El-Sayed kept Piker and rejected the 2019 remark, and a race he narrowly leads doesn't treat the tie as disqualifying.
On September 9 the pro-Rogers super PAC Great Lakes HQ released a Detroit television ad that showed Hasan Piker's 2019 clip and said 'Abdul El-Sayed gives comfort to that hatred'. On September 10 Mike Rogers told the Republican midterm convention in Dallas that El-Sayed 'has chosen Hasan as his running mate' and that 'Together, they attack America'. El-Sayed said on September 11 he would not disavow Piker. The same day Laura Loomer wrote 'The Democrat Party celebrates 9/11'. Their claim, joined by Brigitte Gabriel, the Republican Jewish Coalition and James Lindsay, is that El-Sayed and the people around Piker share the hatred behind the attacks.
The narrow reading is that keeping Piker means El-Sayed tolerates and lends legitimacy to Piker's 2019 view. That's a smaller claim than the one made: tolerating an ally who said a thing is a long way from sharing the hatred behind 9/11. On the smaller claim the record is clear. He hasn't disavowed him, saying he wants to be 'held accountable for what I say and what I do', and repeated on 11 September that he wouldn't; Piker himself has since disavowed the remark. The tie is documented, and so is the refusal. Neither carries the claim as made, which didn't hold.
The wide reading makes El-Sayed and the bloc around Piker people who share the hatred behind 9/11 and belong outside legitimate politics. El-Sayed told Fox and Friends on 7 April 'Of course I don't think 9/11 was justified', called Piker's remark 'a dumb statement', and has said 'nothing can justify the murder of innocent civilians'; PolitiFact rated Rogers's attribution of Piker's view to him Pants on Fire on 7 August and FactCheck.org rated it false, finding no El-Sayed statement justifying the attack, and his 2021 post that 9/11 scarred the country and that what the US did afterward harmed millions is a foreign-policy critique. The race is a toss-up, with CNN's poll at El-Sayed 47 to 44, Trafalgar at 46 to 45, and the Detroit News and WDIV poll putting Rogers ahead inside the margin, down from El-Sayed's 7-point lead in August. A tightening race fits some cost; a disqualified candidate doesn't lead two of three polls.
Piker's answer, that the right cares about 9/11 only as a pretext, reached more people than this frame did and is checked on its own card; his post on Rogers's 2010 votes against the Zadroga Act drew 685,489 engagement. Each side's main evidence is the other's words.
Three checks: on whether El-Sayed's own statements about the attack show any justification of it, on whether he declined to disavow Piker while rejecting the 2019 statement, and on whether Michigan voters and mainstream institutions are treating the tie as disqualifying.
Being right about what happened and wrong about what it proves are different failures, so these two lines never get averaged into one score. How this works
The logic check
If the claim is right, these things should be true. Here's what we found. Each check says which version of the claim it's testing, the plain one most people would hear or the widest one the same words could carry, and whether it carries the claim's own burden or establishes the background it sits on.
If El-Sayed justifies or shares the hatred behind 9/11, the strongest reading, his own statements about the attack should show justification.
Reading failsEl-Sayed told Fox and Friends on Apr 7 'Of course I don't think 9/11 was justified,' called Piker's remark 'a dumb statement,' and has said 'nothing can justify the murder of innocent civilians'; PolitiFact rated Rogers' direct attribution of Piker's view to El-Sayed Pants on Fire on Aug 7 and FactCheck.org rated it false, finding no statement by El-Sayed justifying the attack. His 2021 post that 9/11 scarred the country and that what the US did afterward harmed millions is a foreign-policy critique. source
If keeping Piker means El-Sayed tolerates and lends legitimacy to Piker's 2019 view, the minimal reading, he should decline to disavow Piker even while rejecting the statement.
Reading survivesEl-Sayed has not disavowed Piker, saying he wants to be 'held accountable for what I say and what I do, rather than this idea that we're so stuck in cancel culture,' and repeated on Sep 11 at a Michigan event that he would not disavow him; Piker himself has since disavowed the 2019 remark. source
If the Piker-allied bloc genuinely sits outside legitimate politics, the strongest reading, Michigan voters and mainstream institutions should be treating the tie as disqualifying.
Reading strainedThe race is a toss-up: CNN's Aug 31 to Sep 6 poll had El-Sayed 47 to 44, Trafalgar on Sep 9 had him 46 to 45, and the Detroit News and WDIV poll had Rogers 45.8 to 44.4 inside the margin, down from El-Sayed's 7-point lead in August; CNN's political director compared Rogers' framing to the 'menacing aspect' of Bush's 2004 campaign, Robert Reich endorsed El-Sayed in-window, and Michigan Democrats answered the speech as Islamophobic. A tightening race is consistent with some cost; a disqualified candidate does not lead two of three polls. source
The full scoring
The raw numbers behind the verdict. What R/I/P/E/L and charge stages mean: how we score.
Research verdict: mixed evidence. The research found some of what the claim predicts and not the rest.
The claim is that Abdul El-Sayed's refusal to drop Hasan Piker on the 9/11 anniversary shows that he and the progressive bloc around Piker share the hatred behind the attacks, attack America, and belong outside legitimate politics. El-Sayed declined to disavow Piker while rejecting the 2019 remark, which supports the narrow version. The shared-hatred version failed against his own words, 'Of course I don't think 9/11 was justified', and against PolitiFact, which rated Rogers's attribution of Piker's view to him Pants on Fire on August 7. The outside-politics claim is hard to square with a toss-up race he led in two of three polls. The claim is partly supported.
Source record: hobocode.net Fault Line Report 2026-W37
Everything here is a plain-language cut of research published in full at hobocode.net, including the polarization methodology that defines every score on this page.