Abdul El-Sayed Sends Pointed Message to Trump on ‘The View’

Abdul El-Sayed was the second new senator-elect to take a victory lap on The View this week, following James Talarico. The incoming Michigan politician was the featured guest of the day on Thursday’s (November 5) new episode, and he came prepared to answer the panelists’ questions about his campaign, his policies, and the things that have been said about him.

In one standout moment from the interview, El-Sayed directed a message to Donald Trump, who Sunny Hostin claimed does watch the show sometimes. The comment came in response to a reminder of the flurry of insults that were levied at him during the race, including Trump’s suggestion that El-Sayed, the first Muslim to be elected to the Senate in national history, would need to go through a metal detector to enter Capitol Hill.

Of that, El-Sayed reiterated his previous response, saying, “I’ll do a metal detector all day because I got nothing to hide. But Donald, if you’re watching, lie detector still on the table.”

ABC

El-Sayed also speculated as to why he was called such vitriolic names and targeted for his religious faith, saying, “If they had something to say about the price of gas or the price of groceries or the fact that people can’t see a doctor, they would have said it. But they didn’t have anything to say. And I kind of knew that they were going to reach for the red meat. And here’s the problem with the red meat: It becomes an addiction. Once you go there and you put that out there and you say something, then you’re forced to defend it. So what do they do? They double down, and they double down, they triple down again.”

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“I wish I could tell you, ‘Oh my God, I’m so surprised,'” El-Sayed continued. “But, like I said, I’ve been me my whole life, and more often than not, people don’t want to actually debate the issues. Instead, they want to debase the politics, and that’s exactly what we saw. And for me, the opportunity was to say, ‘Look, you can talk about my name and my faith all day if you want to, but they’re not the reason you can’t afford your gas, or you can’t afford your groceries. Not the reason you can’t see a doctor.'”

The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC