‘The list of his failures goes on’: El-Sayed’s Obama criticism resurfaced ahead of campaign rally

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Former President Barack Obama is set to hit the campaign trail for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed later this month, years after El-Sayed criticized Obama’s presidency at times as a failure, saying it left the country no “better off.”

In comments reviewed by CNN’s KFile from Obama’s 2012 reelection through the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, El-Sayed faulted him for perpetuating war, eroding civil liberties, overseeing record deportations and preserving economic and healthcare systems that he said favored corporations over ordinary people.

He also dismissed the Affordable Care Act as insufficient and argued that Obama’s incremental approach helped create the conditions for Donald Trump’s rise.

The comments, made in editorials, interviews and panels, stand in sharp contrast to El-Sayed’s current alliance with Obama, who is now campaigning for the progressive doctor as he faces Republican Mike Rogers in a tight Michigan Senate race that could help determine control of the chamber.

El-Sayed’s criticism of Obama was often searing.

In a 2012 HuffPost essay written shortly after Obama won reelection, El-Sayed — who said he had voted for him — accused the president of failing to deliver the “hope and change” that defined his 2008 campaign. “This leader has perpetuated war, violated our civil liberties, deported more people from our shores than any other president before him, and the list of his failures goes on,” he wrote.

“That memory will serve not as a reminder of the history we made that night – but of the silly emotions of a naïve young man who didn’t understand that hope and change required more than flowery prose and a winning smile,” El-Sayed wrote of Obama’s first election. “I have little hope because there has been less change.”

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Abdul El-Sayed is certain he’ll win Michigan’s Senate race. Some key Democrats quietly aren’t so sure

“So let’s be clear, for progressives who care about peace, prosperity, civil liberties, and the future of our country, Obama’s reelection last night was no victory. It was the rock we chose over the hard place,” he added.

El-Sayed also took shots at the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature accomplishment and legacy across his two terms, calling it a “watered-down reform that kowtows to the interests of healthcare lobbies.”

El-Sayed went on to fault Obama across a range of issues, criticizing the expansion of the war on terror into Pakistan and Yemen, the use of drone strikes, the economy, widening inequality and what he described as an erosion of civil liberties.

Though El-Sayed made clear he had voted for Obama in both 2008 and 2012, he framed that support as a choice of the lesser of two evils against Republican former Gov. Mitt Romney.

In a statement provided to CNN by his campaign, El-Sayed praised the former president.

“At 24, I watched President Obama win in 2008. He changed what was possible for someone like me, with a name like mine. Despite being dealt one of the toughest hands of any American president—he handled it. And despite all he did, there remains so much left to do. That’s where the next generation, inspired by him and his leadership, picks up. We stand on the shoulders of giants—and I can’t wait to tell him myself later this month.”

El-Sayed’s campaign pushed back on the idea that his past criticism reflected a broader hostility toward Obama, providing numerous examples over the years in which El-Sayed praised him personally. The campaign noted that El-Sayed has repeatedly said Obama’s 2008 victory inspired him to believe someone with his background and name could run for office.

It also provided a 2020 exchange in a since-deleted tweet where El-Sayed said he could disagree with “many” of Obama’s decisions and believed the country was “not better off” after his presidency while still viewing Obama as “competent, coherent, and committed to Americans.”

His comments were not limited to 2012.

Five years later, while running for governor of Michigan, El-Sayed again distanced himself from Obama in a 2017 interview with Vox titled ‘Don’t call this man ‘the next Obama. ‘”

Though he praised Obama for expanding perceptions of who could aspire to a career in politics, El-Sayed said there were “a lot of things I disagree with President Obama on” in both domestic and foreign policy and described Obama’s politics as “fairly centrist, middle-of-the-road Democratic policies.”

“There’s frustration [among voters] with the fact that they’re being told by elites that their economy is back and that they should just be happy,” El-Sayed said. “But it’s not. Frankly, the economic comeback has largely benefited corporations and has not really benefited people like them.”

Emily Elconin/Reuters/File

Still, El-Sayed argued Obama did good things as president, like bailing out the US auto industry, but not enough.

“I don’t think he was strong enough on things like health care. I don’t think he was strong enough when it comes to regulating big banks. I don’t think he was strong enough when it came to campaign finance reform, or strong enough on immigration.”

A year later, El-Sayed again criticized the Democratic Party in an interview with progressive podcast host Katie Halper in December 2018 after she raised Obama’s response to the Flint water crisis.

Asked how Democratic failures helped pave the way for a figure like Donald Trump, El-Sayed said his criticisms came from a responsibility to the people that the government was supposed to serve.

“When Democrats buy into an ideology that says that we all ought to focus on the well-being of corporations rather than the well-being of real people, when we forget what suffering looks like, then we make mistakes,” El-Sayed said. He added that voters could then look at the political establishment from both parties and conclude, “you’re all the same, because all of you have failed.”

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

100 El-Sayed YouTube videos removed amid Senate run; Campaign: old videos ‘don’t reflect his beliefs today’

Speaking in January 2020 at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics panel titled “Democrats: Whose Party is it Anyway?,” El-Sayed argued that Democrats needed sweeping structural changes to address inequality rather than more incremental policies, warning that otherwise they would repeat what he called the “same mistakes” of the Obama years.

“We are going to continue to make the same mistakes of the past eight years under Barack Obama,” he said. “We are not, as a country, better off eight years after Obama was elected in 2008 than we were when he was elected. And I say this as somebody who loves him deeply.”

“Look at where we are right now. Look at where we are right now. We are debating how we beat the most dangerous president in American history,” El-Sayed added.

El-Sayed added that while Obama had delivered some important accomplishments, his administration had failed to fundamentally change the economic and health care systems that left many Americans insecure, problems El-Sayed argued helped create the conditions for Trump’s rise.

“I appreciate the fact that we don’t give him credit for what he did for the economy in the short term. But the structure of the economy did not change under Barack Obama. The solutions to actually thinking about making sure that our health care system was equitable and sustainable, that did not change under Barack Obama. And unless we’re willing to admit that, then we’re at risk of going right back to the edge of the cliff we fell off in 2016.”

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前总统巴拉克·奥巴马将于本月晚些时候为密歇根州民主党参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德助选。多年前，埃尔-赛义德曾多次批评奥巴马的总统任期是一场失败，称其并没有让国家“变得更好”。

据 CNN 的 KFile 栏目查阅，从奥巴马 2012 年连任到 2020 年民主党总统竞选期间，埃尔-赛义德曾批评奥巴马发动战争、侵蚀公民自由、监督创纪录的驱逐出境，并维护他认为偏袒企业而非普通民众的经济和医疗保健体系。

他还批评《平价医疗法案》力度不够，并认为奥巴马的渐进式做法为唐纳德·特朗普的崛起创造了条件。

这些在社论、采访和小组讨论中发表的评论，与埃尔-赛义德目前与奥巴马的联盟形成了鲜明对比。奥巴马现在正在为这位进步派医生助选，因为他正在密歇根州参议院的激烈竞争中与共和党人迈克·罗杰斯对决，这场竞争可能有助于决定参议院的控制权。

埃尔-赛义德对奥巴马的批评往往十分尖锐。

在奥巴马赢得连任后不久，埃尔-赛义德于2012年在《赫芬顿邮报》上发表了一篇文章。他在文章中称自己曾投票支持奥巴马，并指责这位总统未能兑现其2008年竞选时所承诺的“希望与变革”。他写道：“这位领导人发动战争，侵犯了我们的公民自由，驱逐出境的人数超过了以往任何一位总统，他的失败之处不胜枚举。”

“那段记忆不会提醒我们当晚创造的历史，而是提醒我们一个天真年轻人的愚蠢情绪，他当时并不明白，希望和变革需要的不仅仅是华丽的辞藻和迷人的微笑，”埃尔-赛义德在谈到奥巴马的第一次当选时写道。“我几乎不抱希望，因为改变并不多。”

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阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德确信自己会赢得密歇根州的参议员选举。但一些重要的民主党人私下里却不太确定。

“所以让我们明确一点，对于关心和平、繁荣、公民自由和国家未来的进步人士来说，奥巴马昨晚的连任并非胜利。这只是我们在困境中选择的一块磐石，”他补充道。

埃尔-赛义德还抨击了奥巴马两届任期内最重要的成就和政治遗产——《平价医疗法案》，称其为“向医疗保健游说集团的利益低头的弱化改革”。

埃尔-赛义德继续在诸多问题上指责奥巴马，批评他将反恐战争扩大到巴基斯坦和也门，使用无人机袭击，经济，日益扩大的不平等，以及他所说的公民自由的侵蚀。

尽管埃尔-赛义德明确表示他在 2008 年和 2012 年都投票给了奥巴马，但他将这种支持描述为在共和党前州长米特·罗姆尼之外的两害相权取其轻。

埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队向 CNN 发表了一份声明，声明中他赞扬了这位前总统。

“24岁那年，我亲眼见证了奥巴马总统在2008年赢得大选。他改变了像我这样名字的人的命运。尽管他面临着美国总统中最严峻的挑战之一，但他依然出色地完成了任务。尽管他成就斐然，但仍有许多工作要做。受他及其领导力的鼓舞，下一代正肩负起这份责任。我们站在巨人的肩膀上——我迫不及待地想在这个月晚些时候亲自告诉他这句话。”

埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队反驳了此前他批评奥巴马反映了其对奥巴马普遍敌意的说法，并列举了多年来埃尔-赛义德曾多次赞扬奥巴马的例子。竞选团队指出，埃尔-赛义德曾多次表示，奥巴马2008年的胜选激励他相信，像他这样出身和名声的人也能竞选公职。

它还提供了 2020 年的一段交流，这段交流出现在一条后来被删除的推文中，埃尔-赛义德表示，他可能不同意奥巴马的“许多”决定，并认为奥巴马卸任总统后，美国“并没有变得更好”，但他仍然认为奥巴马“有能力、思路清晰，并且致力于为美国人民服务”。

他的评论不仅限于 2012 年。

五年后，在竞选密歇根州州长期间，埃尔-赛义德在 2017 年接受 Vox 采访时再次与奥巴马划清界限，采访标题为《不要称这个人是“下一个奥巴马”》。

尽管埃尔-赛义德赞扬奥巴马扩大了人们对谁可以立志从政的认知，但他表示，在内政和外交政策方面，“我有很多事情不同意奥巴马总统的观点”，并将奥巴马的政治立场描​​述为“相当中间派、温和的民主党政策”。

“选民们感到沮丧，因为精英阶层告诉他们经济已经复苏，他们应该感到高兴，”埃尔-赛义德说。“但事实并非如此。坦白说，经济复苏主要惠及了企业，而普通民众并没有真正受益。”

艾米莉·埃尔科宁/路透社/档案照片

不过，埃尔-赛义德认为，奥巴马在担任总统期间也做了一些好事，比如救助美国汽车工业，但这还不够。

“我认为他在医疗保健等领域力度不够。我认为他在监管大型银行方面力度不够。我认为他在竞选资金改革方面力度不够，在移民问题上力度也不够。”

一年后，在 2018 年 12 月，埃尔-赛义德在接受进步播客主持人凯蒂·哈尔珀的采访时，再次批评了民主党，此前哈尔珀提到了奥巴马对弗林特水危机的应对措施。

当被问及民主党的失败如何为唐纳德·特朗普这样的人物铺平道路时，埃尔-赛义德表示，他的批评源于他对政府应该服务的人民​​的责任。

“当民主党人接受这样一种意识形态，即我们应该关注企业的利益而非普通民众的福祉，当我们忘记了苦难是什么样子时，我们就会犯错，”埃尔-赛义德说道。他补充说，选民们届时可能会审视两党的政治建制派，并得出这样的结论：“你们都一样，因为你们都失败了。”

朱莉娅·德马雷·尼金森/美联社

在参议员竞选期间，埃尔-赛义德的100个YouTube视频被删除；竞选团队称：旧视频“不再反映他现在的观点”。

2020 年 1 月，埃尔-赛义德在芝加哥大学政治学院题为“民主党人：这到底是谁的党？”的小组讨论会上发表讲话，他认为民主党人需要进行彻底的结构性改革来解决不平等问题，而不是采取渐进式的政策，并警告说，否则他们将重蹈奥巴马时代的覆辙，犯下他所说的“同样的错误”。

“我们将继续重蹈奥巴马过去八年执政的覆辙，”他说。“作为一个国家，奥巴马2008年当选八年后，我们的境况并没有比他当选时更好。而我这么说，是因为我深深地爱戴他。”

“看看我们现在身处何地。看看我们现在身处何地。我们正在讨论如何击败美国历史上最危险的总统，”埃尔-赛义德补充道。

埃尔-赛义德补充说，虽然奥巴马取得了一些重要成就，但他的政府未能从根本上改变经济和医疗保健体系，导致许多美国人缺乏安全感。埃尔-赛义德认为，这些问题为特朗普的崛起创造了条件。

“我理解我们没有因为他在短期内对经济的贡献而给予应有的肯定。但巴拉克·奥巴马执政期间，经济结构并没有改变。真正思考如何确保我们的医疗保健体系公平且可持续的解决方案，在巴拉克·奥巴马执政期间也没有改变。如果我们不愿意承认这一点，那么我们就有可能重蹈覆辙，回到2016年我们跌落的悬崖边缘。”