Abdul El-Sayed on Democratic leadership, health care access and inspiring a new generation
Channel: PBS NewsHour
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Read a transcript preview of “Abdul El-Sayed on Democratic leadership, health care access and inspiring a new generation” from PBS NewsHour, uploaded on 2026-11-13.
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Language: English (creator captions)
[0:00] wave of Democratic senators are in Washington
[0:02] this week for orientation, and are
[0:04] already facing tough questions about how they plan
[0:06] to govern and who they'd like to lead
[0:08] their party. One of them
[0:09] is Abdullah Syed from Michigan. His win came
[0:12] after a hard-fought race marked by
[0:14] record outside spending and
[0:16] harsh attacks on his name and his faith.
[0:18] He will be the first Muslim ever elected
[0:20] to the U.S. Senate. And
[0:22] Senator-elect Abdullah Syed joins me now.
[0:24] Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
[0:27] Congratulations on your win. You're here
[0:28] for orientation. Now you've been a few days
[0:30] in Washington, meeting new lawmakers.
[0:33] What's it been like? What surprised you most? We've
[0:34] been thoroughly disoriented. No.
[0:37] I
[0:37] you know, honestly,
[0:40] so much of the way that
[0:41] our politics have transacted
[0:42] make
[0:43] you think that these people hate each other
[0:45] in person. And the number of
[0:46] Republican future colleagues who've reached out,
[0:49] talking about things that they want to work on together,
[0:51] has really been quite surprising.
[0:53] That's already been happening. Already been happening. And
[0:55] I don't know if it's just
[0:56] because
[0:57] too much of the way we do politics is
[0:59] about this sort of
[1:00] inside
[1:01] versus outside
[1:02] approach.
[1:04] Where
[1:05] they make our politics purposely look
[1:07] like it's a food fight. Or
[1:09] it's because they're reading the tea leaves about
[1:11] the failure of Trump and Trumpism
[1:13] and folks are looking for partners to
[1:15] actually address some of the biggest challenges that
[1:17] they face. But, you know, I
[1:19] think the way to read this