Michigan’s Democrat Senate nominee has a 9/11 problem that just keeps getting bigger.
He walked right into it anyway.
And now Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s decision to headline a Detroit convention alongside two men who have publicly questioned the official account of the September 11 attacks — six days before the 25th anniversary — is raising questions about his judgment that no campaign statement is going to put to rest.
What Happened at the ISNA Convention in Detroit
El-Sayed took the stage at the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention in Detroit, addressing roughly 1,000 attendees as the featured speaker on a panel billed as an examination of a “turmoiled America.”
Sharing that panel with him were Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks, and Muslim cleric Zaid Shakir, a New Jersey-based religious figure. Both men have publicly questioned the government’s account of what happened on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda operatives killed 2,977 Americans.
Uygur posted a lengthy rant on X earlier this year declaring, “I no longer believe official 9/11 story.” He went further, pushing claims about Israeli involvement in the attacks, including the so-called “dancing Israelis” myth. Shakir, for his part, has argued there are “glaring weaknesses and inconsistencies” with the official account and complained in an article that “9/11 has been used by both the government and a significant segment of the Christian Right in this country, along with their allies, to launch a war on Islam.”
El-Sayed stayed silent on all of that Saturday night. Rather than address the views of the men beside him on stage, he used his remarks to focus on anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.
“We found ourselves in a moment now where, as people point to us, Muslim Americans, they want to tell us that we don’t belong,” El-Sayed told the crowd. “They want to tell us that this country is not ours. They want to tell us that because of our names or how we pray, that somehow we are less than.”
He also offered this assessment of his home state: “Michiganders don’t care how you pray; they care what you pray for and what you hope for.”
Nice sentiment. But the 2,977 families who lost someone on September 11, 2001, might have a different reaction to seeing a US Senate candidate share a stage with men who have questioned whether al Qaeda actually carried out the attack.
The Deleted Tweets and the Piker Problem
The ISNA appearance did not land in a vacuum. El-Sayed was already under fire when he walked into that convention hall.
A deleted tweet from September 11, 2021, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, had resurfaced earlier in the week. In it, El-Sayed wrote: “Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith.” He then pivoted: “Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.”
His campaign deleted the post as part of a broader scrub of old content, with a spokesperson telling news outlets that El-Sayed “has always unequivocally condemned terrorism and the September 11 attacks.”
But the tweet wasn’t the only thing following him into that convention hall. El-Sayed has been dogged throughout his Senate campaign by his association with Hasan Piker, the far-left Twitch streamer who said in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11.” Piker later walked the comment back. El-Sayed campaigned alongside Piker on the final day before Michigan’s Democrat primary.
When asked in April whether he would disavow Piker’s views, El-Sayed declined. “I’m not here to disavow people’s views,” he said at the time. “I’m here to have a conversation about how to get money out of politics, put money back in pockets, and pass Medicare for All.” He eventually called Piker’s 9/11 remark “a dumb statement” in an August interview on NBC’s *Meet the Press*, but by then the association had already been cemented in the public record.
And now this. Cenk Uygur, who appeared on the same panel as El-Sayed at the ISNA convention, happens to be Hasan Piker’s uncle. The circle is tight.
The Convention Itself and What Got Dropped
The ISNA event carried its own baggage before El-Sayed ever took the stage. The organization was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, and a judge ruled in 2009 that the government had presented “ample evidence” tying the group to Hamas.
Pakistani cleric Tariq Masood had originally been scheduled to speak at the convention. According to multiple Pakistani media reports, Masood admitted in a 2021 sermon that he forced his 13-year-old niece into marriage and advised his followers to do the same with their young female relatives. Canadian activists had previously urged their government to block Masood’s visa over what they described as “pedophilic rhetoric.” After the Washington Free Beacon reported on his inclusion, ISNA announced Masood was no longer speaking at the convention.
The fact that such a figure was invited in the first place, and that El-Sayed chose to lend his name to this event regardless, tells you something about the company he keeps.
Uygur also used the panel to criticize US support for Israel, saying, “it is unbearable to me as an American,” and addressed the October 7 Hamas attacks in a dismissive fashion, mocking mainstream media coverage of them. El-Sayed remained largely quiet on those remarks too.
What This Race Looks Like Now
El-Sayed won the Democrat primary in August, narrowly defeating Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI) by fewer than 16,000 votes out of more than 1.5 million cast. Chuck Schumer had backed Stevens. So had Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. El-Sayed beat them both anyway, running on Medicare for All and a platform that tracks closely with the Democratic Socialists of America agenda.
After the primary, Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) put out a joint statement praising El-Sayed for running “an energetic campaign that inspired thousands of Michiganders across the state.” They said “Democrats are united by a common purpose.” The establishment that spent millions trying to stop him fell in line the moment he won.
That’s the Democrat Party in 2026. They tried to block El-Sayed, failed, and then immediately embraced him. The contrast with how Republicans treated Trump-endorsed nominees in states like Texas — where the establishment has quietly withheld support from Ken Paxton after he defeated John Cornyn in the primary — is striking. When the Democrat machine loses a primary, it swallows hard and gets behind the winner. When the Republican establishment loses one, it finds procedural reasons to look the other way.
El-Sayed now faces former Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) in the general election for the open seat being vacated by retiring Senator Gary Peters. Michigan is the only open Democrat-held Senate seat in a state President Trump carried in 2024. Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994.
But El-Sayed is going to have to answer for all of this between now and November. The deleted tweets. The Piker association. The ISNA stage. The panelists who have questioned whether al Qaeda carried out the worst terrorist attack in American history — six days before its 25th anniversary.
His campaign’s position is that he does not endorse the views of anyone else who speaks at a conference he attends. That argument might work in a different context. It’s a harder sell when the conference itself has documented ties to Hamas financing, when one invited speaker was dropped after reporting on his defense of child marriage, and when your co-panelists have publicly questioned the September 11 attacks while you stand next to them and say nothing.
Michigan voters will have to decide whether any of that matters. But the question of who a candidate chooses to stand beside — and what he refuses to say when he gets there — has always been a legitimate measure of character. El-Sayed had a choice about where to spend the weekend before the 25th anniversary of September 11. He made it.
Sources: New York Post (Jennifer Bain and Ella Morrison, September 6, 2026); Washington Free Beacon (Chuck Ross); CBS News; NBC News Meet the Press; Notus; Washington Examiner; Ballotpedia; CNN; CBS News Michigan primary coverage; Senate Leadership Fund; Daily Wire
