Bill Clinton Praised Abdul El-Sayed in 2007 Resurfaced Video

Abdul El-Sayed made history on Tuesday when he became the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Senate after defeating Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan. The 42 year old won with about 52.5 percent of the vote to Rogers’ 45.5 percent.

While former President Barack Obama had endorsed him and even appeared at one of his rallies, another former president had spotted his potential nearly two decades earlier. A rare video from the University of Michigan’s 2007 commencement ceremony is now circulating again after El-Sayed’s victory.

In that old footage Bill Clinton took the stage after El-Sayed, who was the class valedictorian, had just spoken. Clinton told the crowd he did not want to embarrass the senior speaker but added that he wished every person in the world who believes we are fated to have a clash of civilizations and cannot reach across religious divides could have heard El-Sayed speak that day. He repeated that he simply wished every person in the world could have heard him.

At the time El-Sayed was still planning a career in medicine. Years later he recalled the moment on Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show. After the ceremony Clinton approached him and asked why he was going to medical school. El-Sayed answered that he is brown and Muslim and that is what people like him do. Clinton replied that was fine but that El-Sayed had a gift for communicating and might one day run for office. El-Sayed laughed it off, saying people with an eleven letter first name that includes sounds most Americans do not even know exist do not usually get to run for office. Clinton thought for a second, chuckled, and walked away.

El-Sayed went on to become a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he earned a doctorate in public health, then finished his medical degree at Columbia. He later served as executive director of the Detroit Health Department from 2015 to 2017 and as director of the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services from 2023 to 2025. In 2018 he ran for Michigan governor in the Democratic primary but lost to Gretchen Whitmer. This time the same man who once brushed off a former president’s suggestion of a political career has now made history in the Senate. Whether the two will cross paths again remains to be seen, but Clinton’s early praise has taken on new meaning after Tuesday’s results.