'We could eliminate all of the medical debt': Senate hopeful Abdul El Sayed slams Iran war expense

Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed launched a sharp criticism of the Trump administration in a campaign rally on Sunday, questioning the $25 billion Iran war expense. He said that the money could have been used to pay off the country's medical debt "10 times over," before accusing the administration of cutting services like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to fund the conflict.

"We spent $25 billion on this war in Iran that nobody in the US asked for," he said. We could eliminate all of the medical debt in the whole country for $2.5 billion. Now, we're out of high school, so we are going to do some math. We could abolish the medical debt in this country 10 times over for what we spent on a war we should have never fought," El-Sayed said.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who endorsed El-Sayed's nomination, joined him at the 'Fight Oligarchy' rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Monday. Taking the stage, Sanders said that Washington needed leaders who could take on "oligarchs," which made El Sayed a solid choice for a Michigan Senate seat. "In a moment of national crisis, we need leaders in Washington who have the guts to take on the political establishment of both political parties," he said.

"To take on the oligarchs and the economic establishment. That's why we need Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate," he added. Sanders has been a big supporter of taxing American billionaires, and his endorsee shared those views. "If you're a billionaire and I tax you at 8%, you know what you still are? You're still a billionaire. Your kids' kids' kids' kids are going to be rich," he said at the rally, as per a Bridge Michigan report.

El-Sayed has also been outspoken against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been at the center of several controversial events since President Trump assumed power for a second term. Speaking to supporters, he said that the only way to deal with ICE was to abolish it altogether. "ICE is not about immigration," he said. "ICE is about normalizing putting government thugs on our streets against the constitution itself."

He alleged that there was a "culture of impunity" in the immigration agency, which prevented it from being reformed. Therefore, there was only one way forward. "You cannot reform this. You cannot retrain this. The only logical path is to abolish ICE," El-Sayed added. He will go up against Republican candidate Mike Rogers in the 2026 Midterms.

El-Sayed's spokesperson, Roxie Richner, claimed that the Democrat was the best option to take on Rogers. "Mike Rogers is a retired pharma lobbyist who voted to increase drug prices and exacerbated the opioid epidemic. There is no one better to take him on than Abdul, a public health expert who worked to make lifesaving Narcan more accessible and erased medical debt for Michiganders," she said, as per a Newsweek report.