Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed recently addressed resurfaced comments from 2020 in which he appeared to support defunding the police. During an appearance on CNN's "Inside Politics," El-Sayed was pressed by host Manu Raju about a radio interview where he stated, "I believe that we do need to defund the police insofar as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating or killing them on the streets." He then elaborated that this meant investing more in education and community empowerment to address systemic poverty and racism.
El-Sayed sought to clarify his position, suggesting that the term "defund" has been narrowly fixated upon. He argued that his remarks were about re-evaluating how resources are allocated, contrasting the "war material" sometimes supplied to police departments with investment in public services like libraries and social programs. He stated, "I believe in investing in retention and retirement for law enforcement. I've done work with law enforcement during my time in Wayne County."
When asked if the issue could become an electability problem in November, El-Sayed responded that he believes most people want to feel safe and that law enforcement is often tasked with addressing social problems they are not best equipped for, such as mental health crises. He proposed that instead of equipping police with excessive resources, society should invest in trained mental health professionals for such situations.
Earlier this month, when questioned by CNN about previous social media posts from June 2020, including one stating, "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," El-Sayed denied supporting efforts to defund the police. At that time, he stated, "Judge me by my work, I funded the system because it needed to be funded. Too often the conversation we have is fund or defund. The question that we don't ask is, what kind of system do we really want? I want us to be investing in the kinds of interventions that actually protect people."