El-Sayed’s ISNA appearance draws scrutiny over controversial speakers

The timing here is the part you can’t hand-wave away. Abdul El-Sayed chose to sit on an ISNA panel with Cenk Uygur and Zaid Shakir just days before the 9/11 anniversary, and now his campaign is acting surprised that people noticed. Politics is about judgment, and this was a very avoidable decision. If you don’t want the company to become the story, don’t keep picking it.

ISNA isn’t some random neighborhood forum where nobody knows who’s on the stage. It’s a high-profile gathering with a long trail of past controversies around speakers and rhetoric, and campaigns do research on venues for a reason. El-Sayed didn’t just “show up.” He added his name to a lineup that guaranteed scrutiny, then handed his opponents a clean, simple question: what exactly are you trying to signal, and to whom? This isn’t about guilt-by-association games. It’s about basic vetting.

And yes, the “days before 9/11” detail matters because public officials are supposed to understand symbols and calendar moments. That week is when leaders typically show some humility, some seriousness, some sense of national memory. Instead, this looks like the kind of bubble decision political staffers make when they think headlines are for other people. It’s the same habit we see over and over on the left: treat criticism as bigotry, then demand nobody ask follow-ups. You don’t get to pre-scold the public out of noticing.

If El-Sayed wants this to go away, the fix is not a canned statement about “bringing communities together.” It’s a straight answer about why that panel, why those figures, and why that timing. Voters aren’t asking for a theology seminar. They’re asking whether the person asking for power has the common sense to avoid stepping into an obvious mess, especially in a week that should remind everyone what happens when America’s enemies are underestimated.