‘Blatantly Racist’: CBS News Under Fire from the Left for Headline on El-Sayed’s Deleted 9/11 Tweets
(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
CBS News is facing major backlash from the left over a report highlighting Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted social media posts about 9/11.
The Monday report, published by Zak Hudak, featured a headline that read, “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.”
Hudak revealed two previously unreported posts from 2020 in which El-Sayed compared the mounting Covid-19 death toll to the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 and called for a similarly sweeping national response. In one, he hoped the country would spend the next decade fighting “a war for public health & against poverty” as it had the War on Terror, adding, “We could save lives rather than take them.”
CBS’ report highlighted a previously reported 2021 post in which El-Sayed mourned those killed and injured on 9/11 before contrasting that toll with the deaths and destruction caused by the wars that followed.
Hudak also revisited El-Sayed’s association with progressive streamer Hasan Piker, who said in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11” before later retracting the remark. El-Sayed has explicitly rejected that view.
The report’s framing quickly drew accusations of Islamophobia from figures on the left, including from Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), who wrote in an X post on Monday, “What an insane, blatantly racist headline. Unreal.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) also took to the platform to share her thoughts, calling out the network by name and writing, “Shame on you. You are showing us how racist and bias [sic] you are. Targeting Abdul like this is intentional and coordinated. Disgusting.”
Zeteo’s Justin Baragona provided further reporting on the matter, posting an Instagram screenshot of MS NOW’s Ayman Mohyeldin’s critiques, along with comments he attributed to a CBS staffer about the network’s social media promotion of the story: “Yeah, it’s trash. The article itself is also horribly Islamophobic.”
Read a sample of more reactions below:
Mediaite reached out to CBS News for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication. We will update this article if we receive a response.
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