believe that it is my job to do that doubly when we exist in a kind of hypocrisy around how we've thought about that issue for a very long time. The very same people who tell you you have to believe in a two state solution are constantly aiding, arming and abetting an Israeli government that has been dead set on foreclosing on the possibility of a Palestinian state since we've been funding them. So forgive me if I'm not going to play the cosplay thing where I allow the money that should be spent to take care of our kids to be sent to a military that has done a genocide at baseline does apartheid is now attempting the annexation of southern Lebanon to foreclose on the possibility of Palestinian self determination. So here's what I believe. I believe we have a responsibility to uphold international law. I believe we have a responsibility to treat every single state the same way around international law. I believe in a process that offers a free Palestinian people the equal rights to peace, dignity and self determination that a free Jewish Israeli people ought to have. And then I will support whatever the outcome is that a free Palestinian people and a free Jewish Israeli people decide is the right outcome. If that's two states, great, I'm for it. If it's one state, I'm for that. If it's this land for all model or 23 states or whatever it is that they decide. But I am not okay saying that as a senator from Michigan, I'm going to take tax dollars from Michigan, send them to a foreign government that does heinous things and in contraposition to the ideals that I support and then sit here and be like, yes, but I'm for a two state solution when I know that the current status quo is never ever going to allow that to happen.
- [31:29]
David Remnick
You campaigned with Hasan Piker and I don't think anybody would say that you have to be in complete accord with anybody that either supports you or votes for you or campaigns for you. But that was a prominent thing. It was in the national press. And he has said things like he doesn't have an issue with Hezbollah. That was a quote. He said that Mao Zedong was a great leader. How much do you depart from Hassan Piker? Where do you accept his support and where do you get down in the trenches with him and argue?
- [32:03]
Abdul El Sayed
Yeah, I mean he and I are not going to agree on everything. And we've debated this like, yes.
- [32:07]
David Remnick
Do you find those statements repellent to you?
- [32:11]
Abdul El Sayed
Yeah, I disagree with him. I mean, but here's the thing, right? Like on the same day that I campaigned with Hasan, I went on Fox and Friends. I find a lot of the things that the people on Fox and Friends say repellent. The fact that they platform Donald Trump. The fact that Donald Trump himself.
- [32:25]
David Remnick
Yeah, but I don't think anybody. Wait, wait, wait. I don't think anybody has any illusions that your next job is going to be as a cast member on Fox.
- [32:33]
Abdul El Sayed
Fox is basically WWE verbally for old folk. And like if I'm the face like you could imagine, I just go on there, just get like the steel chair in my head. Every day. Not going to be my next job, but. But, you know, because I'll be in the U.S. senate. I think there's this platform politics that we've had since the 2000s, and I thought we rejected it because let's not forget Hasan was invited to stream from the DNC by Vice President Harris in 2024. Let's not forget that. But in campaigning with him, everybody was like, well, how could you possibly. And I was like, did we not learn our lesson that we need to go talk to people who have large audiences, who have felt locked out of the political process for a very long time? And even though he and I might have differences, there are things I disagree with him on. He has an audience of nearly 3 million people who watch him regularly. And I really want to show that audience that there is a way forward where you can stand up for a politics that's more about guaranteeing you healthcare than sending bombs to drop on other people that is willing to stand forthrightly against genocide wherever you see it. And though he and I might disagree on China or cars, and certainly he said some things that I find deeply distasteful, that does not mean that I should not go and speak to his audience and speak to him. And I think the faster Democrats recognize that, the faster we're going to be on a pathway to actually winning elections.
- [33:57]
David Remnick
Now, one of the illusions that Trump has held out is that he uniquely would bring manufacturing back to a state like Michigan. And anybody who knows anything about Michigan, not just Detroit, but across the state, knows that over the years, it's suffered terribly from deindustrialization. So is President Trump selling snake oil there? Is that something he really can bring back? How do manufacturing jobs come back to a state like Michigan?
- [34:24]
Abdul El Sayed
I think it is possible. I think it is not possible the way he's done it. I mean, the thing about Donald Trump is the through line for him, and you've covered him. The through line for Donald Trump is Donald Trump will do whatever gives him attention and adoration in the moment. That's kind of what he is. And on that, he wants money, which gives him attention and adoration. Like, that's the Donald Trump sort of trick. And he is a pathological narcissist who is like the end game of narcissism. And he's very, very charming. He's very, very good at telling you what you want to hear. And credibly, he's not a part of the political system. When he came in, he was not a part of the political system. And people give him a lot of credit for that. And ask yourself, how much must people hate the political system if they were willing to give their vote to a narcissistic megalomaniac billionaire?
- [35:13]
David Remnick
You say that like it's a bad thing.
- [35:14]
Abdul El Sayed
Narcissistic, megalomaniacal people are bad things. But people gave him the benefit of the doubt because they hated the system worse. So I think you can actually build manufacturing jobs again, but not this way. So if you were to do it,
- [35:27]
David Remnick
here's how you do it.
- [35:27]
Abdul El Sayed
Yeah, number one, you would need to invest massively in research and development for high manufacturing potential industries. To me, that is, yes, auto, but it's also, you know, it's auto in the place that auto is going. Both maintaining our lead when it comes to internal combustion engines, but also the future of EVs which have overtaken markets all over the rest of the world. It's also green technology and the ability to create renewable energy quickly. And then what you would do is you would invest in early stage startups and legacy corporations, right? In ways that were targeted on jobs and jobs and jobs, not targeted on stock buybacks and stock performance. And then you would create very specific tariffs that were extremely transparent specifically around protecting those growing industries. And then you would subsidize those industries in a big way. So if we want to actually win the future of auto, we need to continue to be the best at building internal combustion engines. And also I would love to see us subsidize EV manufacturing so that you can get a $25,000 300 mile range car anywhere and everywhere. And we have the charging station infrastructure to do it. If we were willing to do that for 10 years. Right? Not these $7,500 tax credits for cars that only rich people can afford. I'm talking about a $25,000 300 range EV. Like that's the metric and we'll get it to $25,000. If we did that, we would immediately become the world's leader in evs. Why? Because we have the best manufacturing technology, best manufacturing talent and best engineering talent in the world. We're just not investing in them. And too often the big three have been more interested in a quarterly bottom line and stock buybacks than they have been in the next 10 years of their industry. Which is why we see this schizophrenic approach to whether or not we are going to or not going to make AVs.
- [37:22]
David Remnick
How do you feel about artificial intelligence and its potential as an economic driver and its effect on the Job market.
- [37:31]
Abdul El Sayed
I'm worried as hell. And I'm worried as hell because this is the first technology that young people are rejecting outright in the medical field.
- [37:38]
David Remnick
And I speak to you as somebody of real knowledge. Potentially AI is going to be an incredible boon to medical research and medical practice.
- [37:50]
Abdul El Sayed
It could. And look, I think that's great. The problem right now is that that's not the incentives that they're driving. They keep telling us this, but then I keep hearing headlines about how many jobs lost. And then here's the other side of it. Toward what incentive? Like the technology, David. I'm not against the technology. I think the technology is incredible. I'm against the incentives driving the technology. And I think we need to rethink those incentives. Now here's my worry is if you've got AI that's second guessing every doctor, the AI battle between the two at some point is going to resolve when one of those sides wins. And you're already seeing health care providers buy insurance companies and healthcare insurers buy healthcare companies. And when that happens, you end up having even less competition in the system as it stands. And if this is an AI war to figure out how to build better and extract more money from our pockets, that to me is not the promise that they sold us on.
- [38:41]
David Remnick
Now, many Democrats would like to distance themselves from identity politics, trans rights, saying that kitchen table issues, so called, are the prime examples and that any emphasis on identity drives people away. You've heard this a lot from Rahm Emanuel, you've heard it from Gavin Newsom. How do you respond to that impulse?
- [39:05]
Abdul El Sayed
The idea that we can assent to the taking away of anybody's rights and think that somehow government won't come for all of our rights is itself the problem. And look, I don't need people to understand how they use their rights. I just need people to agree that government shouldn't be able to take any of our rights. I put my face on the ground 34 times a day, David, in prayer. Yeah, most people don't understand why I do it. I don't need them to understand. I just want to have the right to do it. And so when people decide that they want to take away my right to do that, I've got a problem. Now, I hope that everybody's going to show up and say, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't stop that person or that community from reflecting and praying as they choose. Similarly, when it comes to trans rights, this is the right to get the healthcare that you need. That's really what it comes down to it's the right to get to be who you are. It's a right not to be discriminated against by your government because of who you are. Because what tends to happen is they come for theirs, then they come for yours, then they come from theirs. And at some point you live in a society where rights are negotiable. And that is not the America I was born in. It's not the America I know and love. It's not the America I'm allowed somebody like Donald Trump to give us.
- [40:11]
David Remnick
I really appreciate your time. Thank you.
- [40:13]
Abdul El Sayed
Thank you.
- [40:15]
David Remnick
Abdul Else Said is a Democrat running for U.S. senate. Michigan's primary is August 4th. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
- [40:30]
Sponsor/Announcer
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barge, Victor Guan and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Tsarina Endowment.
- [41:18]
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Abdul El Sayed
didn't mean tightening your budget?
- [41:23]
Sponsor/Announcer
Scratch that.
- [41:24]
Abdul El Sayed
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