CBS News’ chief legal correspondent, Jan Crawford, has apologized for an X post that cheered on a man who asked Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim, whether he’d “disavow the Muslim Brotherhood.” Crawford called El-Sayed’s answer a “spectacular self own,” then deleted the post. “I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards. I apologize,” she wrote, Forbes reported.
The man, who gave his name only as “Tommy,” has since been identified by independent journalist Marisa Kabas as Thomas Teepell, a former staffer for Republican Sen. Josh Hawley.
What happened at the El-Sayed rally?
At a campaign event in Flint on Saturday, the man asked El-Sayed: “Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” El-Sayed said he would, then asked why he was being asked. The man said the group is a terrorist organization. El-Sayed answered that the question assumed he’d put loyalty to a higher power above the Constitution. His campaign posted the exchange, and Crawford shared it with praise for the questioner.
Why did Jan Crawford’s post cause a backlash?
Because asking a Muslim candidate to disavow a terrorist group he has no connection to is a loyalty test nobody gives Christian or Jewish candidates. Former ABC News journalist Terry Moran called the questions “rank religious bigotry.” Former New York Times reporter Bill Carter said the post “REALLY looks bad” once it came out that the questioner was reportedly a Republican operative, Democracy Now reported.
It also landed on a sore spot at CBS. The network has lost a string of veteran correspondents after clashes with its editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, and critics like Mehdi Hasan tied Crawford’s post to the newsroom culture under Weiss. El-Sayed is running against Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open Senate seat, and this isn’t the first time his faith has been used against him. Earlier this month, Trump called him ‘Mohammed’.
The BeezLoop Take
Crawford did the right thing by deleting it and apologizing quickly, and she said plainly that it broke CBS’s rules. That’s more than many people manage. But a chief legal correspondent knows exactly what a “disavow the Muslim Brotherhood” question implies, and she called the answer a self own anyway.
Journalists are allowed to have views. Cheering a loyalty test aimed at a candidate’s religion, asked by a former Republican Senate aide, isn’t a view. It’s taking a side in a smear. Viewers trying to figure out whether CBS can still cover this race straight have a fair question now.
The open question: will CBS say anything beyond Crawford’s apology, and will El-Sayed’s opponents keep using his faith as a campaign issue?
Also on BeezLoop: El-Sayed’s tense Fox News interview with Jesse Watters.
Sources: Forbes, via Yahoo News · Democracy Now! · MS NOW (video)
