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CBS News faces criticism over coverage of Abdul El-Sayed's deleted posts

Critics condemned an article framing the Senate candidate's deleted pandemic statements around the 9/11 anniversary.

Updated Sep 1, 2026 · 22:23 UTC5 reports

The short version

  • CBS News drew widespread digital backlash after publishing a report framing Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed around the 25th anniversary of September 11.[Variety · Fox News]
  • The article focused on deleted 2020 social media posts where El-Sayed compared COVID-19 pandemic casualties to the 9/11 death toll.[Variety · The Hollywood Reporter]
  • Critics and political figures accused the network of improper framing, while reports surfaced that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss directed the headline to focus on the deleted tweets.[Variety · Fox News · Fox News]
  • El-Sayed's campaign maintained that he unequivocally condemns terrorism, while a source familiar with CBS defended reporting on deleted political statements as standard.[Variety · CBS News]

Key facts

  • CBS News published a report examining deleted social media posts by Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.[Variety · Fox News · CBS News]
  • The highlighted posts from 2020 compared the domestic death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic to casualties suffered on September 11, 2001.[Variety · CBS News · The Hollywood Reporter]
  • Political commentators and officials sharply criticized the CBS coverage and headline as inappropriate and biased.[Variety · Fox News]
  • CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reportedly requested that the article's headline explicitly mention the deleted 9/11 posts.[The Hollywood Reporter · Fox News]
  • An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson affirmed that the candidate unequivocally condemns terrorism and the September 11 attacks.[CBS News · The Hollywood Reporter]

What remains uncertain

  • The direct influence of the editorial intervention on internal network processes remains based on anonymous sources and media newsletter reporting.[Variety · The Hollywood Reporter · Fox News]

Sources

Outlet counts describe coverage, not independent confirmation. Reports may share a wire service or original source.