Bill Clinton compliments Abdul El-Sayed almost 20 years before midterm victory

A 2007 University of Michigan graduation video has resurfaced showing Bill Clinton lavishing praise on Abdul El-Sayed, who was then the student valedictorian and has now won a Senate seat in the 2026 midterm elections. The footage spread widely on X in the days before voters went to the polls, drawing fresh attention to a link between the two men that stretches back almost two decades, according to The Independent.

At the ceremony, Clinton, a former president, said he wished that everyone who is convinced civilizations are destined to collide, and that people cannot bridge religious divides, could have listened to El-Sayed's speech. He singled out the graduate's remarks as a counterexample to that pessimism.

The relationship went beyond a single compliment. Before the midterms, El-Sayed appeared on The Weekly Show, the podcast hosted by Jon Stewart, and described how Clinton personally urged him to think about a career in politics. The resurfaced clip therefore doubles as an early marker of a path that ended with El-Sayed's Senate victory.

Summarized by PolitiKool from The Independent’s reporting. Read the full story at The Independent →