El-Sayed Brushes Off Ally's 'America Deserved 9/11' Remark as Just 'Dumb'

By Editorial Staff | August 10, 2026

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed found himself on the defensive Sunday when NBC's Kristen Welker pressed him on "Meet the Press" over past remarks from Hasan Piker, the popular left-wing Twitch streamer El-Sayed has repeatedly campaigned alongside, that "America deserved 9/11." Welker asked El-Sayed directly whether he agreed with Senator Bernie Sanders' characterization of the comment as "dumb" and whether he disavowed it outright. El-Sayed did not hesitate to distance himself from the substance of the remark, but his response quickly pivoted from condemnation to complaint, framing the entire exchange as an unfair example of "gotcha politics."

"Of course, of course it was a dumb statement, and of course, I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement. He disavowed it. So yes, America didn't deserve 9/11," El-Sayed told Welker, before adding that continuing to press him on comments someone else made years earlier amounted to reviving "cancel culture" that "all of us agreed was a bad idea back in 2020." Piker made the original remark during a 2019 livestream, arguing that American foreign policy was to blame for the al-Qaeda attacks, and has since said he regrets the comment. Despite disavowing the remark itself, El-Sayed notably declined to commit to cutting ties with Piker going forward, telling Welker he remains "a lot more focused on who I'm campaigning to" than on distancing himself from controversial allies.

The exchange comes as El-Sayed's Republican opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, has seized on the Piker connection as a central line of attack heading into the general election, going so far as to claim in campaign messaging that El-Sayed himself "believes America deserved 9/11," a characterization independent fact-checkers have found to be false. Still, the optics of a Democratic Senate candidate refusing to fully sever ties with a figure who made such an incendiary comment, even one he says he now personally opposes, are likely to keep fueling scrutiny as the race intensifies. With El-Sayed also touting recent conversations with former President Bill Clinton and an endorsement from former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Piker controversy threatens to overshadow an otherwise high-profile stretch of his campaign.