The CBS broadcasting logo is seen outside the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, New York on July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
CBS News’ Jan Crawford reportedly got herself into hot water Sunday after posting — then quickly deleting — a statement on social media that one critic described as “embracing” an Islamophobic trope.
On Saturday during a town hall in Michigan, Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed was asked by an attendee if he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sunni Islamist organization that the Trump administration designated as a terrorist group earlier this year. In what The Tennessee Holler described as a “skillful” response, El-Sayed said he “absolutely” disavowed the organization while calling out the attendee for his use of the Islamophobic dual loyalty trope.
Countless other onlookers championed El-Sayed’s response, whereas Crawford cheered the attendee asking the controversial question.
“I had to watch this twice to catch Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s nanosecond ‘yeah absolutely’ response,” Crawford wrote in a now-deleted post on X. “His subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe proving your exact point is the kind of spectacular self own most ppl only dream about triggering. Congrats.”
Within hours, Crawford’s post had reportedly caught the attention of CBS News, according to Zeteo media columnist Justin Baragona.
“Hearing from my sources that this ‘over the top’ tweet is being discussed internally at CBS,” Baragona wrote. “At the same time, as those same sources noted, ‘Jan is protected by [CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss],’ and has been a very vocal acolyte of Weiss.”
Baragona went on to share comments from current and former network insiders.
“She just can’t help herself,” a network insider told Baragona.
A former CBS News staffer told Baragona: “This is spiraling for CBS. The audience is already fleeing… this type of political stuff from an on-air reporter is only gonna speed up the audience's escape.”
Veteran Democratic congressional staffer Aaron Fritschner condemned Crawford for giving further credence to the Islamophobic dual loyalty trope, which suggests Muslims cannot be loyal to the United States because their faith places their allegiance elsewhere.
“A CBS reporter embracing dual loyalty bits about Muslims is just one data point in a broad trend of mainstreaming Islamophobia in U.S. politics at levels rivaling post-9/11,” Fritschner wrote in a social media post on X. “There’s a Florida Congressman who periodically calls for genocide against Arabs and it’s barely discussed.”
Crawford later admitted to deleting her online post and issued a brief apology.
“Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall. I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards,” Crawford wrote. “I apologize.”
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