Democrats love telling voters they want accountability, not revenge.
That all turned out to be a massive hoax.
And one incoming Democrat already picked the first target of his sick revenge plot.
The Senator-Elect Picks His First Fight
Michigan voters sent Abdul El-Sayed to the US Senate after he beat former Congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI).
Senator-elect El-Sayed (D-MI) barely finished his victory lap before he sat down with CNN anchor Kate Bolduan.
And he used the interview to put Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the crosshairs.
El-Sayed wants answers on the cyclospora outbreak that swept through 49 states in the summer of 2026. Investigators linked the parasite to shredded iceberg lettuce that farms in central Mexico grew and Taco Bell locations in five states served.
Michigan took the worst of it. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services logged more than 15,000 cases by late August. Nationwide, the CDC counted more than 20,000 lab-confirmed infections from all sources, a record year for the bug.
El-Sayed blames staffing cuts at the FDA and the CDC. He told CNN he wants to dig into the “decision-making” behind them.
But listen to how he dressed it up.
“This is not about retribution for something past,” El-Sayed told Bolduan. “This is about understanding what happened, holding people accountable for what they did and then solving the problem moving forward.”
The August Quote That Gives the Game Away
That sounds measured. Reasonable, even. It’s the kind of line a consultant writes on an index card and hands over in the green room.
But El-Sayed already told CNN what he really wanted, back in August, after he clinched the Democrat nomination.
“I can’t wait to sit across from RFK Jr. and actually grill him,” he said.
A man who “can’t wait” to grill somebody has been counting the days. Nobody counts the days to a fact-finding session about lettuce budgets.
And the bad blood runs deeper than produce. Kennedy campaigned for Rogers in Grand Rapids late in the race, and El-Sayed fired back at a rally a week later with a personal shot: “I’ve got two doctorates; he’s got none.”
For the record, El-Sayed holds a medical degree but isn’t a licensed physician. Plenty of credentialed doctors spent decades shrugging at the chronic disease crisis that Kennedy finally dragged to the center of federal health policy. Degrees didn’t stop them from missing it.
El-Sayed also took a swipe at what he called Kennedy’s “anti-science” leadership of HHS. Then he urged his new colleagues to give any Trump nominee a hard look.
So the outbreak probe arrives bundled with a promise to slow-walk the President’s picks. That’s retribution with a press release attached.
What Kennedy Said About FoodNet
Kennedy addressed the cuts head-on in July, when he declared the outbreak “under control” and called the attacks on his department “invalid.”
“We had no cuts in the surveillance program,” he said. “We did cuts in the FoodNet program, but they were redundant surveillance.”
Kennedy told reporters that federal investigators had run down the source and that the companies involved had launched a recall. Taylor Farms de Mexico pulled its entire central Mexico iceberg crop from the US market that same month.
FoodNet deserves a closer look than Democrats want to give it. The CDC launched the program in 1995. It covers 10 states and roughly 16 percent of the country’s population, and the CDC itself said the surveillance landscape has shifted since the partnership started.
Dan Jernigan, a former CDC infectious diseases director, told ABC News that FoodNet ran on “chronically low funding” for a while. Jernigan also pointed out that the program tracks long-term trends rather than sniffing out a fresh outbreak.
But none of that fits neatly on a Democrat fundraising email. “Kennedy gave you diarrhea” fits much better.
The 2018 Playbook, Dusted Off
Washington has watched this movie before.
After Democrats captured the House in 2018, senior members told Reuters they wanted restraint and a focus on prescription drug prices and student loans, at least at the outset.
Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee at the time, had already called for subpoenas in seven separate investigations of the Trump administration before voters cast a single ballot.
Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) even promised voters the Russia probe would not turn into “a dancing-in-the-end-zone investigation.”
Then Democrats delivered two impeachments, partisan exercises designed to damage President Trump from the first gavel to the last.
The slogans change every cycle. The behavior never does.
What a Democrat Senate Means for MAHA
El-Sayed won’t carry this alone. US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent Kennedy a letter in August branding the federal response “calamitous.” US Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) fired off letters of his own and called the FoodNet changes a “foolish and self-indulgent demolition.” Congressman Greg Stanton (D-AZ) piled on with his own list of demands.
Right now, those are letters. Kennedy can answer them on his own schedule.
That changes when the new Congress convenes in January, and Democrats take the chairs. Letters turn into summonses. Summonses turn into televised hearings where Democrats write the verdict before the witness ever takes his seat.
And the real target reaches well past one outbreak. Kennedy leads the Make America Healthy Again agenda, and MAHA has spent its time in power poking the drug companies, the processed-food giants, and the public health bureaucracy that blew the COVID calls on lockdowns, school closures, and mandates.
Those interests would love a Senate committee that treats every MAHA reform as a crime scene.
There’s a certain nerve to the whole thing, too. The same party that cheered lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates now wants to lecture the HHS Secretary about science. Voters have long memories on that one.
Maybe El-Sayed surprises everybody. Maybe he asks careful questions about FoodNet budgets and lab traceback and leaves the cameras disappointed.
But nothing he said in August sounds like a man who plans to spend his hearing time on spreadsheets. And “any Trump nominee” covers an awful lot of ground.
The new Senate convenes in January. El-Sayed told the country back in August what he plans to do with his seat at the table.
Sources:
New York Post, “Abdul El-Sayed vows to probe RFK Jr. over summer’s diarrhea lettuce outbreak”
Fox News, “RFK Jr says source of cyclospora outbreak identified, declares parasite outbreak ‘under control’”
ABC News, “Sen. Warren demands answers from RFK Jr. over ‘calamitous’ response to cyclosporiasis outbreak”
ABC News, “RFK Jr. says cyclosporiasis outbreak is ‘under control’ amid at least 1,600 cases in 5 states”
The Gazette, “Ossoff sends RFK Jr. another letter outlining concerns about cyclosporiasis monitoring funds”
Office of Congressman Greg Stanton, “Stanton Demands Answers on Cyclospora Outbreak, Raises Concerns Over Food Safety Surveillance Cuts”
Katie Couric Media, “Could Federal Cuts Have Worsened the Cyclospora Outbreak?”
Reuters, “Senior House Democrats tap brakes on investigating Trump” (November 2018)
The Washington Times, “Donald Trump braces for investigations galore as Dems take House” (November 2018)
Breitbart, “Democrats propose plethora of investigations, impeachment if they retake House” (October 2018)