El-Sayed Faces Backlash Over Unearthed Posts About Fourth Of July, Second Amendment

The videos, which the CNN said were set to private, “are another example,” the article continued, “of how El-Sayed’s years as a prolific podcaster, commentator and social-media user have left behind an extensive record — some of it subsequently deleted — that Republicans could use to portray him as both ideologically left-wing and culturally out of step with swing-state voters.”

El-Sayed, whose primary victory means he will face Republican Mike Rogers in the November midterms, has faced scrutiny over audio that showed he explicitly supported efforts to defund police. He also previously argued that “toxic masculinity” governed American football and claimed sports culture is full of misogyny, racism, and homophobia, according to Breitbart News.

El-Sayed’s fellow leftist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said recently that he “represents the politics of the future” for America.

However, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is urging voters to oppose El-Sayed on election day, Breitbart News reported Monday.

Cotton described El-Sayed as a “true radical who has palled around with people that said America had 9/11 coming.”

“He wants to abolish ICE. He wants to stop border enforcement. He wants confiscatory levels of taxation for hardworking Americans,” he added.

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Why is anyone surprised? Michiganistan is basically am Islamic Caliphate now. And it's all intentional. My kids + grandchildren will be forced to deal with this one way or the other.

— Ktr3 (@Ktr314) August 11, 2026

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Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed-sounds like your al-American boy next door.What the hell has happened to our country?

— k blue (@kblue355033) August 11, 2026

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You import the third world you turn your country into the third world!

— Greg the Okie! (@truedatholmes) August 11, 2026

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The YouTube videos, at least 100 of which appear to have been made private, are another example of how El-Sayed’s years as a prolific podcaster, commentator and social-media user have left behind an extensive record — some of it subsequently deleted — that Republicans could use to portray him as both ideologically left-wing and culturally out of step with swing-state voters.

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Many of the removed videos on YouTube, where El-Sayed at the time had more than 17,000 subscribers, are not publicly available anymore, but CNN reviewed transcripts archived before the videos were made private.

El-Sayed’s fireworks video was briefly interrupted by a message noting that it was sponsored in part by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. In reading ads for the foundation on his “America Dissected” podcast, he highlighted what he called its “cutting-edge areas of scholarship,” including “feminist prison abolition.”

Prison abolition is a movement that seeks to reduce and ultimately replace prisons, jails, and other punitive systems with approaches intended to address the social conditions linked to harm, including investments in housing, healthcare, education, community-based safety, and restorative or transformative justice. Feminist prison abolitionists argue that incarceration and policing can fail to prevent gender-based violence and may disproportionately harm women and marginalized communities.

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Never in my life did I think I would be running against a guy that thinks America deserved 9/11.

Abdul is too dangerous for Michigan. We can’t let him anywhere near the United States Senate. pic.twitter.com/twFggwZfa0

— Mike Rogers (@MikeRogersForMI) August 6, 2026

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