![\"US](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2291624030.jpg?fit=1024%2C683\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/09_Eoin_Photo-by-Molly-Haley-copy-e1758235751930.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nEoin Higgins is the author of \u201cOwned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voice on the Left.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It always felt<\/span> inevitable that Bari Weiss\u2019s tenure at CBS News would see the network devolve into rank Islamophobia \u2014 but even for most of us, who took a dim view of her takeover of the news behemoth, tying Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to the 9\/11 attacks was an unexpected new low. To make matters worse, many centrist Democrats and their allies cleared the way for just this kind of attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Monday, CBS reporter Zak Hudak published an article<\/a> headlined with the critique that El-Sayed\u2019s \u201cdeleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.\u201d Weiss, whose time in charge of CBS has been rife<\/a> with controversy<\/a>, was reportedly deeply involved with the story\u2019s promotion and framing, going so far as to praise it in a newsroom meeting and champion it \u201cto the entire network,\u201d according to media-industry newsletter Status<\/a>. She \u201ceven personally directed the headline to be tweaked to specifically mention\u201d the 9\/11 angle.\u00a0<\/p>\n The story immediately came under harsh criticism, even from people whose politics when it comes to Muslims are virtually indistinguishable from Weiss\u2019s. Atlantic writer Jonathan Chait, for example, called the tweets<\/a> a \u201cnon-story.\u201d<\/p>\n CBS declined to mention that two of those three deleted posts were asking Americans to take the death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic as seriously as the attacks. It\u2019s worth noting \u2014 CBS did not \u2014 that invoking 9\/11 to put the Covid death toll in perspective wasn\u2019t unusual<\/a> at the time; then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo directly compared<\/a> the pandemic, which ravaged New York City, to the attacks the same month that El-Sayed did.<\/p>\n Another post at issue was a rather anodyne comment about the consequences of the decadelong war on terror and a call to action: \u201cWe could save lives rather than take them.\u201d<\/p>\n El-Sayed\u2019s campaign previously told Politico<\/a> that all posts older than July 2023 were deleted \u201cto prevent any old posts from being taken out of context.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s guidance led to CBS News\u2019s racist framing that there\u2019s just something different \u2014 even untrustworthy \u2014 about El-Sayed, and that the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9\/11 is the right time to ask what that is.<\/p>\n In doing so, she\u2019s embracing a long-standing bipartisan tradition of Muslim dehumanization \u2014 a playbook still being deployed on both sides of the aisle. The current anti-Muslim environment reflects the growth and regression in the country since the 9\/11 moment: growth in the number of Muslims in political and public life, and the regressive backlash to multicultural liberalism that\u2019s defined the Trump era.\u00a0<\/p>\n This kind of bigotry was rampant during the early 2000s<\/a>, particularly in 2002 and 2003, when the George W. Bush administration weaponized Americans\u2019 anger and shock over the attacks to gin up support for its war of choice on Iraq.<\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s guidance led to CBS News\u2019s racist framing that there\u2019s just something different \u2014 even untrustworthy \u2014 about El-Sayed, and that the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9\/11 is the right time to ask what that is.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n More recently, in the wake of mass protest and opposition, mainly from the left, to Israel\u2019s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, institutional power on both sides of the partisan divide has cracked down<\/a> on dissent<\/a>. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks, expressing sympathy for Palestine<\/a> was enough<\/a> to engender<\/a> severe career consequences<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since 2023, the landscape of public opinion has shifted significantly. A supermajority of Democratic voters are opposed<\/a> to Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and support sanctions on Israel<\/a>. Increasingly, primary voters are punishing incumbents<\/a> who have been diehard supporters of Israel. The callback to the anti-Muslim rhetoric of the post-9\/11 era has also fallen flat with the base, who are more concerned with affordability and opposing Trump than they are with ensuring U.S. dominance over the region.<\/p>\n Rather than adapt to this new political reality, some of the Democratic Party\u2019s most enthusiastic cheerleaders are fighting back by playing dirty. Neera Tanden, president of the powerful Democrat-aligned think tank Center for American Progress, has turned attacking El-Sayed and the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker \u2014 who was raised Muslim \u2014 into her main focus.\u00a0<\/p>\n The callback to the anti-Muslim rhetoric of the post-9\/11 era has fallen flat with the base, who are more concerned with affordability and opposing Trump.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Tanden\u2019s venomous online behavior<\/a> has gained traction<\/a> with anti-Muslim voices on the Democratic side, including activists Fred Guttenberg<\/a> and Shannon Watts<\/a>, who made their names protesting against gun violence against children \u2014 unless they live in Gaza.<\/p>\n But Tanden, with her reach and influence in the party, which has included stints in both the Biden and Obama administrations, is far more influential, and she wields that influence to her advantage against progressives and Muslims in her own big tent.\u00a0<\/p>\n She\u2019s reposted commentary from white supremacist streamer Nick Fuentes and arch-right provocateur Laura Loomer, in the latter case boosting<\/a> a comment<\/a> accusing Piker of using \u201cNinja Taqiyya,\u201d a white nationalist meme referring to a secret Muslim plot to infiltrate Western society with their Islamic faith. Tanden later deleted it, claiming it was a \u201cmistake,\u201d but didn\u2019t disavow<\/a> the content.<\/p>\n\n
\n