Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was confronted about his past instances of appearing to support "defunding the police" efforts on CNN's "Inside Politics" Sunday.In a resurfaced radio interview cited by CNN, El-Sayed explicitly called for defunding the police in the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd riots."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," El-Sayed said."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."WATCH: SURFACED VIDEOS OF DEM SENATE CANDIDATE BACKING 'DEFUND THE POLICE' CONTRADICT RECENT DENIALSAbdul El-Sayed has been repeatedly asked about whether he currently supports efforts to "defund the police." (Jose Juarez/AP Photo)CNN host Manu Raju asked El-Sayed about his comments in the clip despite previously claiming to have never supported defunding the police."You know, what's interesting about that comment is I go as far as defining what I mean by that," El-Sayed said.
"Do you disagree with investing in libraries and public services and social services? You fixate on the word 'defund,' but what I’m talking about is war material that we made too much of during the war in Iraq.And then, because we had too much of it, we had to find somewhere to sell it.
So we sold it to a whole bunch to local police departments." "I believe in investing in retention and retirement for law enforcement.I've done work with law enforcement during my time in Wayne County —""But wouldn't that ...
wouldn't that issue of defunding the police become an electability issue in November?" Raju interjected.LEFT-WING HOST PRESSES EL-SAYED OVER 'PHYSICIAN' CLAIM, QUESTIONS HONESTY OF MICHIGAN DEM SENATE HOPEFULResurfaced social media posts and videos showed Abdul El-Sayed using th...