Al Jazeera speaks to El-Sayed as religion becomes flashpoint in Senate race

I'd rather our money be spent to save lives here than take lives somewhere else. I'm in Wyandotte, Michigan, where just a few moments ago, Abdullah El-Saeed was holding a rally to basically shore up support six days ahead of the key Senate race in this state. He faced repeated questions about the weaponization of his religion for political gain by his opponents. And this is what he had to say when I asked him about it. At the end of the day, you want policy that centers principle. And to me, I'd rather our money be spent to save lives here than take lives somewhere else. That's that simple. You know, you got kids who go to schools that look like they did 50 years ago. You got people who are about to lose their Medicaid. I want our money here. Our money should be spent to do good things here rather than bad things somewhere else. It's very simple. Al-Sayed also stayed on message. He tried to bring affordability up whenever he had the chance. He also insisted that he wanted American taxpayer money staying in this state rather than what he called going towards foreign governments that were committing genocide or apartheid. Defeating Trump is not enough, but we have to replace the system that created Trump. We have to show up for each other in the ways that we all need. We've got to show up for public education, public schools, and our teachers. We've got to show up for our neighbors when ICE comes knocking on our door. For reproductive rights and the right to choose. We need to show up for our healthcare and our healthcare workers and our nurses. We need to show up for our unions and we need to show up for our democracy. With six days left in this key Senate race, Abdul El-Saeed is trying to gain as much support as he can as he faces a neck and neck race with Republican Mike Rogers.