NEW YORK: CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford has apologized and deleted a social media post praising a heckler who questioned Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall,” Crawford wrote on X on Sunday. “I deleted the tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards. I apologize.”
Her original post shared a video of a town hall exchange in which a man identified as Thomas Teepell asked El-Sayed whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sayed replied that he would, then challenged the premise of the question, asking whether Teepell assumed he had “dual loyalties” because of his Muslim faith.
Crawford praised Teepell’s questioning and described El-Sayed’s response as a “spectacular self-own,” comments that drew criticism from journalists and media commentators who accused her of endorsing a partisan and anti-Muslim line of attack.
The episode also reportedly prompted internal criticism at CBS News.
The controversy comes during a closely watched Michigan Senate race between El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers, in which religion and Middle East policy have become recurring campaign issues.
It also comes amid continuing scrutiny of CBS News under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who took over the network’s newsroom after Paramount acquired The Free Press in October 2025.
