Abdul El-Sayed Deleted Old Posts and Videos Defending ‘Defund’ and Floating an End to Fireworks

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, was a prolific commentator for years, pontificating about the political issues of the day on social media, YouTube and various podcasts.

But if you’re looking for some of his takes from years ago, you won’t find them on YouTube. CNN reported on Tuesday that he had deleted a number of videos and posts where he floated the idea of abandoning fireworks on Independence Day, suggested replacing the Second Amendment with the “right to have health care” and expressed support for the “defund the police” movement.

A review of online archives by The New York Times shows that Dr. El-Sayed has made at least 160 videos from his public YouTube page private, including every post that predated the announcement of his Senate bid in April 2025. He has also deleted numerous posts on X.

He did not wipe away everything.

In one podcast episode from 2023 that was not deleted, he drew a loose link between American football and Manifest Destiny, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the United States’ history of “destroying Native Americans,” saying that they were “kind of echoed in the ethos” of the sport.

Republicans seized on the newly unearthed content to attack Dr. El-Sayed, who won the Democratic primary last week and is facing former Representative Mike Rogers in a November contest seen as crucial to control of the Senate.

“Defund ICE, defund the police, and now a call to ban fireworks,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, wrote on X. “You can’t make this up. The Democratic party has gone off the deep end.”

The videos were made private, which means they are effectively deleted for everyone except Dr. El-Sayed. Auto-generated transcripts, titles and descriptions, however, are available on the Internet Archive and Filmot, which catalogs unlisted videos on YouTube. Because the original videos are no longer available, The Times could not independently verify the accuracy of the transcripts, whose content Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign did not dispute.

Democratic politicians have retreated from some of the more outspokenly liberal positions they took around 2020. Francesca Hong, the front-runner in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor, recently walked back a 2020 social media post calling for Thanksgiving to be canceled, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, on Sunday distanced herself from her calls to “abolish the police” that year.

Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign acknowledged that his YouTube page “was updated to post exclusively campaign content” and suggested that he did not still hold all of the views expressed in the deleted posts.

“Abdul is the former captain of his high school football team, loves Michigan football on Saturdays, and celebrates the Fourth of July with fireworks like the next Michigander,” Roxie Richner, a spokeswoman for Dr. El-Sayed, said in a statement. “Cherry-picked comments from old podcasts don’t reflect his beliefs today.”

Dr. El-Sayed has been unabashed about his progressive views during his campaign, including his belief that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished. He has pivoted on policing, however.

In one deleted post from June 2020, Dr. El-Sayed called the police “standing armies we deploy against our own people.” In another from the same month, he wrote, “Most major US cities spend WAY TOO MUCH on police departments to police poverty & WAY TOO LITTLE on public schools, health departments, recreation departments, & housing to eliminate poverty.”

He added, “Fixing that is what the #Defund movement is about.”

Last month, he told CNN that he had deleted old social media posts about the “defund” movement because they were taken “out of context” for “clickbait.” And on Tuesday, Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign said that he now believed that funding for law enforcement recruitment, retention and retirement should improve, but that he also supported investing in community programs and other ways to reduce violence.

In one deleted video from April 2023, Dr. El-Sayed opined that the “right to bear arms” was not about allowing people to carry guns, but instead “about being able to sponsor a militia at the state level to protect against tyranny from the federal government.” On Tuesday, Ms. Richner, his campaign spokeswoman, said that Dr. El-Sayed “respects the Second Amendment, and also believes that access to health care is a right.”

In a now-deleted July 2024 video, Dr. El-Sayed suggested that Americans should consider alternatives to fireworks on Independence Day, writing in the video’s description that Detroit experienced “the worst air quality in the entire world” after July 4. “Fireworks just aren’t worth it,” read the title of one section, while another pointed out that they could trigger post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans and pose risks to children and pets.

His campaign pointed to an X post from July 2025 to show how Dr. El-Sayed’s views had evolved.

“Happy Fourth of July, Michigan!” he wrote. “Enjoy the fireworks as we commit ourselves to building a country where all of us can thrive.”