Texas – Sen. Ted Cruz bIasted Tucker Carlson after the conservative commentator defended Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over controversial remarks about the Sept. 11 attacks, accusing Carlson of embracing what he described as radical views.
“Jihadi Tucker is ALL IN in support of Abdul El Sayed,” Cruz wrote on X. “Tucker’s Sharia-loving, Trump-hating, America-hating radicalism is now identical to the views of Ilhan Omar.”
Cruz’s comments came after Carlson publicly defended El-Sayed in his newsletter following renewed criticism of remarks the Democratic Senate candidate made in 2021 about the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars that followed.
The controversy centers on comments from El-Sayed in which he said the Sept. 11 attacks had deeply scarred the United States but argued that the American response had also caused enormous suffering overseas.
“9/11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people,” El-Sayed said, according to reporting cited by CBS. “When we talk about 9/11, we often fail to center them.”
The remarks resurfaced as El-Sayed campaigns for the Democratic nomination in Michigan and faces Republican nominee Mike Rogers in the Senate race.
Rogers has argued that El-Sayed’s comments were disqualifying for someone seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate. According to CBS, Rogers said it was unacceptable for a Senate candidate to believe Americans should “center” their grief over 9/11 and called El-Sayed’s attitude toward the attacks “disgusting” and unfit for public office.
Carlson, however, took the opposite position.
In his newsletter, Carlson argued that El-Sayed’s comments were not controversial in the way his Republican critics portrayed them. Carlson said the U.S. response to the attacks, particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, resulted in the deaths of large numbers of civilians and contributed to the emergence of ISIS.
Carlson characterized the consequences of the post-9/11 wars as amounting to “dozens and dozens of 9/11s,” while arguing that El-Sayed was criticizing the U.S. response rather than defending the terrorist attacks themselves. CBS reported that Carlson said El-Sayed was correct in making the broader point about the consequences of the wars.
UnHerd also reported that Carlson defended the resurfaced 2021 remarks and argued that there was “nothing remotely crazy” about what El-Sayed had said. The outlet noted that Carlson had increasingly challenged Republican attacks against El-Sayed and had positioned himself against Rogers in the Michigan Senate contest.
The dispute has placed Carlson directly at odds with Republican efforts to make El-Sayed’s past comments a major issue in the Michigan Senate race.
Rogers and other Republicans have sought to portray El-Sayed as outside the political mainstream over his past statements and associations. But El-Sayed has rejected the suggestion that he supports terrorism or the Sept. 11 attacks.
Fact-checking of an earlier Rogers attack also found that Rogers had incorrectly attributed a “America deserved 9/11” position to El-Sayed based on comments made by another person, Hasan Piker. PolitiFact reported that El-Sayed had specifically said he did not believe the terrorist attacks were justified.
El-Sayed also publicly commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, describing the attacks as a “cruel act of terror” in a message honoring the victims, according to the New York Post.
The broader fight has now drawn in Cruz, who used some of his strongest language against Carlson while defending the Republican criticism of El-Sayed.
Cruz’s post directly accused Carlson of becoming aligned with El-Sayed and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, while also attacking Carlson over his views on former President Donald Trump, Islam and U.S. foreign policy.
The confrontation reflects a larger divide within conservative politics over the legacy of the post-9/11 wars, U.S. foreign policy and how Republicans should approach El-Sayed’s candidacy.
Republicans have increasingly focused on El-Sayed’s past statements as the Michigan Senate race develops, while Carlson has offered a competing interpretation of those remarks, arguing that criticism of the U.S. response to 9/11 should not be treated as support for the attacks themselves.
