At a Saturday town hall, a man who identified himself only as Tommy asked Democratic Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed if he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, according to The Guardian. El-Sayed answered, “Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Why are you asking the question?”
Tommy replied, “Well, because they’re a terrorist group.” El-Sayed then asked what the question implied and said it suggested he would not disavow the group or hold some higher allegiance than the Constitution.
CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford posted the exchange on X and thanked Tommy. She wrote that she had to watch the clip twice to catch El-Sayed’s “nanosecond, ‘yeah, absolutely,’ response,” and called his uninterrupted three-minute reply “the kind of spectacular self own most [people] only dream about triggering. Congrats.”
Network standards cited after deleted post draws criticism
Crawford, who joined CBS in 2009, later removed the post. On Sunday she wrote, “Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall. I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards. I apologize.”
The original post prompted pushback from other journalists. Guardian media reporter Jeremy Barr said he was told there had been significant internal backlash at CBS News, which may explain the deletion.
Journalist AJ Katz pointed out that Crawford serves as chief legal correspondent rather than an opinion commentator and described the language as striking for a broadcast network journalist commenting on a Democratic Senate candidate.
CNN political commentator Karen Finney wrote that Crawford had been “caught red handed” trying to help “spread false, racist lies about Abdul because he is Muslim.” She added, “Shame on you.”
The episode comes amid broader questions about CBS News after Bari Weiss was named editor-in-chief in October 2025. Her appointment followed Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of her right-leaning outlet, The Free Press. CBS News has also pressed El-Sayed on his Hasan Piker ties.
Newly hired global affairs correspondent Sir Trevor Phillips addressed critics at the network’s London bureau who raised concerns about the outlet’s integrity, telling them to “f–k off and let us do our jobs.”
On Saturday, MS Now host Ali Velshi asked El-Sayed about receiving Muslim Brotherhood questions during his race against Republican Mike Rogers ahead of the November 3 midterms. El-Sayed said the questions are meant to suggest dual loyalties. He called the assumption strange for someone running to protect rights related to abortion, the LGBTQ+ community, and religion. He was previously asked about his family’s alleged Muslim Brotherhood ties as well.
Published: Oct 19, 2026 10:00 am