🚨 MIKE ROGERS DROPS A 9/11 BOMBSHELL — CLAIMS HIS OPPONENT BELIEVES AMERICA “DESERVED” THE ATTACKS, IGNITING A POLITICAL FIRESTORM… |
Michigan’s Senate race is turning into one of the most combustible contests of the 2026 midterms, and a new 9/11 attack from Republican Mike Rogers shows exactly why. The quote is real. The central accusation behind it is not supported by the public record.
Mike Rogers opened the general-election fight in Michigan with the kind of line designed to stop voters in their tracks.
“I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.”
The Republican Senate nominee was talking about Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit health official who won Michigan’s Democratic primary in August.
There is just one major problem: there is no evidence that El-Sayed ever said America “deserved 9/11,” or that he holds that belief.
The words at the center of the controversy came from somebody else — progressive streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with El-Sayed and whose relationship with the Democratic nominee has become a major line of Republican attack.
That distinction does not erase the political problem for El-Sayed. But it changes the factual story completely.
The Line Rogers Used to Define the Race
Rogers issued the statement on August 5, one day after El-Sayed secured the Democratic nomination. He repeated the accusation in subsequent appearances as Republicans moved quickly to portray El-Sayed as outside the political mainstream.
The timing was no accident. Michigan is a must-win Senate battleground, with retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters leaving an open seat and control of the chamber potentially hanging on a handful of races. Reuters described Michigan this week as a “must-win” contest, while independent race ratings continue to treat it as highly competitive.
And with the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, a charge involving sympathy for 9/11 is about as politically explosive as it gets.
Rogers also has real national-security credentials to build the attack around. He served in the U.S. Army from 1985 to 1989, worked as an FBI agent from 1989 to 1994, and later chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011.
But the phrase “bringing Osama bin Laden to justice” should be understood as political framing, not a claim that Rogers personally participated in the raid. Rogers was a congressional intelligence leader at the time; he was not part of the SEAL operation. He was later among officials who viewed photographic evidence of bin Laden’s death.
Who Actually Said “America Deserved 9/11”?
Hasan Piker did.
During a 2019 livestream, Piker used the phrase “America deserved 9/11” while arguing about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The remark triggered widespread backlash, and Piker later said his wording was inappropriate and that he did not mean American civilians deserved to die.
Years later, Piker became a visible supporter of El-Sayed’s Senate campaign. He appeared with El-Sayed during the 2026 primary, giving Republicans a ready-made line of attack against a candidate already running as an unapologetic progressive.
That association is real. So is the controversy surrounding it.
But association is not the same thing as holding the same belief — and that is where Rogers’ statement crosses from a political argument into a factual claim the evidence does not support.
El-Sayed Has Already Rejected the 9/11 Statement
El-Sayed was directly questioned about Piker months before the Michigan primary.
During an April appearance on Fox & Friends, he said: “Of course I don’t think 9/11 was justified.”
He argued that appearing with someone politically does not mean adopting every statement that person has ever made.
El-Sayed has also described the September 11 attacks in his own writing as terrorist attacks that devastated him. FactCheck.org, Lead Stories and other fact-checkers reviewing Rogers’ accusation all reached the same basic conclusion: the “America deserved 9/11” statement belonged to Piker, not El-Sayed.
That does not settle the broader political question. Voters are free to decide that El-Sayed should never have campaigned with Piker, or that his refusal to fully break with a controversial supporter reflects poor judgment.
But that is a different argument from saying El-Sayed himself believes America deserved the attacks.
Why Republicans Keep Coming Back to Hasan Piker
The distinction matters factually, but Republicans clearly believe the association still works politically.
Piker has made a long list of inflammatory statements involving 9/11, Israel, Hamas and U.S. foreign policy. His appearances with El-Sayed became a flashpoint during the Democratic primary, and the issue has continued into the general election.
Vice President JD Vance, campaigning for Rogers in Michigan this week, spent much of his speech attacking El-Sayed rather than simply promoting the Republican nominee. Reuters reported that the broader Republican midterm strategy increasingly involves defining Democratic candidates through the party’s progressive wing.
For Rogers, that makes Piker useful even without the disputed attribution. The sharper — and more defensible — attack is not “El-Sayed believes America deserved 9/11.” It is: Why did El-Sayed choose to campaign with someone who said it?
That is a question El-Sayed will likely continue facing through Election Day.
But Rogers Has Created a Vulnerability of His Own
By turning an association attack into a direct claim about El-Sayed’s beliefs, Rogers handed his opponent an easy factual rebuttal.
Instead of forcing El-Sayed to spend the entire conversation defending Piker, the debate can now shift to whether Rogers is accurately describing his opponent.
That matters in a close race. Michigan voters narrowly rejected Rogers in the 2024 Senate election, when Democrat Elissa Slotkin beat him by roughly three-tenths of a percentage point. He is now trying again in another race expected to be decided at the margins.
In that environment, credibility is not a side issue.
The strongest version of Rogers’ case is already powerful without overstating it: he can point to his military, FBI and intelligence background, show voters Piker’s actual words, and ask why El-Sayed continued to share a political stage with him.
The moment Rogers says El-Sayed personally believes those words, however, the evidence becomes the problem.
The Real Fight Is Bigger Than One Quote
The Michigan Senate contest is quickly becoming a test of two very different political arguments.
Rogers wants voters to see El-Sayed as the face of a radicalized Democratic left — a candidate whose allies and associations tell voters what they need to know. El-Sayed wants voters to see those attacks as guilt by association designed to distract from healthcare, prices, wages and the economy.
Both sides have material to work with.
What they do not have is permission to rewrite the record.
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Hasan Piker said America deserved 9/11. Abdul El-Sayed did not. El-Sayed chose to campaign with Piker, and voters can judge that decision however they want.
That is the verified version of the story — and in a Senate race this close, the difference between those two claims could matter a great deal.
