Carlson Defends El-Sayed's 9/11 Remarks, Attacks GOP's Rogers

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, defended Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed's 2021 comments about the human cost of the post-9/11 wars, calling them "obviously right" in his September 11, 2026 newsletter. Carlson simultaneously launched a sharp attack on El-Sayed's Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, urging Michigan voters to keep him "far away from Washington." The controversy centers on resurfaced audio from a 2021 podcast in which El-Sayed stated that the September 11 attacks "scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people." He argued that public remembrance often fails to "center" those harmed overseas. Rogers, who has President Donald Trump's endorsement, called El-Sayed's remarks "disqualifying" and "disgusting," asserting it is wrong for a Senate candidate to believe Americans should "center their grief from 9/11" on those killed in subsequent wars. In his newsletter, Carlson rejected Rogers' interpretation. He wrote that El-Sayed "did not celebrate airplane hijackings or cheerlead Al-Qaeda" but instead criticized the Iraq War and the broader military response. Carlson argued the U.S.