Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed addressed his past criticism of former President Barack Obama during a recent interview with NBC News’ Meet the Press host Kristen Welker.“Well, we’ve lived through two Trump terms now. So, look, I know that President Obama was handed a really difficult set of circumstances, and he did his best… And so, I am so grateful to have been a young man in my 20s with Barack Hussein Obama as president. I would never have seen myself running for office,” El-Sayed, 41, stated.The Democrat said that his campaign might “push on in different ways” than the Obama administration, but like other candidates from the liberal party, he also “learned” from what the former President had done and stood on the “shoulders of giants” like him.While Abdul El-Sayed supported Barack Obama during his first term in 2008, after his re-election in November 2012, then-Epidemiology assistant professor at Columbia University, El-Sayed wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed that “Obama was not the right choice” while admitting, “He just wasn’t the wrong one.”Now, El-Sayed has walked back his past opinion of Obama and said he appreciates “the elegance, the grace, the commitment” with which the former President handled “the basket of terrible things” he was handed down by the Bush administration despite being “under pressure.”“You go up, and you start to appreciate just how hard change is and how important it is to pick up and push,” Abdul El-Sayed added.Exploring Abdul El-Sayed’s 14-year-old op-ed about Barack ObamaIn the 2012 op-ed titled “President Obama's Re-election and Progressive Dissonance,” El-Sayed wrote at the time:“For progressives who care about peace, prosperity, civil liberties, and the future of our country, Obama's re-election last night was no victory. It was the rock we chose over the hard place. I have little hope because there has been little change.”Abdul El-Sayed wrote that like many “young progressives,” he supported Obama with the “fervor of the converted.” He continued:“He was so magnanimous in his support for all the right causes, so captivating with his prose, and so fresh in his perspective that I believed that his election would actually catalyze a new dawn in American politics, one of justified hope and substantiated change.”Abdul El-Sayed said that the “jubilation” of the 2008 election will live with him forever, as with many in his generation. However, that memory was less about the “reminder of history we made that night” and more about the “silly emotions of a naïve young man” who failed to understand that “hope and change required more than flowery prose and a winning smile.”“As I had four years ago, I watched my Twitter feed and Facebook wall explode last night with unqualified praise for President Obama as he took his re-election stage. It should have felt like Déjà vu. And I wish I could have felt the euphoria of four years ago -- but I didn't. I couldn't. Instead, I realize that I have little hope because there has been less change,” El-Sayed wrote back then.The Michigan native also condemned Obama’s drone warfare in the Middle East and the “war on terror” in Pakistan and Yemen and claimed it “perpetuated a climate of American hate, distrust and destruction.” Abdul El-Sayed slammed Obama’s deportation tactics during the first term and expressed concerns that they might continue in the second term as well.Elsewhere, he called out the stagnating economy, unemployment, and compromised civil liberties.“As a Muslim ethnic minority, I feel no more dignified, no more accepted, as cops throughout the country have usurped my right to walk the streets freely without fearing unjustified interference. Inequality has accelerated, and the divide between the haves and have-nots in our country has never been starker,” Abdul El-Sayed wrote at the time.He claimed that Obama once again spoke about “hope and change” as he did after his first election win. However, according to El-Sayed, the dismissal of “crucial issues” clubbed with “weak leadership” showed otherwise.“Don't get me wrong: I voted for Obama in 2012 as I had four years ago. I even wrote in support of his re-election. As a young, urban progressive, I had no other option. But I have to say now what I've been holding in throughout his campaign, and what I think all of us have to admit: Obama was not the right choice -- he just wasn't the wrong one. And that's a difficult pill to swallow,” Abdul added.He claimed that Obama’s re-election exposed the “dissonance” he had been “forced to ignore” in the absence of a better choice and admitted that a Romney presidency would have been an “utter disaster” for the same reasons Obama apparently “failed” in his first term. Abdul El-Sayed wrote in his op-ed:“But averting disaster doesn't make victory out of failure. And then there's the problem that we really like the idea of Obama. After all, he's a third culture kid -- the child of a Kenyan immigrant and raised in Hawaii. His story is so representative of the America we hope to leave our children: a post-racial, post-establishment utopia where any kid, no matter how crazy his name or his background, can be elected president.”El-Sayed recalled that Obama made “good” on some of his promises but then asked rhetorically whether he actually has and spoke about his administration’s healthcare policies. Abdul wrote about Obama’s “flawed” argument that he’d rather be a “really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” claiming that was something that made him popular and won him the re-election.“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… I wish I could celebrate like it was 2008. But the reality says otherwise, and it's time we came to terms with that if we want any hope for change,” Abdul El-Sayed wrote.He concluded by urging progressives not to brush aside Obama’s “poor choices under the table” just because he was better than his alternative or they “like” him, but to hold him accountable for the past errors and future blunders.“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,” Abdul El-Sayed reminded his readers in 2012.Before Abdul El-Sayed competes against Republican candidate Mike Rogers for the Senatorial election in November, Barack Obama is set to campaign with him in Detroit on October 24.Last week, Abdul El-Sayed told reporters that he “cannot wait” for Barack Obama’s visit to Michigan and called the former POTUS “a champion for healthcare access and a historical trailblazer of our time.” He also said Obama knows how to “deliver for Michiganders,” which is why he “won our state twice.” He also acknowledged that Obama’s “support is critical” in the fight to bring down costs in the Great Lakes State and “ending Trump’s chaos in Washington.”