CBS SLAMS Stevens’s ‘Shocking’ ‘Betrayal,’ Rips ‘Islamophobic’ Trump, Touts ‘Moderate’ Talarico

Anytime CBS Mornings or NBC’s Today is more liberal and elitist than ABC’s Good Morning America, it’s big news as Monday’s CBS Mornings went all-out to defend Michigan Democrat senatorial candidate Abdul el-Sayed, fretting he’s endured “Islamophobic” rhetoric and must now overcome Democrat Congresswoman Haley Stevens’s “shocking about-face” and “betrayal” of the Democratic Party by backing Republican candidate Mike Rogers.

CBS also heralded el-Sayed’s massive fundraising haul on Sunday, suggested the Stevens endorsement could be much ado about nothing, and even trumpeted Texas Senate Democrat candidate James Talarico as a “moderate” and “seminarian.”

Co-host and former Democrat donor Gayle King kicked off the midterm coverage by wondering if Stevens’s “last-minute endorsement” that “surprised” and “shocked the political world” that “spark[ed] a firestorm within her party” could actually matter.

Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes said Stevens’s “shocking announcement” came after a “rift between Stevens and El-Sayed appeared to grow last week over an online political ad from an outside group, which appeared to link U.S. military support for Israel to rising grocery prices in the U.S.”

Cordes left out the part where the ad came from prominent far-left commentator Cenk Uygur, whose nephew is former el-Sayed surrogate Hasan Piker.

“On Friday, Stevens urged El-Sayed to condemn the ad. Saturday, he told reporters he has already made clear that the ad was not made by me and I don’t agree with the contents. He also asked Stevens not to attend his campaign event Sunday or future campaign events,” Cordes added.

Cordes made her feelings clear when she attacked Stevens for having “struggled to explain her change of mind” in a Sunday night CNN interview. Notice in the video above how Cordes used a series of screen wipes to make Stevens seem incoherent.

Before resurfacing back live, Cordes boiled down the months-long feud with el-Sayed to the congresswoman “publicly disagree[ing] with his stance on Israel’s actions in Gaza” that he’s “called...a genocide.”

Back live, co-host Norah O’Donnell put her own feelings on the table: “Wow, this is a shocking about-face, betrayal of the Democratic Party and all of the members of Congress she told the night before she wasn’t going to endorse the Republican. Nancy, what happened, and is this about their disagreement over Israel?”

Cordes made it seem like a sophomoric beef, arguing “it may just be” as “simple” as Stevens feeling hurt that el-Sayed’s “campaign saying she was not wanted at an event on Sunday” because “she spent several days publicly criticizing him.”

Back in October 2024, Cordes and O’Donnell fawned over “lifetime Republican” Liz Cheney’s Kamala Harris endorsement as “a big moment.”

Cordes also said in 2024 that the “conservative” Cheney gave the Harris campaign “a major moment” to help “win over even a sliver of Republican voters.”

Returning to 2026, King gave credence to el-Sayed’s claim “say[ing] none of this matters,” since “[c]lose to two million people in Michigan have already voted.”

White House and campaign correspondent Ed O’Keefe did concede that “there are potentially thousands, tens of thousands of Haley Stevens voters out there” who feel the same way, given she did better than el-Sayed among Jewish and black Democrats in the primary.

But O’Keefe then dispatched with those concerns by promoting el-Sayed’s Sunday fundraising haul:

What is telling, though, is the guy managed to raise $1.2 million yesterday afternoon. For anyone, that’s a good afternoon, but it is a signal at least the Democratic Party writ large across the country is ticked off at Haley Stevens for what she did, and that might inspire enough Michigan Democrats to show up and say, ‘no, no, we don’t do that in the closing days when we are facing the administration we are facing.’

After co-host Nate Burleson touted the self-centered behavior of now-former Stevens staffers who quit in protest (even though no one elected them to office, or should care what they think), Cordes boasted Stevens was “almost being excommunicated from the party,” proof of “a real backlash.”

This went into the part when Cordes rallied to el-Sayed’s defense with the cries of Islamophobia and “hateful comments on both sides” (click “expand”):

O’DONNELL: Haley — Haley Stevens, once again, last night accused El-Sayed of making comments and having actions that were certainly anti-Semitic, in — in her words. Does it represent a larger rift within the Democratic Party?

CORDES: There’s no question that this is an argument that has been playing out in public among Democrats for some time, specifically over Israel. He has argued he has no quarrel with Jews or Jewish voters; his quarrel is with Israel’s actions. On the other side, you’ve got Mike Rogers, who has been campaigning with President Trump, who has said a number of Islamophobic things about El-Sayed, claiming he is a jihadist, saying you need a metal detector if he makes it into the Senate, so that he can be escorted safely onto the Senate floor. So, there are a lot of hateful comments on both sides.

O’DONNELL: On both sides!

The second half-hour yielded even more absurdity as, during a man-on-the-street report from Tarrant County, Texas, Saturday co-host Adriana Diaz promoted Talarico as “a seminarian and former teacher elected to the state house at 29” and “identifies as a moderate fighting corruption.”

In contrast, Diaz tagged Talarico opponent and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton as having “survived an impeachment trial three years ago over bribery and other charges.”

Diaz also boosted Talarico by saying “many” Latinos “are dismayed by the economy and the President’s immigration enforcement,” and could be prevented from voting because the county “eliminated 92 polling places in September as a cost-saving measure, but critics say they were mainly in Black and Latino neighborhoods.”

In the second hour, O’Donnell set the table by dismissing Stevens as the “primary loser” ahead of bringing in CBS News contributors Joel Payne from Obamaworld and former Rubio presidential campaign manager Terry Sullivan.

Payne argued the Stevens endorsement won’t end up mattering, while Sullivan said it helps the GOP turn away from negative economic news (click “expand”):

PAYNE: The way that this has happened, I actually think mitigates the risk for Abdul El-Sayed, because it was so, frankly, odd and so strange and so unexpected. Haley Stevens had previously endorsed Abdul El-Sayed. In fact, she made a pretty strong case against Mike Rogers previously, and something happened in the last week or two that has intervened. I don’t want to speculate, and I think it would be unfair to speculate about her agency in the decision, but regardless, what this is experienced as, as voters feeling, I think, a bit misled by her, and I actually think it could — it could help Abdul el-Sayed. I mean, if you look at national Democrat, they’re uniting behind Abdul El-Sayed, other Michigan Democrats uniting behind him, so it could have a boomerang effect that is beyond what Haley Stevens actually anticipated.

O’DONNELL: Terry, this is a bonus to Mike Rogers.

SULLIVAN: I’d say Joel and I are not unified on this. This is not going to help El-Sayed. The reality is this not only hurts him, but this helps Republicans nationwide because we are talking about this right now. You know, this has not been a great information flow for Republicans this election cycle, especially recently, and suddenly this helps a bunch. I kind of feel like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber here. You know, “you’re saying there’s a chance?”

BURLESON: So, you are saying we are talking about this as in it’s a distraction for Republicans?

SULLIVAN: Well, I wouldn’t say it is a distraction. Instead, it changes — instead of talking about higher gas prices, we are talking about this race, and that’s better[.]

King also defended el-Sayed by noting the million-dollar-plus day for el-Sayed, but Sullivan quickly dismissed it by saying the Democrat has “never had a problem raising a bunch of money from activists who are extreme online,” when the real story should be “fighting for...voters in Oakland County, in Macomb County that are swing voters.”

O’Donnell closed with more bias, hitting Trump for “record-low approval ratings” and spending Saturday “holding a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago with his quote-unquote rich friends when the main issue is affordability.”

To see the relevant CBS transcript from November 2, click here.