Sickening 9/11 Posts Haunt Abdul El-Sayed

Deleted posts comparing 9/11 and later death tolls did not stay buried—and the timing makes the fallout brutal.

Story Snapshot

CBS News says it verified two deleted posts comparing COVID-19 deaths to post-9/11 reactions.
One deleted Sept. 11, 2021 post tied 9/11 casualties to U.S. actions in later wars.
The campaign says it wiped posts before July 2023 to avoid out-of-context attacks.
El-Sayed says he condemns terrorism and called 9/11 a terrible attack on the country.

What CBS Verified And Why It Landed So Hard

CBS News reported that it verified two deleted posts by Abdul El-Sayed. The report said those posts asked Americans to meet the COVID-19 death toll with the same moral urgency they showed after the September 11 attacks. That frame guaranteed attention. It touches two emotional wires at once: 9/11 memory and pandemic grief. The lack of a public, native archive leaves skeptics asking for receipts. But the CBS verification gives enough weight to treat the claims as real for public debate.

The most cited post carried a September 11, 2021 timestamp. It mourned nearly 3,000 lost in New York City, then shifted to mourn about a million deaths and damage tied to wars in three countries. It blamed ignorance first “in the name of my faith,” then “in the name of my country”. That structure reads as a moral mirror. It says the terror was evil, and also says America’s response caused grave harm. Many readers will see that as a comparison they reject.

Deletion Strategy Or Digital Concealment?

The campaign said it removed all posts before July 2023. The reason given was simple: old posts can be ripped from context and weaponized. That is true in modern politics. Yet intent matters less than effect. Wide-scale scrubs invite suspicion. They make critics assume there was something to hide. CBS also said it was not told when the deletions happened, which leaves a hole that opponents can fill with the worst story about motive.

Several outlets piled in from different angles, which locked the story into culture-war gear. Fox News, the New York Post, and Townhall described the posts as equating 9/11 with later deaths or U.S. conduct after the attacks. They pointed readers to the Washington Free Beacon’s early find of the September 11, 2021 post, creating a public trail. That chorus matters in campaigns. Repetition builds memory. Memory builds narrative. Narrative decides how swing voters feel.

How El-Sayed Defended The Words And What Voters Heard

El-Sayed and his team said he has always condemned terrorism and the September 11 attacks. He called 9/11 a disaster and a terrible attack on the country. He argued his aim was to prevent more wars that needlessly risk the lives of American service members. That defense shows a familiar move: keep the moral core on 9/11 intact, while reframing the controversial comparison as a plea against future harm. Some voters will accept that. Many will not.

Abdul El-Sayed has been busy hiding his 9/11 tweets as we fast approach its 25th anniversary https://t.co/A0ERDQZT90

— The Jewish Voice (@TJVNEWS) September 3, 2026

A fair read says the posts compare numbers and reactions rather than belittle 9/11. Still, on the 25th anniversary season, any side-by-side with other death tolls will feel like a downgrade to many. Common sense says this: 9/11 was an attack on Americans at home by foreign terrorists. Wars after 9/11, even if flawed, arose from elected choices, debate, and duty. That asymmetry is why casualty math, laid out starkly, lands as a moral equal sign where most Americans draw a hard line.

The Media Brawl And The Incentive Problem

The Intercept slammed the CBS framing and called one disputed post “anodyne,” quoting a line that said, “We could save lives rather than take them”. Other voices called CBS’s approach biased or anti-Muslim. That backlash became its own story. But the larger pattern is now routine. Old posts surface. Partisan media amplifies. Campaigns sanitize feeds, which then looks sneaky. Outrage wins the algorithm, while nuance loses the room. Voters get noise, not clarity.

Here is the sober path forward for citizens. First, weigh the confirmed text, not the spin around it. Second, ask if deletion was policy or panic; the timeline matters, and CBS said the campaign did not give it. Third, separate two claims: that 9/11 was evil and that later policies had costs. Both can be true. The question is judgment. On days of national mourning, most Americans expect leaders to hold a single note. Mixing chords invites blowback that no press release can fix.