Abdul El-Sayed scrubbed old tweet trashing America on 9/11, faces calls from Dems to disavow Piker

A guy running for the U.S. Senate had a tweet on the books trashing his own country on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in its history, and the response wasn't to explain it or stand by it. It was to quietly delete it and hope nobody noticed. That tells you everything about how these things actually work. The opinion wasn't wrong until it became inconvenient.

El-Sayed is now getting heat from his own party to disavow Hasan Piker, which is its own kind of tell. Piker has spent years saying things on stream that would end most careers, and Democrats mostly shrugged because he draws young viewers and money. Now that a Senate seat is on the line in a swing state, suddenly the association is a liability worth managing. Not because the views changed, but because the math did.

We don't think a scrubbed tweet from years ago automatically defines a candidate forever. People say dumb things online, and plenty of politicians on our side have old posts they'd rather forget too. What matters here is the instinct on display: erase it, don't own it, wait for the news cycle to move on. Voters in Michigan deserve a candidate who'll say what he actually believes about 9/11 and about the company he keeps, not one who edits his record the moment it becomes a headline.

If El-Sayed thought the tweet was fair commentary in 2021, he should say so now and defend it. If he thinks it was wrong, he should say that plainly instead of hitting delete and letting staffers field the questions. Michigan voters can handle either answer. What they shouldn't have to settle for is a candidate who treats his own past statements like a liability to be managed rather than a record to be accountable for.