Abdul El-Sayed Lays Out Strategy to Thwart Trump on Climate

touch. Charlie, you want to call on the next person? Prerna, I think that's you. Yes. Yeah, hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Prerna. I am a environmental staffer in the Senate. So, I'm very much looking forward to hopefully having you in the halls of the Senate and um on the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus, of which one of them is the staff leads. I guess my question and this is getting a little bit ahead of course, but you know uh even if things go very well in November, we're still looking at two more years of a Republican presidency. And I'm curious, you know, I think

you know, all reading your platform on climate and environment, these are all the right things that we should be doing, codifying the endangerment finding, but we're not going to have the chance to do that for a couple more years. I'm curious how you see your role on environmental issues or sort of all the issues that we're, you know, facing more broadly going into the next two years of a Trump administration. How do you sort of plan how do you envision yourself using your voice at a time when unfortunately we're not going to get any policy over the finish line. I mean, the best case situation is that we don't get put much policy over the finish line because it's inevitably going to be mostly bad. So, I'm just

curious how you see sort of your role for the next couple years in the Senate. Yeah, so first thank you for your work and I hope we get to work together. That would be very fun. I see my job in as doing two things in the next two years. Number one, throwing as much sand in the gear of the Trump administration as I can and using them to like posturize them. Right? So, you know, God willing we take the Senate majority, in which case there's a tremendous amount of investigating that we can do. So, like let's tell the story about the corruption that led to this. Let's tell the story about what we're losing as a

function of this. Let's tell the story. And then the second thing I need to do is I need to use the platform that I have and frankly, AIPAC and all the other corporations are going to give me. If I win this race, what they don't really realize is that in spending so much money, they're turning me into David. Right? So, like if I'm the guy who came through and beat Goliath, now all of a sudden you just gave me the best platform in the entire US Senate, which I love because then guess where all eyes are going to be. Michigan is going to be what? State number five? First big swing state on the whole map.

Like I love that for us, which means that I get to then start paving the pathway for 2028 and who will be the next president. And so, part of what I need to do is understand that this job is not just about what you can do in terms of your investigatory power, of course your legislative power, or your confirmatory power. It's also your platform power. And so, how do I start telling the story and paving out the pathway for what the next president should sound like because of what I'm advocating for. Right? And how I talk about this. A lot of what I'm trying to do in this race right now, and then, you know, if I win, is to offer compelling ways or offer a sort of memes that people can pick up who are running for president to

sound like we need them to sound. See what I mean? Um like I told you, like my principal job is to be able to translate a lot of our broader public policy goals in language that moves people to build the political capacity to drive legislation and change public policy. Right? And I think I get to do that quite a bit moving into 2028 where I can leave a lot of these memes for how we talk about this on the table should a political entrepreneur running for president want to run on climate in a way that makes sense and is less assailable than the way we did it, I think earlier on. That make sense? So, those are like my two big jobs, right? And then I also, you know, uh in the interim need to be organizing

downward and outward. Um so, you know, big pick up for us could be that John Fetterman seat. Right? Um and unlike a lot of folks, you know, they're going to eff around and give me carte blanche to go take them out. Like that's the best thing about the way they're doing this is if I win, you're just like, "Well, y'all came at me, so now I get to come at you." Um, and you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that. Like I'm looking forward to it. And people are like, "Oh, we don't primary the Senate." I'm like, "Watch me do it." You know what I mean? Like, tell me why I should stop. You know what I mean? You're going to spend $60 million to beat me? Okay, two can play

at that game. You know what I mean? Um, so, you know, and then what happens is ideally you put one ogre on a pike and then everyone else gets the message. And all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.