CBS News under Bari Weiss promoted story tying Michigan Democratic Senate nominee El-Sayed to 9/11 via deleted tweets
The network's framing of El-Sayed's old social media posts drew criticism as a manufactured scandal from across the political spectrum.
What happened
On Monday, CBS reporter Zak Hudak published an article headlined "deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks" regarding Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. According to media newsletter Status, CBS News leadership including Bari Weiss personally directed the headline to specifically mention the 9/11 angle and championed the story to the entire network. Two of the three deleted posts cited by CBS were comparing the Covid-19 death toll to the 9/11 attacks; another post discussed consequences of the war on terror and called to "save lives rather than take them." El-Sayed's campaign previously stated all posts older than July 2023 were deleted to prevent old posts from being taken out of context. The story drew criticism from outlets including The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait, who called the tweets a "non-story."
Context
The article's framing highlights a tension within Democratic politics over how Muslim candidates and progressive figures are treated. CBS's omission of the tweets' actual context—that comparing pandemic deaths to 9/11 was not unusual at the time, and that Governor Andrew Cuomo made similar comparisons—underscores the sourced claim that the framing singled out El-Sayed for different treatment. The story also appears connected to broader tensions within the Democratic Party following the Gaza conflict, where some party figures have attacked progressives and Muslim-aligned figures, including Twitch streamer Hasan Piker who campaigned for El-Sayed. The source describes a pattern where institutional Democratic figures have revived post-9/11 era anti-Muslim rhetoric in response to the party's shifting base opinion on Gaza, where a supermajority of Democratic voters now oppose Israel's war and support sanctions.
What's disputed
The characterization of CBS News's framing as "Islamophobic" and "racist" is the source's interpretive claim; the factual reporting of what the network published, how it was framed, and what the tweets actually said is presented as established.