Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed faced pointed questions on issues including sex changes for minors and transgender athletes during a tense interview on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime." El-Sayed, a former Detroit Health Department director, initially resisted direct answers, stating that government should not dictate healthcare choices and that such decisions for minors are strictly between a patient, their parents, and their doctor.
When pressed by host Jesse Watters about supporting irreversible surgeries for minors, El-Sayed pivoted the conversation. "Are you circumcised?" he asked Watters, drawing a parallel between the procedure and surgeries on minors. He argued that if Watters wanted to discuss surgical procedures on children, he should consider all such practices.
"I mean, so do you really want to have this conversation? Are you circumcised?" El-Sayed asked. "I think it’s a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor and a patient. And I'm just saying that, yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid's ding-a-ling. So if you really want to bring that up, you can. I just think you guys are really selective about how you want to talk about these things."
Watters responded by stating, "Abdul, Michigan's not going for that. That is sick stuff," before shifting the discussion to transgender athletes participating in women's sports. El-Sayed initially deflected this question as well, suggesting that Watters was focusing on "culture war" issues instead of economic concerns like grocery prices and healthcare affordability that he asserted were of greater importance to Michigan residents.
Later in the segment, El-Sayed commented on transgender athletes by saying that rules for sports should be determined by those who govern sports.
The exchange covered a range of topics, including wealth taxes, religious freedom, and foreign policy, with El-Sayed frequently attempting to redirect the conversation toward economic issues. El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee for the open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan and is scheduled to face Republican nominee Mike Rogers in the general election. He holds a doctorate in public health from Oxford University and a medical degree from Columbia University.