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Tucker Carlson rides to Abdul El-Sayed’s defense over 9/11 comments: ‘He is obviously right’

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BS BULLETIN:

  • Tucker Carlson defended Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed amid renewed controversy over his past comments about America’s response to 9/11.
  • Carlson said El-Sayed was “obviously right” that the consequences of the post-9/11 wars extended far beyond the nearly 3,000 Americans murdered that day.
  • The defense is particularly striking because El-Sayed is running against Republican Mike Rogers — whom Carlson recently said he wouldn’t vote for “at gunpoint.”

Well, here’s a political alliance nobody had on the bingo card.

Tucker Carlson is coming to the defense of Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democratic Senate nominee from Michigan, as Republicans hammer El-Sayed over controversial comments about September 11 and America’s response to the attacks.

And Tucker isn’t hedging. “He is obviously right.”

The controversy stems in part from comments El-Sayed made on his podcast in 2021. El-Sayed said that while September 11 “scarred our country,” Americans should also recognize the consequences of the wars that followed.

“We have to appreciate the fact that we also scarred the world,” he said, arguing that millions of people had suffered because of America’s response.

Those remarks have resurfaced as El-Sayed battles former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open Senate seat. Rogers has seized on them.

“I served in the FBI and then in Congress, where I led the Intelligence Committee, to protect our country from people who think like Abdul El-Sayed,” Rogers said this week.

Rogers accused his Democratic opponent of having “separated himself from Team America.”

El-Sayed’s previous association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker has added fuel to the controversy. Piker infamously said in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11,” although he later walked the comment back.

“Of course I don’t think 9/11 was justified,” El-Sayed said earlier this year.

More recently, he was even more direct: “America didn’t deserve 9/11.”

That hasn’t stopped Republicans from making the issue a centerpiece of their campaign against him.

Enter Tucker Carlson. Carlson argued that acknowledging the horrific loss of American life on September 11 doesn’t require pretending America’s subsequent wars didn’t inflict enormous suffering overseas.

“He is obviously right,” Carlson said of El-Sayed’s broader argument.

And Carlson’s defense isn’t coming out of nowhere. He has become one of the most outspoken conservative critics of American military intervention abroad, particularly in the Middle East. More surprisingly, Carlson has already spoken favorably about El-Sayed himself.

Earlier this month, while discussing Michigan’s Senate race with Breaking Points host Saagar Enjeti, Carlson praised El-Sayed’s opposition to sending American tax dollars overseas.

When Enjeti described elements of El-Sayed’s message as “almost Trumpian,” Carlson corrected him. “It is literally Trumpian.”

Then the conversation turned to Rogers. Carlson was considerably less charitable.

“I mean, there’s no one who should be farther from a position of power than Mike Rogers,” Carlson said. “I wouldn’t vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint.”

El-Sayed is no conservative. He’s a progressive Democrat backed by Bernie Sanders who supports Medicare for All and has sharply criticized Israel and American foreign policy.

But on the issue increasingly scrambling traditional party alliances — foreign intervention — Carlson apparently sees considerably more common ground with El-Sayed than with the Republican nominee.

And on the 25th anniversary of September 11, he’s willing to say so.

MY QUICK TAKE

Somewhere, a Republican campaign consultant in Michigan just threw his coffee across the room.

The GOP wants this race to be: Mike Rogers vs. radical Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

Tucker Carlson apparently has another idea: Hold on. I kind of like this guy.

You don’t have to agree with El-Sayed’s politics — and there is plenty there for conservatives to oppose — to recognize how fascinating this realignment is becoming.

Twenty years ago, imagining Tucker Carlson publicly defending a progressive Democrat’s critique of America’s post-9/11 wars would have sounded nuts. Today? He says El-Sayed is “obviously right.”

And the Republican in the race is the guy Tucker says he wouldn’t vote for at gunpoint.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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