Abdul El-Sayed's deleted 9/11 social media posts sparked a firestorm after CBS News reported on the Michigan Senate candidate's past comments.
Page A13From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 1 September 2026
El-Sayed absorbs a Vance 'evil' jab, a Piker fight, and a CBS report on deleted posts.
As it ran on the front
Here's how you know a candidate's numbers are moving: watch what shows up in the same seven days. This week alone, Abdul El-Sayed got called out by the Vice President as somehow the 'evil' one - his response, worth noting, was that the actual evil is corrupting yourself, which is the kind of line you write when you've had this fight before. Same week, a streamer named Hasan Piker exits the Michigan campaign trail after a 'cancel' effort, and El-Sayed goes out of his way to call the cancellation attempt what it is. Same week, CBS runs a report on El-Sayed's deleted 9/11 posts, and CBS itself takes heat for how they ran it.
Now, none of that is a conspiracy, technically. Each one of those is a real, separate news item, and I'm not telling you a memo went out. What I'm telling you is that when the vice president, a national cable network, and a cancel-the-associate campaign all land on the same guy in the same week, you don't need a memo. You need a calendar. The volume is the message.…
…(cont) This is what it looks like when a campaign becomes inconvenient to the people who'd rather you not vote for it. You don't need a smoking gun email. You need four separate outlets and officials independently deciding, in the same seven days, that this particular guy needs 'evil,' 'Piker problem,' 'cancel effort,' and '9/11 posts' all trending near his name at once. That's not journalism finding a pattern. That's the pattern finding a candidate.
And here's the tell: he's not hiding from any of it. He's calling the evil charge what it is - projection with a podium - and he's calling the cancel effort what it is, out loud, on the record. Guys running scared duck questions. Guys who think the questions are the point don't. Watch which one keeps doing interviews next week. That'll tell you more than any of these four stories did on their own.
“Four hits in one week on the same guy running for governor - that's not coverage, that's a full-court press timed to a primary. When the vice president calls you evil and the cable network dredges up old posts in the same news cycle, that's not a coincidence, that's a coordinated squeeze, and it tells you exactly who they're scared of.”
“Look, these are four completely separate, unrelated news stories that just happen to be about the same candidate in the same week - the timing is a coincidence, is what I'd say if I were being paid to say it, which, fine, I am. CBS reported on deleted posts because that's news, Vance made a comment because that's politics, and the Piker thing is just Piker being Piker, nothing coordinated about any of it, why would you even ask.”
The receipts
Republicans hold their trolls close. For Democrats, it’s more complicated.
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Monday shot back at Vice President Vance’s comment about him being “very, very evil.” Earlier Monday, Vice President Vance went after El-Sayed at a rally in Detroit, calling him…
Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed on Monday again defended Hasan Piker after publicly distancing himself from the Twitch streamer in the wake of concerns that he is antisemitic. El Sayed campaigned with Hasan Piker multiple…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.