Abdul El-Sayed
Abdul El-Sayed was director of Wayne County's Department of Health, Human and Veteran Services in Michigan from 2023 to 2025.
“I don't think the job of a politician is just to say what's popular. I think the job is to make popular what is right.”
The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos · October 2026
Context
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, speaks with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos on The Moment, recorded live in Holland, Michigan, about a week before the November election. He was answering a question on immigration.
Transcript
The problem though, is that too often people in my party What we pay attention to is consultants who run these polls who say, oh, this is popular, this is unpopular.
If it's unpopular, you shouldn't talk about it.
I don't think the job of a politician is just to say what's popular. I think the job is to make popular what is right. And I think the courage to show up in places where something is unpopular and make the argument about why it should be popular.
Is the thing that I can offer.
And as one United States Senator, what I'll tell you is this, My job is not just to go and have a conversation with 99 other senators. It's to have a conversation with the public such that the public is talking to those 99 other senators and saying, you know, that guy's making some sense.
But if you promise immigration reform, I mean, we've been promising immigration reform since 1996. So you're going to be just like another politician promising something that, how are you going to deliver that? That's the question.