Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed marked the anniversary of the September 11 attacks with a somber, victim-focused video this year — a striking departure from a series of since-deleted posts in which he drew comparisons between the 2001 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic and criticized the American response, according to the Daily Wire.
In the video released Friday, El-Sayed, who is seeking to become the first Muslim U.S. senator, honored those killed and the first responders who lost their lives that day. He said the country should not forget them.
“A cruel act of terror took the lives of more than 3,000 kids, women, men, including brave first responders who ran into the rubble to save lives that day,” he said. “Thousands more were injured. Many continue to suffer the consequences even today.”
He went further in the same message, saying: “Today, on 9/11, we honor the lives that were taken from us in a terrible act of terrorism. Nothing can justify the murder of innocent civilians, nothing. And on this day, we mourn the victims, their families, and the destruction those terrorists caused.”
A Different Framing From Years Past
The tone of this year’s message stands in contrast to the language El-Sayed used in earlier years — posts that he has since deleted, many of which were archived by the conservative outlet Townhall.
On September 11, 2021, El-Sayed wrote that he mourned the lives lost in New York on 9/11 and the injuries and destruction there, but then pivoted to what he described as devastation in three countries carried out “ignorantly in the name of my country.” He said that he would mourn those losses the following day. The post appeared to reference the American military response in the years after the attacks.
A year earlier, on September 11, 2020, El-Sayed compared the government’s response to the 2001 attacks with its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He wrote that nearly 3,000 lives were taken on 9/11 and were being mourned, before arguing that the country launched “harmful wars” to avenge the deaths. He then said that since the pandemic began, the United States had lost “the equivalent of *64*” 9/11s, writing that this amounted to one every three and a half days. He closed by asking why there was no war on COVID to save lives.
In another post that same day, El-Sayed said he feared for his family’s safety for the first time on 9/11, and claimed that “white supremacist violence” was “blooming” under President Donald Trump after having germinated under President George W. Bush.
According to the Daily Wire, El-Sayed also posted a message after more than 3,000 Americans had reportedly died of COVID, noting for the first time that the pandemic had claimed more lives than 9/11. He wrote that he hoped this would mean the country would spend the next decade fighting a war for public health and against climate change and poverty, similar to the global war on terror launched after the attacks. “We could save lives, rather than take them,” he said.
Political Context
The shift in message comes as El-Sayed has moved to distance himself from a number of his previous positions. He has deleted dozens of posts, including comments on 9/11 as well as pushes to defund the police and arguments against the Second Amendment, according to the report.
The article also notes that El-Sayed has drawn attacks over his record of political rhetoric and his ties to activists such as Hasan Piker, who once said that America “deserved 9/11.” Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers has made El-Sayed’s association with Piker a central theme of his campaign.
El-Sayed’s moderate framing on Friday was “a far cry” from his prior statements, the Daily Wire reported, contrasting his current approach with the deleted posts that have resurfaced in the conservative press as the Senate race heats up. Neither El-Sayed’s campaign nor Rogers’ campaign has issued a fresh public response to the newly resurfaced material beyond what has already been reported.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/el-sayeds-new-9-11-message-is-a-far-cry-from-deleted-past