Since last Thursday's debate, where Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed would not say who was a bigger threat to the U.S., Israel or Iran, and Republican candidate Mike Rogers accused him of having connections to individuals and organizations supportive of terrorist groups, the leftist media has attempted to ride to El-Sayed's rescue. That was the case Sunday night on CNN's special, Midterms 2026, hosted by Abby Phillip.
Phillip began the segment by declaring, "Tonight, the Michigan Senate race takes a dark turn. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed's religion and race has become the focus of Republican Mike Rogers's campaign."
Making it sound like all of this has come out of nowhere, she then played a Trump clip, where he calls El-Sayed "Mohammed", one from Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) who claimed that El-Sayed sleeps in a bin Laden jersey, and noted that Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy had called him a terrorist in a post, which was reposted by Rogers.
As her panel discussion progressed, Phillip turned to Scott Jennings, who would make clear that accusations of El-Sayed and his family members having terror ties is not new and not unsubstantiated.
PHILLIP: There is a big difference between, again, critiquing what El-Sayed has said and basically calling him a terrorist. Don't you think?
JENNINGS: There are some journalistic underpinnings to what's being said about El-Sayed. I will just simply read to you some headlines: El-Sayed campaign backed by over $100,000 from dozens of members of group with alleged terror ties. Abdul El-Sayed rakes in thousands from Muslim Brotherhood-linked donors. Abdul El-Sayed's father-in-law, a top donor to an El-Sayed super PAC, is among top leaders of Muslim Brotherhood organization linked to terror funding. Abdul El-Sayed's mom worked for global terrorist group accused of funding Bin Laden, according to a report.
Jennings then brought up El-Sayed's reaction to an anti-Jewish terror attack in Michigan in August.
JENNINGS: And on top of that, when that radical Islamist rammed his truck into a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, he said, hurt people hurt people.
I think there are legitimate questions about his worldview, and when you put Iran and Israel on the same foot, we have an enemy and we have an ally in the Middle East.
Soon Phillip went to CNN's David Axelrod, who proceeded to try and wipe out every headline alluded to earlier by Jennings, about El-Sayed and his family's alleged terror connections, with one short sentence.
AXELROD: But Scott, you ran through a list of headlines. You didn't run through the list of fact-checks that basically debunked a bunch of it. And so, I've experienced this. When I went to work for Barack Obama, the first thing that happened when he --
PANELIST ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: You mean Barack Hussein Obama.
AXELROD: Yes. Well, that was -- the first thing that we saw was Fox News did a big expose that he was educated in a madrassa, implying that he was educated in a place where radical Islam was being taught. That turned out not to be true.
Granted, but that doesn't mean these charges are not true. Where was Axelrod's "list of fact-checks that basically debunked" much of the stories Jennings referenced via headlines? Which stories had been debunked? How? When? By whom?
Was it Jennings first headline confirmed by a Fox News Digital story which found that El-Sayed, has accepted donations from at least 41 individuals who either work for CAIR, formerly worked for CAIR, or have served in leadership positions with the organization, to the tune of more than $115,000?
Was it his second and third headlines, both confirmed by Washington Free Beacon reviews, that El-Sayed raked in thousands of dollars in campaign donations from individuals linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and his father-in-law, a top donor to a super PAC supporting the candidate, is among the top leaders of an Islamic organization identified by the federal government as a public facing group for the Muslim Brotherhood?
Or was it Jennings final headline, that El-Sayed's mother Fatten Elkomy (and his brother) worked for Islamic American Relief Agency that 'provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bin Laden in 1999', according to a story in The Midwesterner.
The discussion continued and you can see it on the video below.
One would think if Axelrod had exculpatory evidence on any of these accusations, he would have provided information, any information, on who did it and where it could be found. One would also expect Phillip to demand such information, after his claims, but hey, this is CNN!
