Deleted old posts about September 11 has placed candidate Abdul El-Sayed under intense scrutiny in Michigan

With just a few weeks to go before the general election against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, the campaign of the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, is facing renewed scrutiny following the revelation of old social media posts that had been deleted, as confirmed by an investigation conducted by CBS News.

The verified posts show that in April 2020, El-Sayed compared the death toll of nearly 3,000 Americans in the September 11 terrorist attacks with the death toll from the pandemic.

In one of the posts, the former public health official argued that the government's response to the health crisis should mobilize resources in a manner similar to the post-9/11 strategy, suggesting a "war on poverty" rather than military interventions abroad.

In another deleted post, dated September 2021 and originally revealed by the Washington Free Beacon, the candidate contrasted the casualties from the attacks carried out "in the name of my faith" with the victims resulting from subsequent international conflicts.

Campaign shifts and digital history cleanup

In response to the findings, legal counsel for El-Sayed's campaign stated in a press release sent to CBS News that the candidate "has always unequivocally condemned terrorism and the September 11 attacks," characterizing his opponents' allegations as interpretations made in bad faith.

Previously, his team had argued to Politico that the mass deletion of posts prior to July 2023 was intended to prevent old comments from being taken out of context.

When questioned by local stations in Detroit about the impact of these statements on moderate voters, El-Sayed reiterated that the attacks were a tragedy for the country, but defended the need to reflect on the effectiveness of subsequent armed conflicts.

This episode adds to the pressures the candidate has had to manage due to his close ties to content creator Hasan Piker, who in the past has made aggressive statements against the United States. Although El-Sayed formally distanced himself from those remarks, the continued focus on his background makes it difficult for the candidate to center his message on economic proposals in contrast to his Republican rival.