Dem Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Outlines Laying ‘Runway’ By ‘Hauling Up People’ To Hold Trump Admin ‘Accountable’

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee to be Michigan’s next U.S. senator, floated plans involving leveraging Trump administration officials if his party wrests control of the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.

El-Sayed told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday Democrats can hold the Trump administration “accountable” if elected by using the powers reserved for the majoroty party, such as subpoena power, to start “hauling up people like RFK Jr.” The 41-year-old politician and epidemiologist endorsed by Bernie Sanders beat Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens in a Tuesday primary election.

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“Democratic voters are frustrated, as I don’t need to tell you. They don’t think that your party’s doing enough to fight Donald Trump on these issues, especially like affordability,” the “State of the Union” host said. “If you’re elected as a Democratic senator with a Republican president in November, what can you actually do about that?”

“Well, look, let me just tell you the picture from my state. We have been up and down the state now. I have been at this for 15 months, been to 110 cities, over 500 public events,” El-Sayed told Tapper. “Everywhere I go, people say the same thing: ‘It just shouldn’t be this hard.’ It shouldn’t be this hard to afford your groceries or fill up your tank or worry about getting sick without having to worry about losing everything too.”

El-Sayed said that the “first thing we need to do” after being sworn in to the Senate as part of a Democratic majority is to “start holding the Trump administration accountable,” citing subpoena power as his weapon of choice to “investigate all of the ways that this administration has used their power for their gain and enrichment and against ours.”