There are difficult questions in life. What is the meaning of existence? Are we alone in the universe? Why does one missing sock apparently enter another dimension every time you do laundry? And then there are questions like: Should biological men compete in women’s sports? During a remarkable Abdul El-Sayed interview with Jesse Watters, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee discovered that the second category was apparently much tougher than the first. Watters spent roughly 25 minutes asking El-Sayed about positions he has taken on taxes, healthcare, immigration, guns, Sharia law, reparations and women’s sports. El-Sayed spent a remarkable amount of that time demonstrating the ancient political art of answering whichever question you wish somebody had asked.
WATCH: Jesse Watters Discovers the Incredible Disappearing Answer
Give El-Sayed some credit: he actually went on Watters’ show, which is more than plenty of politicians would do. Unfortunately, agreeing to an interview traditionally involves answering questions. Watters would ask one, and El-Sayed would often head off on a scenic tour of Michigan gas prices, healthcare costs and Donald Trump before eventually arriving somewhere several zip codes away from the original question. El-Sayed dodged questions about biological men in women’s sports and his previous characterization of the NFL as racist. This became the running theme of the evening: Jesse asks Question A. Abdul explains his feelings about Subjects B through Q. Jesse asks Question A again. Abdul wonders why Jesse is obsessed with Question A.
Apparently $100 Million Is Enough Money for You
Then came my personal favorite. El-Sayed has advocated taxing the wealth of people with more than $100 million and previously asked, essentially, what someone with that much money could possibly need more money for. Watters supplied perhaps the shortest economics lesson ever delivered on cable television: “Whatever I want!” There you go. Class dismissed. El-Sayed argued that wealthy Americans should contribute more toward roads, schools and other public needs, and during the interview floated a 7% tax example involving a billionaire. But there’s something wonderfully revealing about a politician asking what somebody else intends to do with his own money. Maybe invest it. Maybe build a company. Maybe give it away. Maybe buy 14 yachts and name every one of them Not The Government’s. The point is that in America we traditionally haven’t required citizens to submit a satisfactory answer to Senator El-Sayed before keeping their property.
How Much Does Medicare for All Cost? Please Choose Any Answer Except a Number
Watters then asked about El-Sayed’s support for Medicare for All. Specifically, he wanted to know what the program would cost. This seemed like a reasonable question considering we’re discussing reorganizing healthcare for hundreds of millions of people. El-Sayed’s answer was that average Michiganders would pay less. Watters asked for the total cost. El-Sayed talked about household costs. Watters asked again. El-Sayed moved toward military spending. At one point Watters was discussing a federal government already spending trillions annually while El-Sayed continued arguing that the important number was what ordinary people pay. That’s an interesting debate to have, but there’s still a tiny detail sitting in the corner waving its hand: How much does your program cost? When somebody wants control of roughly one-sixth of the American economy, asking for the price before handing over the keys doesn’t strike me as unreasonable.
The Second Amendment Suddenly Becomes a Healthcare Question
Watters next confronted El-Sayed with his previous statement about replacing the right to bear arms with a right to healthcare and asked a brutally complicated question: Do you want to replace the Second Amendment? El-Sayed responded that more people are worried about seeing a doctor than having a gun. Watters asked again. El-Sayed again talked about healthcare. Eventually he said he was fine with people having hunting rifles. Notice the trick? The question wasn’t whether your uncle can keep his deer rifle. It was whether El-Sayed wants to replace a constitutional right. This is where politicians become Olympic-caliber verbal gymnasts. Don’t answer the uncomfortable question. Replace it with a much friendlier question, answer that one beautifully, and hope everybody forgets what happened.
Then Jesse Asked About Women’s Sports — Buckle Up
Watters eventually asked whether biological men should compete in women’s sports. El-Sayed’s response was that decisions about who participates in sports should be made by the organizations governing those sports. He emphasized that he’s running for the U.S. Senate to address healthcare and other economic issues and called Watters’ focus on sports “silly.” That’s clever, isn’t it? You don’t actually have to say yes. You don’t have to say no. You simply announce that somebody else should decide. Watters kept pressing because this isn’t some obscure dispute over the designated-hitter rule. Americans have spent years arguing about fairness, biological differences and protections for female athletes. A candidate for the United States Senate can certainly say the issue isn’t a federal responsibility. Fine. But voters are also entitled to know what he actually thinks.
Sharia, Reparations and Another Tour Through the Talking Points
The night didn’t get any less interesting. Watters confronted El-Sayed about earlier remarks connecting efforts to ban Sharia law with historical racial oppression. El-Sayed argued that Muslims should have the same freedom to practice their religion that Christians have and insisted nobody is trying to impose Sharia on other Americans. Asked about reparations, he said America needs an honest conversation about the debt created by slavery and discussed redlining, segregation and Detroit schools; Fox summarized him as saying considering reparations “shouldn’t be a crazy thing.” Again, Michigan voters can decide whether they agree. That’s the beauty of elections. But first they need candidates willing to tell them precisely what they’re voting for.
The Most Revealing Part of the Abdul El-Sayed Interview
Here’s what makes the Abdul El-Sayed interview worth watching rather than merely reading somebody else’s description of it: El-Sayed is smart. He’s quick. He’s articulate. He’s perfectly capable of sparring with Watters and lands a few punches of his own. That’s precisely why the evasions stand out. When a candidate capable of delivering long, polished answers suddenly can’t produce a simple yes or no, pay attention. Maybe the problem isn’t that he doesn’t understand the question. Maybe he understands it perfectly. Watters actually gave him credit at the end for coming onto hostile territory and taking the questions, while telling him some of his policies sounded “straight up wacky.” El-Sayed fired right back, attacking Trump’s priorities and returning to affordability and Medicare for All. Fair enough. Let Michigan decide. But before voters decide who gets six years in the United States Senate, they might want to hit play on this interview. Bring popcorn. And every time Jesse asks a simple question, see whether you can spot the answer before it disappears.
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JIMMY
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