Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s incoming senator, has wasted no time and has been traversing Capitol Hill while sitting down with various media outlets since his hard-won midterm victory.
He also appears ready to confront President Donald Trump directly, raising the tempo of a verbal confrontation between the two.
The Rhodes scholar and former head of Detroit’s Health Department is proposing a route to universal health care or Medicare for All that could win Trump over—or, at the very least, provoke a veto.
In a Wednesday talk with NPR, El-Sayed leaned into Trump’s vanity, proposing a universal health-care bill that could be named after the president himself.
“Put his name on it,” said the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Senate to NPR’s Leila Fadel on the video podcast “Newsmakers.”
“He’ll probably pass it. I’m not above doing that. I don’t care what it’s called,” El-Sayed replied with gravity.
Then he went further.
“I dare Donald Trump to veto. I dare him,” the Michigan Democrat challenged, “because if you want to argue that Democrats aim to deliver for you, do that. Make him veto it.”
He reaffirmed the offer later, too, in a social-media post aimed squarely at the president.
“This is a message for @realDonaldTrump Donald, this is on the table. Guarantee healthcare for every American, from cradle to grave,” El-Sayed taunted Trump in a caption over an image showing a gold “TRUMPCARE” card.
The post had nearly 4 million views by Thursday afternoon.
A day before his NPR interview, El-Sayed told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins the same idea about naming universal health insurance “Trumpcare-For-All.”
“Donald, if you’re watching, we can put your name on it. I know you like to put your name on stuff. You can finally meet the unmet promise in America to guarantee everybody health care. So, it’s on the table if you want to do it,” he suggested.
In the NPR conversation, the incoming senator did not pull back from his previous remarks about Trump.
“You recently called President Trump the dumbest effing guy who ever was president,” Fadel noted.
El-Sayed agreed. “True.”
Fadel pressed, “You’ve also said Democrats should drop the decorum and treat the president as the unserious fool that he is.”
Again, El-Sayed concurred. “True.”
“Why are you taking that approach?” Fadel asked.
El-Sayed didn’t pull any punches, explaining how to handle a “bully.”
“Because he’s a bully alongside being a narcissist. And the only way you deal with bullies is to stand up to them. Bullies don’t bully you because they necessarily care for the thing you have. They bully you because they like to bully you because it makes them feel strong,” the Democrat stated.
“And the way you take on a bully is to bully back because then they learn that this does not make them feel strong. It makes them feel weak, and they don’t like to feel weak. So they back off,” he continued.
He underscored that you can’t let a “bully” off the hook, or they simply persist with the conduct.
“So, I think it’s important for us to stand up to him.”
Trump and his ally JD Vance spent the months before the November 3 midterms hurling insults at El-Sayed, labeling him with terms ranging from Jihadist and terrorist to a member of the political Islamist faction known as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Trump also accused El-Sayed of being a “jihadist lunatic” who was “on the side of terrorists,” NPR reported.
For Vance, it’s a different story, as he will be the one tasked with swearing in all the new senators come January, including El-Sayed.
“I hope he doesn’t make it awkward,” Vance told NPR. “There is, as I said, a delicious irony in the fact that he is constitutionally obligated to swear me in.”
Social media has overwhelmingly backed El-Sayed.
“Finally, someone who can meet the moment we are in,” one X user declared.
Author Joyce Carol Oates joined in, calling the remarks “spoken like a true leader,” over a clip of the NPR interview.
Another commenter perhaps phrased it best about El-Sayed’s critique of Trump’s bullying and how to respond: “Perfect answer.”
