The reported involvement of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss in a report about Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has ignited a heated debate on social media, with critics accusing the network of political bias and defenders arguing she was simply doing her job.
The network drew sharp criticism Monday for a report focusing on El-Sayed's deleted social media posts about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, published as the nation prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the tragedy. CBS News wrote that El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, "may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack" over the posts.
Later that evening, Status News reported that Weiss "praised the story during the network's daily editorial meeting" and "personally directed that the headline be tweaked to specifically mention that El-Sayed had deleted tweets referencing the September 11 terrorist attacks." The published headline read, "Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks." Fox News Digital learned the pre-Weiss headline originally read, "For Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Sept. 11 commemoration invites scrutiny of past remarks."
Many on the left viewed Weiss's involvement as a scandal. "A major scandal for CBS," the liberal outlet MeidasTouch reacted on X. Zeteo founder and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wrote, "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." Democratic strategist and podcast host Dan Turrentine said, "Not a good look whatsoever." Former Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin declared on Bluesky, "Democrats: CBS must not be invited/allowed to host any debate in which Dem candidate appears."
Meanwhile, many conservatives dismissed the reactions from the left. National Review senior editor Charles C.W. Cooke reacted, "So she's the editor-in-chief?" The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway replied, "How dare she improve the objective journalism of the entity she is responsible for." Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross quipped, "An editor does editing. News at 11." GOP strategist Matt Whitlock wrote, "Fascinated by the Bari Derangement Syndrome. 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!"
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."
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?"
CBS News did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 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."