CBS’s chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford has apologized for and deleted a social media post praising a man who questioned Democratic Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about the Muslim Brotherhood during a town hall on Saturday. On Sunday, Crawford, who initially joined CBS in 2009, wrote on X: “Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall. I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards.
I apologize.” Crawford’s deleted post had thanked a man named Tommy while also saying: “I had to watch this twice to catch Dr Abdul El-Sayed’s nanosecond, ‘yeah, absolutely,’ response. His subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe proving your exact point is the kind of spectacular self own most [people] only dream about triggering. Congrats.” The video to which Crawford referred showed the man who identified himself only as Tommy asking El-Sayed: “Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” In response, El-Sayed said: “Sure.
Why are you asking the question?” Tommy replied: “Well, because they’re a terrorist group.” El-Sayed then rejoined, “But what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t? You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow, or that I’ll have some higher order allegiance than the constitution.” Crawford’s tweet evidently generated substantial backlash from within CBS and among other members of the news media.
The Guardian’s media reporter Jeremy Barr wrote on X on Sunday: “I’m told there was a lot of internal backlash at CBS News to the Jan Crawford tweet – which may be why she deleted it.” Meanwhile, journalist AJ Katz wrote: “Jan Crawford is CBS News’ chief legal correspondent, not an opinion commentator. Pretty striking language from a broadcast network news journalist about a Democratic senate candidate on her public account.” Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor said in part: “Very strange editorializing from a chief legal correspondent!” Meanwhile, CNN political commentator Karen Finney wrote that Crawford had been “caught red handed” trying to help “spread false, racist lies about Abdul because he is Muslim”. Crawford’s apology and post deletion comes as CBS has faced intense scrutiny over allegations of political bias after conservative commentator Bari Weiss was appointed as the network’s editor-in-chief in October 2025.
Weiss’s appointment came after CBS’s corporate parent, Paramount Skydance, acquired Weiss’s right-leaning digital media company, The Free Press. Furthermore, on Tuesday after recently joining CBS News as its global affairs correspondent, veteran British broadcaster Sir Trevor Phillips delivered a blunt message during a tense meeting with the network’s London bureau staff, telling critics questioning the outlet’s integrity to “fuck off and let us do our jobs”. MS Now host Ali Velshi interviewed El-Sayed on Saturday and asked him about getting Muslim Brotherhood-related questions while running against Mike Rogers, a Republican, for a Senate seat in the 3 November midterms.
He also said: “It’s a crazy thing to assume that somehow I’d have dual loyalties, as somebody who is avidly running to protect” rights related to abortion, the LGBTQ+ community and religion.
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