For Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Sept. 11 commemoration invites scrutiny of past remarks

August 31, 2026 / 8:04 AM EDT / CBS News

As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack.

El-Sayed is a leader of a new crop of candidates from a wing of his party that opposed American wars and capitalized on anger over anti-Arab sentiment in a state with a robust and active Muslim community. But now he is now attempting to adapt – and in some cases delete – past statements that may run afoul of a broad, general election audience.

As El-Sayed heads into the fall general election campaign against Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, El-Sayed, a former public health official, has already been forced to distance himself from the views of Hasan Piker, a popular Twitch streamer who has appeared at El-Sayed's campaign events and who generated controversy for declaring that "America deserved 9/11" before later retracting the remark.

Meanwhile, El-Sayed's past references to the deadly attacks have continued to surface, including two deleted social media posts verified by CBS News that have not been previously reported. In those posts, he calls…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/