Democratic Senate Frontrunner Dodges Question on Deleted ‘Defund the Police’ Posts When Confronted by CNN

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) dodged multiple questions from CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins on posts he deleted from social media that defended the “Defund the Police” movement during an interview on Monday night.

Collins mentioned her K-File colleagues at CNN had found El-Sayed deleted thousands of posts last fall, including the posts that supported defunding cops.

“Some of those posts included messages that championed the defund the police movement, described the police as ‘standing armies,'” Collins said. “Why did you take those posts down?”

El-Sayed gave a long-winded, 65-second non-answer to her question.

“Well, let me just speak to a vision for public safety that I think all of us can agree with. I think all of us want to be safe. We want to know that we can get home safely. We don’t want to worry about being the victim of somebody’s violence, whether it’s from a neighbor or the state itself.”

He continued bloviating, “And we got to get serious about the kind of policing we need. For too long, we have not invested in the kind of recruitment and retention and retirement that has people from local communities wanting to join in and be a part of keeping public safety. But also, for too long, our answer to every problem has been someone with a gun.”

El-Sayed kept going and skirting the question for a bit longer.

“So would you say you feel differently than you did before?” Collins then asked.

Here’s how he continued dodging it:

Well, look, at that time I was a professor. I was teaching at the edge of of criminal justice and public health. At this point, I’m running for U.S. Senate, and in my experiences as a public official, I understand deeply that we have to all come together to think past. But I’ll tell you this — we need investments in the right things.

And that means recruitment and retention for law enforcement, but it also means behavioral response, public health, investments in a clean future that really does buy us the kind of safety that we really need and deserve.

El-Sayed is currently the frontrunner to win Michigan’s Democratic primary in August. His CNN interview comes a few months after he told the channel he sees no difference between Israel’s government and Hamas, because to him, both are “evil.”

Watch above.

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