I watched the clip of Charles Blow on CNN NewsNight and almost had to pause it just to process what I was hearing.
If you have spent any time watching CNN yourself, you know it had to be bad for me to question if I'd heard what I thought I'd heard.
And I had.
There Blow was, calmly defending Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed against questions about family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism-linked groups. When a panelist pointed out the contradiction between El-Sayed’s flat denials and his half-sister’s old social media posts about the family “long been” Muslim Brotherhood—plus the mother’s past work with an organization later designated for supporting al-Qaeda and Hamas. Blow didn’t grapple with any of it. He waved it away as Islamophobia and pivoted straight to Fred Trump attending a Klan rally in 1927.
That’s the play now. Legitimate questions about documented family history and campaign denials get reframed as bigotry and Islamophobia, while any conservative figure’s distant relatives stay fair game forever.
Watch:
CNN commentators are defending Abdul El-Sayed's links to terrorist groups on the grounds that Donald Trump is allegedly linked to terrorist groups. You cannot make this up. Complete lunatics. Absolutely incredible. https://t.co/4WoI8DQy14
— Kevin Bass (@kevinnbass) October 16, 2026
El-Sayed has been asked about these ties on multiple outlets. His answers have been versions of “no ties,” “never discussed it with my mother,” and “how dare you.” Blow treated the pushback like an attack on all Muslims rather than a specific candidate whose half-sister publicly described the family’s Brotherhood involvement and whose mother worked for a group the Treasury Department flagged.
The panel spent more time debating whether Republicans are allowed to notice any of this than they did examining the actual record. I’ve covered enough of these panels to know the pattern. When the subject is a progressive Democrat with uncomfortable associations, the default setting is “nothing to see here, and asking makes you the problem.”
When it’s anyone on the right, the associations are treated as character-defining. Blow’s response fit that template perfectly. He wasn’t clarifying the facts or walking through El-Sayed’s explanations. He was changing the subject to Trump’s father and calling the concern itself illegitimate.
Michigan voters watching the race between El-Sayed and Mike Rogers deserved better than a panel that treats family history and past organizational ties as off-limits only when the candidate is one of theirs.
The clip is short, but the double standard is obvious.
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Related:
WOOF: James Talarico Proves His INSANITY Talking About 'Showing Up' (and It Ain't Pretty) — WATCH
She's Gonna BLOOOW! Rashida Tlaib Spittle-RAGES About Evil Trump Targeting Ilhan Omar and LOL (VID)
Geraldo Rivera’s Face Is EVERYTHING As Abby Phillip Gives Abdul El-Sayed a Pass for Brotherhood Ties
David Crowley Asked About Unlimited Abortion and Let the SPUTTER-FEST Begin (WATCH)
DOWN Girl! Jessica Tarlov Falls All Over Herself Calling Jon Ossoff INCREDIBLE and It's Just CRINGE
Abdul 'Struggling With the Black Vote' El-Sayed Has Hillary Clinton Hot Sauce Moment and LOL-HOOBOY
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