Republicans putting controversial figure’s 9/11 comment in Abdul El-Sayed’s mouth
In April, months before Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan, his eventual Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, referred to him as “campaigning with the guy who said ’America deserved 9/11.’” A week later, Rogers wrote on social media that “Abdul campaigns today with the man who claimed ‘America deserved 9/11.” Last month, Rogers wrote that Michigan “doesn’t want a Senator who campaigns with people that say America deserved 9/11.”
In all three instances, Rogers, who is a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who narrowly lost a race in 2024 for Michigan’s other Senate seat, linked El-Sayed to one of his most controversial supporters, Hasan Piker. The 35-year-old influencer holds the attention of millions.
Download the Straight Arrow app today to get the stories that matter free from manipulation, bias or agenda.
Point phone camera here
Piker, who has nearly 7 million followers across social media, made the comment Rogers is referring to in August 2019. After two days of what The Wrap described as “heavy criticism,”
Piker told a progressive interviewer, “I should’ve used more precise and better use of the language there.”
But immediately after El-Sayed claimed victory Wednesday morning in the Democratic primary, Rogers stopped attributing the 9/11 comment to Piker and began attributing it, falsely, to El-Sayed.
“I find it shocking that I’m going to go up against a guy who believes America deserved 9/11,” Rogers said Wednesday morning on Fox News. Later, Rogers told supporters in Macomb County, “I never in my lifetime, never in my lifetime thought I would be running against a guy who believed that America deserved 9/11.”
Rogers repeated the false claim when he released a campaign video featuring images of Osama Bin Laden and smoke billowing from lower Manhattan after the terror attacks on Sept. 9, 2001.
During an appearance on the conservative The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show radio on Wednesday, Rogers referred to his opponent as “somebody who believes that America deserves 9/11.” But minutes later, co-host Clay Travis attributed the remark differently: “he also said — he campaigned with a guy who said America deserved 9/11.” Rogers did not acknowledge the correction.
Rogers’ campaign did not return messages sent Wednesday and Thursday seeking comment.
Supporters of the Democratic nominee say it’s the latest round of Islamophobic and racist attacks against El-Sayed. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee accused El-Sayed last month of “finally,” using his full name, “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed,” which El-Sayed’s campaign and others argued is an attempt to make the American-born candidate sound foreign.
Other attacks include Fox News host Jesse Watters referring to El-Sayed as a “Michigan Muslim,” at least seven times since last month, while not making similar references to the religion of other candidates, according to a review by Straight Arrow.