Questions swirled on Tuesday after a new report found that a progressive political candidate scrubbed over 100 controversial YouTube videos from his public accounts.
Andrew Kaczynski of CNN's "KFile" revealed on "OutFront" that Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive public health professional who recently won the Democratic nomination in Michigan's Senate race, had made private more than 100 YouTube videos in which he expressed controversial opinions, including floating the idea of replacing the Second Amendment with a constitutional right to health care and urging Americans to reconsider Fourth of July fireworks. The move happened at a time when El-Sayed seeks to appeal to more voters ahead of the upcoming general election.
"This is all partof a broader pattern that wefound with Abdul El-Sayed," Kaczynski said. "Hespent years as a prolificcommentator before launching hisSenate campaign, and we hadpreviously covered on this showthat he deleted a lot of tweetsabout [defunding] the police. Now,what we have found is that morethan 100 of his YouTube videoson his channelappear to have been made private."
When Kaczynski reached out to El-Sayed's team, they didn't explicitly deny that the former podcast host had supported those positions.
"They said, 'Abdulis the former captain of hishigh school football team. He loves Michigan football on Saturdays and celebrates the Fourth of July with fireworks like the next Michigander. Cherrypicked comments from old podcastsdon't reflect his views today,'" Kaczynski told host Erin Burnett.