Did Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed say he believes America deserved 9/11? There's no proof

Claim: U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee from Michigan, said he believes America deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rating: ContextThere is no evidence El-Sayed said the U.S. deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks that destroyed the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who campaigned for El-Sayed in 2026, expressed the sentiment in 2019. In August 2026, a rumor spread that Michigan's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, said he believed America deserved 9/11, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that resulted in the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The claim came in part from El-Sayed's Republican opponent in the Michigan Senate race, Mike Rogers, who posted a statement from his Instagram and X accounts saying, "Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11" (archived): His claim further appeared on Facebook, and several Snopes readers emailed and searched the website seeking to verify its legitimacy. We could find no evidence El-Sayed said he believed the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks. For this reason, we rated the claim false. We reached out to El-Sayed's campaign requesting clarification on this sentiment and we will update this report should we receive a response. Instead, Rogers and right-wing social media accounts appear to have attributed to El-Sayed a statement far-left Twitch live-streamer Hasan Piker made in 2019. Piker walked back his comment that "America deserved 9/11" shortly after he made it. To investigate the veracity of the rumor, we first searched the keywords "Abdul El-Sayed said America deserved 9/11" on Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo. Had El-Sayed really said that, reputable news outlets such as Reuters, The Associated Press or Bloomberg would have reported on this quote. This was not the case. However, Piker, who campaigned for El-Sayed in 2026, did say these words in August 2019 while live-streaming on his personal Twitch channel: "America deserved 9/11, dude," the streamer said. "F*** it. I'm saying it." Piker later explained himself on the set of left-leaning populist media company The Young Turks Network's "The Conversation," a political commentary program hosted by Piker and Cenk Uygur. Piker admitted to saying these words and attempted to provide some context for his statement: At the 00:39 mark, the transcript of the exchange between Uygur and Piker read: Uygur: So you said America deserved 9/11. Did you mean that? Piker: No. Obviously not. Especially considering the fact that ... well ... that is a very viral quote that is going around currently. If those people were at least even remotely charitable or cared about the actual truth of what I was talking about they would understand that within context, I was simply referencing the fact that all of the foreign policy decisions, and our arming of insurgent groups in the region, and our efforts in destabilizing the Middle East have a direct consequence — a boomerang effect rather, if you will — in in causing 9/11. Of course, every part of what I advocate for is against violence. I abhor violence. I think it's awful. For further reading, Snopes confirmed in May 2026 that the U.S. House of Representatives was considering a resolution condemning Piker for reported antisemitism.