{"id":632062,"date":"2026-07-08T12:53:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=632062"},"modified":"2026-07-08T12:53:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:53:43","slug":"abdul-el-sayed-says-he-never-backed-defunding-police-old-interviews-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=632062","title":{"rendered":"Abdul El-Sayed says he never backed defunding police \u2014 old interviews disagree"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed claims he \u201cnever\u201d supported the \u201cdefund the police\u201d movement, but is that true?<\/p>\n

According to a CNN KFile<\/em> report<\/a>, El-Sayed\u2019s insistence that he \u201cnever, never called for defunding\u201d law enforcement doesn\u2019t hold up to a review of his past comments. After telling CNN host Kasie Hunt that he had deleted some X posts that had been taken \u201cout of context,\u201d the outlet decided to take a look into some public statements he made in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need to defund the police,\u201d he reportedly said during a radio interview where he went on to explain \u201chow the slogan could undermine criminal justice reform efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from the article:<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are in a moment where a lot of our public conversation gets chewed down into 280 characters or less,\u201d\u00a0El-Sayed said in June 2020<\/a>\u00a0on Detroit Public Radio, arguing it was better to explain what needed to be done than hedging \u201cbehind a hashtag.\u201dEl-Sayed at the time was a public health advocate, podcast host and Detroit\u2019s former public health director.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd 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\u2019ve allowed systematic racism to allow to fester in too many communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to El-Sayed, this includes investing in things other than law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if we were to invest in social services? What if we were to invest in public schools? What if we were to invest in public libraries? What would the world look like there? And I think that has to be the way we go. And that means both investing more in these services, and it also means investing less in police,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner says \u201chis perspective has become more nuanced\u201d since that time, pointing to his \u201cpublic health experience working with local law enforcement in Wayne County, Michigan,\u201d according to CNN.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne simple word has never been enough to fully explain the reforms we need for a challenge as complex as our criminal legal system,\u201d Richner added. \u201cJust as he did in Wayne County in 2023, Abdul believes we need to improve law enforcement recruitment, retention, and retirement funding so that law enforcement officers come from the communities they serve. He also believes we must reject militarized policing, pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and opt for community violence intervention, behavioral health response, and improvements in public health to reduce violence and protect the lives of communities and law enforcement alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed claims he \u201cnever\u201d supported the \u201cdefund the police\u201d movement, but is that true? According to a CNN KFile report, El-Sayed\u2019s insistence that he \u201cnever, never called for defunding\u201d law enforcement doesn\u2019t hold up to a review of his past comments. After telling CNN host Kasie Hunt that he had deleted… Continue reading Abdul El-Sayed says he never backed defunding police \u2014 old interviews disagree<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":632063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=632062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/632063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=632062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=632062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=632062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}