Michigan Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed questioned why anyone would want to live in Flint, Michigan, during a 2016 appearance before a largely white Boston University audience, according to a report.

El-Sayed, the former Detroit health director, offered his views on the majority-black city while answering a question about relocating residents after Flint’s 2014 lead-contaminated water crisis, the outlet reported. Conservative journalist Chuck Ross first surfaced the remarks on Washington Free Beacon.

Speaking at the health policy symposium, El-Sayed recounted how Flint residents describe their attachment to the city.

“You talk to folks in Flint, they love Flint, right, and you’re like, ‘What the—why?’” El-Sayed said.

The progressive candidate said residents stay because the city is home, drawing a comparison to his own decision to move to Detroit. He recalled that colleagues questioned the choice after he left Columbia University in New York.

“To Detroit of all places,” he said people told him. “If you’re going to Cali, I get it, but Detroit? Their winters are worse than ours. There’s nothing there.”

El-Sayed, who grew up in an affluent Detroit suburb before attending the University of Michigan, Columbia, and Oxford, told the audience he had “ruined” his family’s life by moving from New York to Detroit.

The remarks surfaced as El-Sayed, who owns property in a luxury development in Dubai, has criticized Republican opponent Mike Rogers for buying a home in Florida after leaving Congress. According to his financial disclosure, El-Sayed and his wife own property in India and the United Arab Emirates.

The Boston comments follow a separate 2020 documentary clip, posted by Michigan outlet The Midwesterner, in which El-Sayed said, “I hate Mackinac so much,” referring to the island that hosts the governor’s summer residence. He doubled down after the footage resurfaced, disputing a claim that Mackinac is “the most American place” in Michigan because it bans cars.

Rogers seized on that clip with a post on X. “There’s no place like Mackinac,” the former congressman wrote, adding a heart emoji.

The resurfaced remarks come as El-Sayed prepares for his first general-election debate against Rogers in a race that could determine Senate control, and as the Democrat continues to struggle with black voters. Flint, where General Motors was founded, has seen its population fall 36 percent since 2000.