New Delhi: Right-wing commentator and journalist Tucker Carlson has all but endorsed Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, defending him against attacks over Sayed’s past criticism of the US ‘War on Terror’. Carlson also accused Republican candidate Mike Rogers of being unfit for office, according to The Independent.
Carlson came to El-Sayed’s defence Friday, after Rogers’ campaign described the Democrat’s attitude toward the US response to 9/11 attacks as “disgusting”.
“Hold on a second. Disgusting?” Carlson said, questioning whether it was objectionable to argue that the George W Bush administration had been wrong to kill hundreds of thousands of people and spend trillions of dollars on the Iraq war.
Carlson, according to The Independent, argued that El-Sayed had not celebrated the 11 September attacks or supported Al-Qaeda, but had instead criticised the US military response that followed them.
“El-Sayed did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead Al-Qaeda; he simply said that the US conducting terrorism of its own in response to 9/11 was not exactly an appropriate reaction. He is obviously right,” Carlson wrote in his newsletter.
Mourning victims of US terror
The endorsement comes after El-Sayed and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, both Muslim Democrats, faced intense scrutiny and attacks from Right-wing media around the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
El-Sayed had faced criticism over comments in which he said he would mourn the victims of the 9/11 attacks on 11 September, and the victims of wars launched in response to the attacks the following day. His comments were used by Rogers’ campaign as part of an effort to portray him as a radical.
Michigan is expected to be a key battleground in the 2026 Senate elections, where Democrats are seeking to retain the seat held by retiring Senator Gary Peters.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
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