Clean up in aisle 4! Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed just made a mess in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press, and let’s just say his handlers have some fixing to do.
One of El-Sayed’s signature issues is “Medicare for All.” It’s an issue that El-Sayed loves to mention but doesn’t like to talk about in detail. One reason is that it’s not good for sound bites. Once you get into the details of Medicare, it gets complex, bureaucratic, and boring. None of those things work well in media interviews.
But there are other reasons he’d rather not talk at length about his health coverage ideas, and it became clearer when Welker pressed him on it.
Calling him “Doctor,” Welker told El-Sayed that everyday Americans worry that to make Medicare universal would mean tax hikes for everyone, not just the rich.
El-Sayed dismissively tried to give Welker a quick sound bite in the hope she’d move on when he said, “As I’ve said across this campaign, I am for taxing billionaires their wealth.”
But Welker wasn’t done. She said, “What about people who make less than a billion and less than a million dollars?"
El-Sayed responded:
So, for the average person, when you look at your W2, if you’re an employee who gets paid every two weeks or four weeks, after you pay your taxes, the next biggest check that comes off the top of your pay stub is to your health insurance company.
So, imagine instead of paying that to your health insurance company, whose CEO makes $20 million a year, instead you paid a little bit more in taxes for healthcare that you wouldn’t lose if you lost your job or turned 26 or got married or got divorced. I think all of us would be a lot more interested in that kind of a system if we knew that our healthcare would be free at the point of care and would be free without having to worry about losing it, in general.
So, there’s an opportunity here, I think, to trade what we give to a big corporation, who gets to decide who we get to see and who we don’t, for a little bit more paid into FICA. And I think that’s a trade that’s worth making. I think the broader public understands that that’s a trade worth making considering how many people are holding medical debt, a third of all Michigan households right now.
Welker reinforced her earlier point, saying, “Just to be very clear, you’re describing this trade-off. You are effectively acknowledging that people making less than a million dollars could see their taxes go up. I just want to be very clear.”
His non-answers to her questions were a de facto confirmation of Welker’s suspicions. What El-Sayed said pretty clearly was to trust the government more than your insurance company, and that yes, your taxes will go up under his plan.
Something that rarely comes up when “Medicare for All” is discussed is what Medicare does not cover. Anyone who’s turned 65 and applied for Medicare knows that Medicare is hardly an apples-to-apples replacement for the kind of health insurance you may have gotten through your employer.
Medicare does not automatically include eye care, dental care, and certain prescription coverage. If retirees pay more, and most do, they can enroll in a Part C or Medicare Advantage plan that covers more. But even there, Medicare Advantage is only one option and may not be as good as your existing health insurance. Some opt not to go with Medicare Advantage, instead going with a more expensive Medigap or another alternative plan that they feel is closer to what they're used to.
As for El-Sayed’s comments that by paying the government more for your Medicare, you’re not paying some private health insurance company, that’s often not true at all. Medicare Advantage plans and other supplemental plans are usually administered by private health insurance companies, and so you likely still would be lining the coffers of some private insurance company.
What all of this means is that while El-Sayed wants Americans to think they’re getting health insurance comparable to what they’ve had, and all they need to do is pay the government more in the form of higher taxes, that’s likely not what it would look like in practice.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! In a stunning moment, Michigan Senate candidate Abdulrahman Mohamed El Sayed (D) says the middle class will pay MORE TAXES under his socialist healthcare program
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 9, 2026
"It would be free at the POINT OF CARE."
"That's a trade worth making."
WELKER: You are acknowledging… pic.twitter.com/Nv5rvdkvwy
Welker also asked him about his BFF, Hasan Piker, who’s been right at his side throughout this campaign. Walking a political tightrope, El-Sayed sought to distance himself from Piker’s words but not from the pathetic Piker himself.
BREAKING: An Abdul El-Sayed supporter said voters are “stupid” and the best way to win is to hide the truth.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) August 5, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed and Hasan Piker nodded in agreement.
“The encouraging thing is that people are stupid.” pic.twitter.com/bEEkL1poaq
During that same interview with Welker, El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker’s comments when he said that “America deserved 9/11.” When Welker asked the senatorial candidate for comment, he told her that Piker’s comments were “dumb.”
Of course, it was a dumb statement and of course I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement. He disavowed it. So yes, America didn’t deserve 9/11, but you know, to sit here and play gotcha politics with a dumb thing somebody said out of context that they disavowed themselves — to say, ‘Oh well, what does that mean about what you think?’ I want to be held accountable for what I say and what I do, rather than this idea that we’re so stuck in cancel culture that all of us agreed was a bad idea back in 2020, but we seem to want to bring back, El-Sayed said.
The leftist news site Politico had a slightly different take on El-Sayed’s comments:
El-Sayed’s comments are a stark difference from his interview with POLITICO earlier this year in which he declined to denounce Piker’s views in what he called a "gotcha game."
"I’m not here to disavow people’s views," El-Sayed said at the time. "This whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture — I thought we were over it."
The Napoleonesque Senate candidate would not say one way or the other whether he’d continue to campaign with Piker, trying like the devil to get Welker to change the subject, saying that it doesn’t matter who he campaigns with. He said he’s “a lot more concerned about who I’m campaigning to.”
NBC: Hasan Piker has said "America deserved 9/11," do you plan to continue to campaign with him?
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 9, 2026
EL-SAYED: "I'm less concerned now with who I'm campaigning with..."
NBC: "Would you welcome him though?"
EL-SAYED: "I'm a lot more focused on who I'm campaigning to." pic.twitter.com/2kyYIyNic7
Politico wasn’t buying it, reporting that “El-Sayed’s embrace of Piker, who he said he believes is ‘critical’ for Democrats to embrace, has drawn criticism — from Republicans and Democrats alike.”
On yet another front, former first lady “Dr. Jill Biden” once had a press secretary named Michael LaRosa. On Aug. 8, LaRosa bucked his party and publicly endorsed Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) in his bid to become Michigan’s next senator.
While it’s rare for an embedded Democrat operative to so publicly break ranks like this, LaRosa made it crystal clear on the X platform why he was backing Rogers: “I won’t defend or support anyone who is too cowardly to stand up to extremists who think the mother of my best friend, who jumped from 95 stories because the alternative was worse, deserved what happened to her…. Her only crime was showing up to work that morning.”
I refused to defend or support anyone with an SS Totenkampf tattoo, simply because they had a "D" next to their name.
— Michael LaRosa (@MichaelLaRosaDC) August 8, 2026
I won't defend or support anyone who is too cowardly to stand up to extremists who think the mother of my best friend, who jumped from 95 stories because the… https://t.co/hC6s7W7PfK
All this adds up to a bad day on at least one Sunday show for the upstart candidate who is starting to look like the Michigan version of Graham Platner without the Nazi tattoo, the sexting, and all the other sex stuff. Judging him by the company he keeps, his refusal to distance himself from some seriously anti-American actors, and his clunky responses to straightforward questions, it's clear that he’s got tougher days ahead.
The truth is that the Sunday shows are very kind to Democrats. If he couldn’t hit a figurative home run in his first interview with Welker since winning his primary race, he’s got some weaknesses and vulnerabilities that the Rogers campaign and Republicans can exploit more fully in the coming months.
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