SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
abdul el-sayed
Ready to 'Fight for the Working Class': Sanders Endorses Abdul El-Sayed for US Senate
"We need candidates who will stand up to Trump's authoritarianism and protect our democratic way of life."
Apr 17, 2025
Within hours of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed confirming his candidacy for U.S. Senate on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders affirmed his support for the Michigan Democrat, who recently resigned as Wayne County public health director to prepare for a run in 2026.
"This is an unprecedented moment in American history. We need an unprecedented response," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "We need candidates who are prepared to stand up for the working class of this country and take on the oligarchy."
El-Sayed, a longtime ally of Sanders, joined him last month for a Michigan stop on his nationwide Fighting Oligarchy Tour, which is pushing back against the agenda of Republican President Donald Trump and his collection of billionaires.
"We need candidates who will stand up to Trump's authoritarianism and protect our democratic way of life," the senator declared Thursday. "It is my strong view that Abdul El-Sayed is the kind of leader who will do just that. Abdul is a physician who understands that our current healthcare system is broken and wildly expensive. He understands that healthcare is a human right, which is why he supports Medicare for All."
Sanders also highlighted El-Sayed's commitment to "vigorously fight" against the country's "corrupt campaign finance system" by overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, as well as his dedication to raising the minimum wage and making it easier to join unions because "he understands that too many workers in America are earning starvation wages."
"In other words, as a United States senator, he will take on powerful special interests and create a government and economy that work for all of us, not just the few," he concluded. "I am very proud to support Abdul to become the next senator from the great state of Michigan."
Other progressives across the country have joined Sanders in expressing support for El-Sayed on social media. Among them are Democratic Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman and Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the latter of whom said Thursday that the Michigander "is a friend and a strong champion of Medicare for All and standing up for the human rights and self-determination of Palestinians. He has always stood on principle, and I am excited he is running."
Prior to his Wayne County position, El-Sayed ran for governor of Michigan in 2018 after previously leading the Detroit Health Department. He also authored the 2020 book Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey Into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic and co-authored the 2021 book Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide, which features a foreword by Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
Building "a healthier America" is a top priority for El-Sayed. The candidate's other focuses, according to his campaign website, are an economy for working people, clean air and water, more and better education, sensible foreign policy, and solving the housing crisis.
"As I've spoken to Michiganders, one thing's become clear: It's just too hard to get by," Abdul said in a Thursday statement. "But it doesn't have to be. And to fix it, we need to break the chokehold that billionaires and oligarchs like Donald Trump and Elon Musk have on our politics and economy."
"It's not just about what we're fighting against—it's about what we fight for," he asserted. "Michiganders deserve an economy that works for them, guaranteed healthcare, clean air and water, and affordable housing. Just as I have in Detroit and Wayne County, I'm running to deliver government services that work for the rest of us."
El-Sayed hopes to fill the seat of Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who announced in January that he wouldn't seek a third term in 2026.
As the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday:
El-Sayed... joins state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, of Royal Oak, as the only announced candidates in a Democratic primary race for what is expected to be a hotly contested seat...
Other Democrats looking at the race include U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, of Birmingham, and former state House Speaker Joe Tate, of Detroit, and pundits have speculated state Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is term-limited in that job, could run as well.
Whoever wins the Democratic primary may face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, of White Lake, who narrowly lost to Democratic U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin last year.
However, as the Free Press noted, "U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, of Holland Township, and Tudor Dixon, the 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee who lost to Whitmer, are weighing bids. Two lesser-known candidates, Dr. Kent Benham, a dentist in the Deerfield area, and Fred Heurtebise, of Luther, whose website describes him as a welder and engineer, have also filed in the Republican primary."
Keep ReadingShow Less
10,000+ Turn Out in Warren, Michigan to 'Fight Oligarchy' With Bernie Sanders
"We will not accept oligarchy, we will not accept authoritarianism, we will not accept kleptocracy," the democratic socialist senator said. "We're gonna fight back, and we're gonna win."
Mar 09, 2025
The Democratic Party may have twice stymied Sen. Bernie Sanders' White House ambitions, but the National Tour to Fight Oligarchy launched last month by the democratic socialist has been drawing crowds that would be the envy of any presidential campaign.
On Saturday, more than 10,000 people turned out to see Sanders (I-Vt.) speak in Warren, Michigan. Not only did they pack the main event space—the gymnasium at Lincoln High School—literally to the rafters, they filled two overflow rooms, with hundreds turned away outside, according to Michigan Advance.
"We have an administration that is leading us to oligarchy, an administration that is leading us to an authoritarian form of society, an administration that is leading us towards kleptocracy," Sanders said at the beginning of his speech.
Noting that three of the world's richest men—Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—sat in the front row of President Donald Trump's inauguration, Sander said that "instead of a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we have now become a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class."
Sanders also took aim at Trump's false election claims and the wider "post-truth" trend on the right, telling the crowd: "We're up against a phenomenon that we have never seen, and that is the Big Lie. The Big Lie is not just stretching the truth; the Big Lie is not just fibbing. The Big Lie is creating a parallel universe, a set of ideas that have no basis in reality."
The senator also linked past struggles against injustice with the current crisis, arguing that "the change that we have experienced over hundreds of years of our nationhood only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression and injustice and fight back."
Sanders was joined on stage by United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who wore a T-shirt reading "Eat the Rich" and told the audience that "billionaires don't have a right to exist."
Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, who ran for Michigan governor in 2018 and is considering a Senate run, pointed to the size of Saturday's crowd in Warren as proof of the enduring power of progressivism.
"They want us to step back, and today, all of you have said that we are not stepping back, we are stepping forward," El-Sayed told Michigan Advance. "We are recognizing that in one another, we have all we need to build that government for the people and by the people."
In a dig at the unofficial motto of some Silicon Valley startups, El-Sayed said that the Trump administration wants "to move fast and break things."
"But what they're breaking is the government that our hard-earned tax dollars have been funding," he said. "And we're here to say that that is our money, that is our government, take your damn billionaire hands off of it."
The Warren rally was the latest on a tour that's seen overflow crowds at almost every stop. Thousands also turned out in Altoona, Wisconsin on Saturday and Kenosha, Wisconsin on Friday to see Sanders speak.
There's more to Sanders' tour than just raging against Trump and the oligarchy. He chose to visit districts where Republicans narrowly won congressional races, hoping to pressure GOP lawmakers to vote against proposed cuts to programs upon which working-class people rely, in order to pay for the $4.5 trillion cost of extending Trump's first-term "tax scam" that overwhelmingly benefited the ultra-wealthy and corporations.
"Today, the oligarchs and the billionaire class are getting richer and richer and have more and more power," Sanders said in a statement Friday. "Meanwhile, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and most of our people are struggling to pay for healthcare, childcare, and housing. This country belongs to all of us, not just the few. We must fight back."
Correction: This article originally said Sanders held a rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The rally was in Altoona, Wisconsin.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders Holds Senate Hearing on Medicare for All
The Vermont senator is also expected to introduce an updated version of his Medicare for All legislation with 14 Senate co-sponsors.
May 12, 2022
Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to lead a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Medicare for All on Thursday as the coronavirus pandemic continues to lay bare the deadly dysfunction and greed at the heart of the United States' for-profit healthcare system.
The hearing, scheduled to begin at 11:00 am ET, will feature testimony from a number of experts and advocates, including former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, critical care physician Dr. Adam Gaffney, and National Nurses United executive director Bonnie Castillo.
"We are seeing unprecedented momentum for Medicare for All not just among nurses, but as part of a growing movement demanding health justice," Castillo said in a statement ahead of Thursday's hearing. "It is past time for the United States government to listen to nurses and listen to the people as we demand: Pass Medicare for All and guarantee healthcare as a human right."
Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the budget panel, is also expected to introduce an updated version of his Medicare for All legislation on Thursday with 14 Senate co-sponsors.
The Vermont senator has long argued that a single-payer system that provides comprehensive healthcare to all for free at the point of service would save both lives and money.
In a statement Thursday, Sanders' office noted that estimates show "Medicare for All could save 68,000 lives per year, and numerous studies find that Medicare for All saves the American people and the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars a year."
"According to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare for All would save $650 billion each year, improve the economy, and eliminate all out-of-pocket healthcare costs," the statement observes. "Even a study done by the right-wing Mercatus Center estimated that Medicare for All would save more than $2 trillion over a decade."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular