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The alleged involvement of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss in a report about Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has fueled a fiery debate on social media.
The network drew far-left outrage Monday for a report putting a spotlight on El-Sayed’s deleted posts about 9/11 and linking them to the forthcoming 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack.
“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,” CBS News wrote Monday.
CBS NEWS TAKES HEAT OVER REPORT ON DEM HOPEFUL ABDUL EL-SAYED’S NOW-DELETED 9/11 POSTS
Later that evening, Status News reported that Weiss “praised the story during the network’s daily editorial meeting” and that she “personally directed that the headline be tweaked to specifically mention that El-Sayed had deleted tweets referencing the September 11 terrorist attacks.”
Weiss’ version of the headline, which was published, “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks,” provided context to the substance of the report. Fox News Digital learned the pre-Weiss headline originally read, “For Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Sept. 11 commemoration invites scrutiny of past remarks.”
SOCIALIST CANDIDATES CAN DELETE OLD POSTS, BUT THEY CAN’T ERASE THEIR RADICALISM
Many on the left viewed Weiss’ involvement in the El-Sayed story as a “scandal.”
“A major scandal for CBS,” the liberal outlet MeidasTouch reacted on X.
“It should be a scandal that a major American news network is now led by an overt, hands-on, undisguised Islamophobe but… it isn’t. Islamophobia has been normalized in our media, and in our country. Shamefully,” Zeteo founder and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wrote.
“Not a good look whatsoever,” Democratic strategist and podcast host Dan Turrentine said.
“Democrats: CBS must not be invited/allowed to host any debate in which Dem candidate appears,” former Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin declared on the liberal social media platform Bluesky. “The penalty for gutter racism and toadyism to a MAGA/fascist regime is that you do not get accorded treatment as a real news outlet. PERIOD.”
Meanwhile, many conservatives laughed off the zealous reactions from the left and the report’s findings about Weiss doing her job.
“So she’s the editor-in-chief?” National Review senior editor Charles C.W. Cooke reacted.
“How dare she improve the objective journalism of the entity she is responsible for,” The Federalist editor-in-chief and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway replied.
“An editor does editing. News at 11,” Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross quipped.
“Fascinated by the Bari Derangement Syndrome,” GOP strategist Matt Whitlock reacted. “The Democrat candidate in the top Senate race in the country has been deleting tweets about how he feels about 9/11… After campaigning with a surrogate who said America deserved 9/11. Seems pretty newsworthy!”
CBS News did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The CBS report cited El-Sayed’s deleted social media posts, including some from 2020 comparing the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 to the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic. Another post from Sept. 11, 2021, first uncovered by The Washington Free Beacon, read, “Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.”
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El-Sayed was confronted about his deleted posts by a local CBS News reporter on the campaign trail.
“What happened on 9/11 is a disaster. It was a terrible attack on our country,” El-Sayed said. “And our responsibility is also to think about, how do we build an America where we are protecting our servicemen and women from being asked to fight in wars we have no business fighting in?”
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A CBS News source familiar with the story previously shrugged off the criticism, telling Fox News Digital that reports about deleted social media posts from politicians are published “all the time.”