Exclusive | Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed separated himself from Team America with 9/11 comments, GOP rival says
DALLAS — Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers told The Post that his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, is “anti-American” due to his past rhetoric about the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks.“He has long separated himself from Team America,” Rogers said Thursday as he prepared to address the second and final night of the GOP’s midterm convention.
“His rhetoric is divisive.It’s angry.
It’s anti-American.He’d have to have a full about-face for me to even take him serious[ly].“You need to decide if you’re going to be for the United States and what we represent, or you’re going to be for this ideology that has caused a lot of harm and death and destruction, not only here but around the world,” added Rogers one day before the 25th anniversary of the attacks that killed 2,977 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa.El-Sayed has been criticized after remarking in a resurfaced September 2021 episode of his podcast, “America Dissected,” that “9/11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people.”“When we talk about 9/11, we often fail to center them,” the future Senate candidate added.Days later, as Americans marked the 20th anniversary of the atrocity, El-Sayed posted on X, then known as Twitter: “Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetrated ignorantly in the name of my faith.” The later-deleted post continued: “Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetrated ignorantly in the name of my country.”“What is deeply anti-American is voting against healthcare funding for 9/11 first responders—which Mike Rogers did twice while in Congress,” El-Sayed’s communications director Roxie Richner told The Post in response.“He told a 9/11 first responder—who had part of his foot amputated because of an injury sustained...