Rashida Tlaib

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CBS News generated a wave of fresh outrage this week with a report on Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed that many viewed as racist and anti-Muslim.

CBS’s article, written by journalist Zak Hudak and published Monday, featured the headline “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.”

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In the article, Hudak described El-Sayed’s past social media references to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including since-deleted tweets in which El-Sayed, a public health expert who is bidding to be the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, argued for a response to the COVID-19 pandemic that would parallel that of 9/11.

When CBS asked him to clarify the remarks, El-Sayed said in part, “My point is just to say that what happened on 9/11 is a disaster. It was a terrible attack on our country, 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 wars we have no business fighting that ultimately end up doing harm to people. And we’re seeing that right now.”

According to the media newsletter Status, CBS News’ editor-in-chief Bari Weiss specifically asked that the article’s headline mention El-Sayed’s deleted tweets referencing 9/11.

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A number of prominent Democrats condemned both the headline and tone of the article on social media, accusing CBS News of Islamophobia.

“What an insane, blatantly racist headline. Unreal,” Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) wrote on X.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) expressed a similar sentiment, writing: “You are showing us how racist and bias you are. Targeting Abdul like this is intentional and coordinated. Disgusting.”

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The response from many media professionals was similar, with “Bulwark Daily” host Tim Miller deeming it “despicable anti-muslim woke right garbage from the house CBS account.”

Tagging both CBS News and Weiss, British journalist Mehdi Hasan asked on X, “do you think it’s super offensive and disgusting and Islamophobic to do a tweet about the potential first ever Muslim Democratic senator which begins by referencing 9/11?”

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According to Status, some of CBS News’ staffers were troubled enough by the article to present it to the outlet’s standards department.

“They took a small nugget of news, forced into something much larger, and messed up,” a network employee told Status.

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CBS News declined to comment about the piece on the record, but instead provided HuffPost with a statement attributed to someone familiar with the reporting who emphasized that the story was focused on El-Sayed’s deleted tweets, not unlike similar stories about other lawmakers and political candidates, and included an interview with El-Sayed himself.

El-Sayed, 41, was only 16 years old on 9/11. Still, his critics have invoked him in numerous discussions about the 2001 attacks as their 25th anniversary draws near, with many calling attention to his Muslim faith in the process.

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In an X post last month, Mike Rogers, the Republican running against El-Sayed to represent Michigan in the Senate, appeared to confuse his opponent for leftist influencer Hasan Piker, who made a controversial statement suggesting that America “deserved” 9/11 in a 2019 Twitch broadcast that he’s since apologized for.

In what many view as indicative of CBS News’ shift toward more conservative-leaning coverage, the network brought on Weiss as its editor-in-chief last October.

Weiss’ editorial strategy since then has been widely perceived as allotting more favorable coverage to conservative causes and members of President Donald Trump’s administration.

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Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in June, Weiss pushed back on the characterization of her work as being politically motivated.

“What’s being called ‘editorial interference’ is in reality the job description of an editor in chief,” she said.