Abdul El-Sayed Old Videos Target Fireworks, Second Amendment and Football

The internet is forever.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is facing a fresh blast from his digital past, with resurfaced videos and podcast episodes revealing commentary targeting Fourth of July fireworks, questioning the constitutional right to bear arms and even linking the “ethos” of football to slavery and other dark chapters of American history.

Some of the videos have since disappeared from public view.

But the comments haven’t.

CNN reviewed archived transcripts of the material, including a July 2024 video in which El-Sayed urged Americans to rethink their Independence Day fireworks tradition and featured a segment titled, “Fireworks just aren’t worth it.”

El-Sayed cited pollution, injuries, frightened pets, and the potential for fireworks to trigger post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.

Then there was the Second Amendment.

Following a 2023 school shooting in Nashville, El-Sayed floated a constitutional rewrite that would trade the right to bear arms for a right to government-guaranteed health care.

“What if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we change it to the right to have health care?” El-Sayed asked.

He argued such a change could mean fewer gun deaths and more people surviving because they had access to health care.

Another now-private video shows El-Sayed brushing aside Republican concern over the southern border.

In September 2022, he said Republicans “love to flog” the border issue even though, in his view, it “doesn’t even make the top five among issues that people in the United States actually care about that affect their lives.”

That old commentary could be particularly uncomfortable in a general election where Republicans are already working to portray El-Sayed as far outside Michigan’s political mainstream.

And then there’s football.

In a February 2023 episode of his podcast, El-Sayed — himself a former high school football captain — questioned whether the sport could ever be truly “ethical” or “safe.”

“Football is very much associated with a particularly masculine and oftentimes toxically masculine culture,” he said.

Abdul El-Sayed: “Football is very much associated with a particularly masculine and oftentimes toxically masculine culture.” pic.twitter.com/ThhWjtQQgO

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 10, 2026

El-Sayed later connected the game to some of the ugliest episodes in American history, arguing that narratives surrounding the destruction of Native Americans and the trans-Atlantic slave trade are “echoed in the ethos of football.”

That’s a potentially combustible line in football-crazed Michigan, home to both the Detroit Lions and one of the country’s most storied college football cultures.

El-Sayed, 41, narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in last week’s Democratic primary, emerging from the party’s progressive wing to claim the nomination by roughly a percentage point.

He now faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in November in one of the country’s marquee Senate contests.

Rogers’ campaign is already portraying El-Sayed as an extremist whose old statements reveal views far outside the mainstream.

El-Sayed’s campaign says that’s precisely the wrong conclusion to draw.

“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,” his campaign said in response to CNN’s reporting.

“Cherry-picked comments from his old podcasts don’t reflect his beliefs today.”

That defense sets up a simple question Republicans will almost certainly hammer through November: If those old comments no longer represent Abdul El-Sayed, when — and why — did his views change?

Democrat Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed was caught deleting 100 videos from YouTube before launching his campaign

Some of the views he expressed in the videos:

-Proposed replacing the Second Amendment with a right to health care

-Claimed the border crisis was not a… pic.twitter.com/81EZXgi3yf

— America (@america) August 11, 2026

More over at CNN:

LINK: https://t.co/rbUrb095v8

— Andrew Kaczynski (@KFILE) August 11, 2026