Outspoken Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari is accusing CBS News of racial bias after the network put Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s past comments about September 11 at the center of a new report.
The CBS News report examined several social media posts El-Sayed deleted before his general-election contest against Republican Mike Rogers. Its headline connected those posts directly to the September 11 attacks, prompting Ansari to fire back on X: “What an insane, blatantly racist headline. Unreal.”
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib tagged CBS News in her own response, accusing the network of deliberately targeting El-Sayed and calling the coverage “Disgusting.” Political commentator Krystal Ball offered an even shorter assessment: “Deranged headline wtf.”
Islamophobia Accusations With Context
The actual content of El-Sayed’s deleted posts provides important context. Two verified posts from 2020 in which El-Sayed compared the climbing COVID-19 death toll with the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on September 11 were checked and valid. His argument was that the country should respond to deaths from disease and poverty with the same urgency it demonstrated following the terrorist attacks.
Another deleted 2021 post mourned the lives lost on 9/11 before criticizing the enormous human toll of the wars that followed. Arizona people on X were also outraged. “Literally campaigning with piker who said that america deserved september 11 means Abdul loses his election” said one user.
Nothing in those posts establishes that El-Sayed supported or excused the attacks. CBS itself reported that he has previously described September 11 as a terrorist attack and explicitly rejected streamer Hasan Piker’s infamous past claim that America “deserved 9/11.”
The backlash does not mean El-Sayed’s deleted statements are beyond scrutiny. He is running for statewide office, and CBS verified that the posts existed. The online fight is instead over whether highlighting September 11 this way fairly represented what he actually said or implied something his words did not support.
