Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed told Fox News host Jesse Watters that he would not defend the Green New Deal, marking a sharp break from years of publicly championing the progressive climate plan by name. When pressed on his record, El-Sayed steered the conversation towards cutting energy costs and creating Michigan jobs through renewables, rather than engaging with the policy directly. The shift matters because Michigan's Senate race is expected to be tightly contested and could help decide control of Congress, making El-Sayed's efforts to appear more moderate politically significant.

A Fox News Digital review of El-Sayed's deleted social media posts, preserved via the Internet Archive, found dozens of instances in which he explicitly backed the Green New Deal, including posts from 2019 declaring "I believe in a Green New Deal" and linking the policy to racial justice and free speech. Deleted posts and a hidden YouTube video also showed him endorsing "defund the police", describing police as "standing armies", proposing to replace the Second Amendment with a constitutional right to healthcare, and calling Border Patrol agents "white supremacists". Rep. Haley Stevens had previously criticised his Green New Deal support during the primary over potential job losses in Michigan's car industry, and CNN had earlier reported on his selective deletion of past online commentary.