Welcome back to the show, everybody.

Today we are joined by former Wayne County Public Health Official, Progressive Advocate

and candidate for Senate in Michigan. Dr. Abdul-El-Sayed. Abdul, Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you. It's a privilege. I love the way the state has evolved. Like this office is phenomenal. Yeah. Got real madmen vibes. Oh, of course. Yeah, got to go for the mid-century modern. Oh, absolutely. But no, this is great. I appreciate y'all having me here. So, as I said, first of all, you're running for Senate in the state of Michigan. So easy question first. Why you? Look, I never wanted to be a politician that wasn't my life's path. I wanted to be a doctor. And there are two questions you ask in medicine, what's wrong and how can I help? And too often,

the answers that people give you have less to do with all this physiology. You spent all this time

memorizing, right, the Krebs cycle. And a lot more to do with the circumstances of their lives.

Is the air that they breathe something that's pure, that does more for them than it takes away? Is the water they drink pure? Is the air that they breathe something that's pure that does more for them than it takes

away? Is the water they drink pure? Is the job that they work, something that offers them

enough money to be able to put a roof over their heads and their kids' heads, to know that they can

afford the groceries that they need, to not be stuck in a toxic circumstance

that loads them with stress.

And too often the answers are no.

And that's for the people who are in the clinic.

Like, never mind the people who don't ever get access to a clinic in the first place.

Yeah.

And so I'd have followed that out of the clinic into public health.

I worked in public health service,

both in the city of Detroit and in Wayne County, and loved the work. I got to actually move government

in ways that delivered on exactly the challenges. So, you know, we put glasses on kids' faces

when we realized that 30% of our kids wouldn't get a pair even though

they tested as needing them. We were able to stand up to some of the biggest corporate

polluters in the state. I mean, my first job in public health was rebuilding a department

that the state government forced to shut down. And that work shows you, though, how much

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