Panelists on "CNN This Morning" highlighted an unusually jocular interview on Fox News with Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.
The Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan and host Jesse Watters frequently laughed as El-Sayed fielded questions – and asked some of his own – during a Monday night prime time appearance, and the broadcaster squirmed when the physician turned a question about gender-affirming surgery for minors around on him.
"You're a doctor," Watters said, and El-Sayed agreed. "So you think it's okay for a parent to slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off?”
“Do you really want to have this conversation?" El-Sayed retorted. "Are you circumcised?”
"Yeah," Watters replied. "But I mean that’s a personal question, doctor.”
Watters protested that circumcision was “different than castration,” but El-Sayed argued, “I’m just saying that yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling.”
The CNN panel reacted to video clips of the interview, noting that it was not quite as combative as they would have expected.
"Felt like soft treatment, that's not coming up, and I don't know," said host Audie Cornish. "They started joking about circumcision at one point and the NFL. I was like, what's happening here?"
Axios correspondent Sara Fischer agreed, saying the two men seemed to genuinely enjoy the exchange.
"I definitely felt that there was like an unusual chemistry almost in this interview," Fischer said. "I thought it was so notable from both ends that Jesse Watters had him and that El-Sayed was willing to join. It clearly suggests that he's willing to do whatever it takes to reach as many voters as he possibly can. But also, I think when you think about the position that he's in, Michigan is such an interesting state, especially as it comes to this issue around Jews, and Fox is such an interesting network for him to position himself and try to go and reach out to people. Like, he's not trying to do this conversation just on MS NOW – like, that to me is significant and important."
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