The Free Press gave a completely inaccurate description of Abdul El-Sayed’s victory speech.
Bari Weiss’s opinion news site, The Free Press, has acknowledged an embarrassing error in its coverage of Abdul El-Sayed, the country’s first elected Muslim senator.
El-Sayed, who faced Islamophobic attacks throughout his campaign and opposition from pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, defeated Republican Mike Rogers. In his victory speech on Tuesday, El-Sayed pronounced his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, and used three other Arabic expressions: “inshallah” (twice), “Alhamdulillah” and “habibi.”
The president’s least favorite Democrat, Abdul El-Sayed, defeated Trump-backed Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan.
The Free Press exaggerated disproportionately.
The site, billed as “honest,” “independent” and “fearless,” inaccurately claimed in a Nov. 4 article on X that El-Sayed “delivered his victory speech in Arabic last night.”
In the corresponding video, journalist and host Maya Sulkin made the same claim.
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“He is therefore the first Muslim senator in American history to deliver his victory speech in Detroit, in Arab” she said, with what seemed like an air of skepticism.
X users denounced the false characterization. One asked Grok to analyze what percentage of El-Sayed’s roughly 20-minute speech was in Arabic. His answer: 0.27 percent.
About 44 hours after publishing this message, The Free Press finally responded, acknowledging receipt:
“CORRECTION: This post and opinion video states that Abdul El-Sayed delivered his acceptance speech in Arabic. This is not accurate. In fact, he spoke a few sentences in Arabic, but the majority of his speech was in English. Free Press regrets this error.”
The Free Press had to correct its article on El-Sayed, who used only a few Arabic words in his victory speech.
Sulkin’s criticism was not just aimed at El-Sayed. She also noted that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar spoke Somali during her reelection party, and lamented that Aber Kawas, who became the first Palestinian-American elected to the New York State Legislature, marked the occasion in a social media post “not with an American flag, but a Palestinian flag.”
Sulkin was dismayed.
“In their first speeches to the American public – the night they came to power – they addressed Americans in foreign languages, in Arabic and Somali, and in the name of the Palestinian flag,” she lamented. “And no one in the Democratic Party seems to find that strange.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Sulkin and Weiss’ representatives for comment.
Weiss’s time at the helm of CBS News was chaotic.
When David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance and a staunch supporter of Israel, recruited Weiss, 42, to run CBS’s newsroom last fall, he also bought The Free Press for $150 million. Under Weiss, a self-described “Zionist fanatic,” the CBS website links to the publication – which has no shortage of pro-Israel views – in its homepage menu.
Free Press’ correction Friday follows another error on the site this week. Deputy Editor Oliver Wiseman on Thursday called Iowa Sen.-elect Josh Turek a “Special Olympics athlete,” even though the new Democratic lawmaker, who has spina bifida, is a Paralympic athlete who played wheelchair basketball. The Special Olympics are for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The error was later corrected.
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