Apology follows internal CBS backlash and broader newsroom scrutiny
Crawford, who joined CBS in 2009, wrote on X on Sunday: “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. I apologize.”
Her deleted post had praised a man who identified himself as Tommy for pressing El-Sayed on the Muslim Brotherhood at the Saturday event. “I had to watch this twice to catch Dr Abdul El-Sayed’s nanosecond, ‘yeah, absolutely,’ response,” Crawford wrote in the now-removed message. “His subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe proving your exact point is the kind of spectacular self own most [people] only dream about triggering. Congrats.”
The video showed Tommy asking El-Sayed: “Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” El-Sayed replied: “Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Why are you asking the question?” Tommy responded: “Well, because they’re a terrorist group.” El-Sayed then said: “But what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t? You’re asking the question because implicitly you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties, right? You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow, or that I’ll have some higher order allegiance than the constitution.”
The post drew swift criticism from journalists and CBS colleagues. AJ Katz wrote: “Jan Crawford is CBS News’ chief legal correspondent, not an opinion commentator. Pretty striking language from a broadcast network news journalist about a Democratic senate candidate on her public account.” Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor said in part: “Very strange editorializing from a chief legal correspondent!” CNN political commentator Karen Finney was harsher, writing that Crawford had been “caught red handed” trying to help “spread false, racist lies about Abdul because he is Muslim.” Finney added: “Shame on you.”
The Guardian’s media reporter, Jeremy Barr, wrote on X that he had been told there was “a lot of internal backlash at CBS News to the Jan Crawford tweet – which may be why she deleted it.”
Crawford’s apology comes amid broader scrutiny of CBS’s editorial direction. The network’s corporate parent, Paramount Skydance, acquired The Free Press, the right-leaning digital media company founded by Bari Weiss, and named Weiss editor-in-chief in October 2025. The appointment prompted questions about political bias at one of the legacy broadcast networks.
On Tuesday, after recently joining CBS News as global affairs correspondent, veteran British broadcaster Sir Trevor Phillips delivered a blunt message during a tense meeting with the network’s London bureau staff, telling critics questioning the outlet’s integrity to “fuck off and let us do our jobs.”
El-Sayed, who is running against Republican Mike Rogers for the Michigan Senate seat in the November 3 midterms, addressed the broader pattern in an interview with MS Now host Ali Velshi on Saturday. “The whole reason this question is being asked is to insinuate that somehow I have dual loyalties,” El-Sayed said. “It’s a crazy thing to assume that somehow I’d have dual loyalties, as somebody who is avidly running to protect” rights related to abortion, the LGBTQ+ community and religion. His party is predicted to gain seats during the midterms, according to the Guardian.