CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford deleted a social media post over the weekend after facing backlash for criticizing Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s response to a town hall question about the Muslim Brotherhood.
The exchange occurred Saturday when a voter identified as Tommy asked El-Sayed whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, following reports about alleged family ties to the organization. El-Sayed answered “Sure. Yeah, absolutely,” before pivoting to question the voter’s motives.
“But I want to ask the question that you’re asking: Why are you asking the question?” El-Sayed said, going on to suggest the voter assumed he held “dual loyalties” because of his Muslim background. “Why would you actually think that about me? Why would you actually think that? Why would you? Have you asked everybody in your life if they disavow them [the Muslim Brotherhood]? So why are you asking me?”
El-Sayed later posted a clip of the interaction himself, writing: “This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.”
Crawford initially weighed in with a pointed critique of El-Sayed’s answer. “Tommy, thank you. I had to watch this twice to catch Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s nanosecond ‘yeah absolutely’ response,” she wrote. “His subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe proving your exact point is the kind of spectacular self own most ppl only dream about triggering. Congrats.”
By Sunday, Crawford had removed the post and issued an apology, stating it violated CBS News standards. “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,” she wrote.
Backlash and Pushback
The original post drew sharp criticism from Democratic-aligned commentators, some of whom called for Crawford’s firing. Democratic consultant Karen Finney wrote: “No Jan — you got caught red handed trying to help prop up a paid GOP operative who was there to spread false, racist lies about Abdul because he is Muslim. Shame on you.”
Progressive strategist Keith Edwards wrote that Crawford “SHOULD be fired, but it’s CBS news, so she’ll get promoted,” while Zeteo CEO Mehdi Hasan tied the episode to CBS leadership, writing that a reporter “endorsing a GOP operative’s smear campaign” against El-Sayed was “what David Ellison paid for” and “what Bari Weiss delivered.”
A CBS News spokesperson pointed to Crawford’s own statement and declined further comment.
Not everyone agreed the reaction was warranted. Curtis Houck, managing editor of the media watchdog NewsBusters, told Fox News Digital that critics calling for Crawford’s job “need to grow up.”
“The double standard is glaring. Reporters from CNN, MS NOW, The New York Times, and Washington Post tweet all kinds of incendiary hot takes on the daily, and none of the elitist media defenders bat an eye. But for someone at Bari Weiss’s CBS News to call out the tone of a Democrat? It’s unforgivable. Jan should be allowed to speak her mind and has earned it as one of the few actual journalists on the networks, in addition to a long career covering the Supreme Court, and earned the trust of the justices. Team Bari Weiss needs to tell these people calling for Jan’s job to shove it.”
Background on the Allegations
El-Sayed has spent recent weeks fielding questions about reported family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. His campaign has previously called the allegations “racist and untrue.”
On Saturday, however, El-Sayed told Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin that his sister-in-law, Mariam Jukaku, had been involved in a 2016 federal lawsuit tied to the terrorist watchlist. “She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,” El-Sayed said. “You’ve got this system where folks are guilty until proven innocent because they’ve got different kinds of names, because of the infrastructure that people like Mike Rogers set up.”
Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment on the Crawford matter.
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