In Michigan Senate race, Mike Rogers falsely ties Abdul El-Sayed to Twitch streamer's 9/11 comments
El-Sayed said he did not believe the 9/11 attacks were justified and responded to Rogers’ accusation.

SOURCE CHECK
TAP FOR WHYPolitiFact is an established fact-checking newsroom, and the article identifies its author and describes efforts to obtain support for Rogers’ claim. Its conclusion is based on attributed statements and relevant historical remarks.
- Track record — Established fact-checking publication with a sustained focus on evaluating public claims.
- Editorial standards — The article explains the evidence behind its stated rating.
- Author attribution — A named author is credited.
- Transparency — The article describes its request to Rogers’ campaign and the campaign’s response.
The article attributes the candidates’ statements, reports the campaign’s explanation, and provides the original context for Piker’s remarks. It could offer more independent context about the broader campaign dispute, but its central factual comparison is clear.
HOW WE SCORE ↗The article presents Rogers’ claim and campaign response, El-Sayed’s answers, and the context of Piker’s remarks. It is necessarily focused on testing Rogers’ assertion, but includes the principal relevant responses.
- Counterarguments presented — Reports the Rogers campaign’s rationale and El-Sayed’s responses.
- Source diversity — Uses statements from both campaigns and contextual reporting on Piker’s remarks.
- Loaded language — The article’s strongest label is its explicit fact-check rating, supported by its account of the evidence.
- Omitted context — Limited detail on the wider campaign context, but the key statements and their timing are included.
The article uses a fact-check format and evaluates Rogers’ claim against the quoted record. Its language is direct, but the evidence-based conclusion does not by itself indicate a partisan lean.
- Language tone — Mostly factual language, with the evaluative rating clearly identified as PolitiFact’s ruling.
- Source selection — Includes statements from both candidates’ sides and the original context for Piker’s remarks.
- Framing — Frames the story as a check of a specific claim rather than a general argument about either candidate.
PolitiFact found that Mike Rogers falsely claimed Abdul El-Sayed believes America deserved 9/11, citing remarks by streamer Hasan Piker rather than El-Sayed. El-Sayed said he does not think the attacks were justified.
After winning the Aug. 4 primary, Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers said his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, believed America deserved 9/11. Rogers’ campaign pointed to El-Sayed’s appearance with streamer Hasan Piker and to El-Sayed’s responses when asked whether he would disavow Piker’s remarks.
El-Sayed said in an April interview that 9/11 was not justified and that appearing with someone does not mean agreeing with everything they say. Piker made the remark in 2019 and later walked it back. PolitiFact concluded El-Sayed had not endorsed Piker’s comments and rated Rogers’ statement “Pants on Fire!”
Community verdict
7 VOTESPeople in this story
SWIPE →Democratic Senate candidate whose views were misrepresented in Rogers’ statement
Republican Senate candidate whose statement about his opponent was fact-checked
Rogers's version of this story ↗U.S. representative whose podcast appearance Piker was watching
Part of a bigger story
15 OUTLETSAfter winning Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, Abdul El-Sayed faced questions about his association with Hasan Piker and Piker’s past 9/11 remark. Center outlets emphasize El-Sayed’s rejection of the remark and distinguish his views from Piker’s, with PolitiFact examining Mike Rogers’s claim. Right-leaning outlets frame El-Sayed’s association with Piker and his answers about distancing himself as a political liability, emphasizing criticism from opponents.
- ARTICLES
- 18
- OUTLETS
- 15
- AVG CRED
- 61
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