Jake Tapper Abdul El-Sayed CNN State of the Union 8-9-26

Who pulled Jake Tapper's teeth? Three weeks ago on State of The Union, Tapper asked extremist Democrat Abdul el-Sayed why he told aides he didn't want to upset his supporters by commenting on the death of Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran. 

Today, in an eleven-minute interview, there was nothing on Abdul's extreme views. His pitches were were so soft that he would have been thrown out of a slow-pitch league. The only difference is that this guy's now the official Democrat Party nominee. 

Tapper lobbed an easy one to El-Sayed right out of the box:

"So the Trump administration, as you know, is trying to paint a rosy picture of the economy. You and others are pointing to the affordability crisis affecting people in Michigan and elsewhere. Democratic voters are frustrated as I don't need to tell you, they don't think that your party is doing enough to fight Donald Trump on these issues, especially like affordability. If you're elected as a Democratic Senator with a Republican President in November, what can you actually do about that?"

El-Sayed was happy to oblige with a lengthy, unchallenged monologue about "hauling up" Trump officials, RFK Jr., and the usual anti-Trump framing. Not a single specific proposal to address affordability. And no pushback from Tapper. 

Later, Tapper tiptoed oh-so-delicately around the 800-pound anti-Israel elephant in the room. He cited former primary opponent Mallory McMorrow and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, both of whom had criticized El-Sayed for an inability to recognize that people of good faith might simply hold a different "worldview." 

Every sentient viewer understood what that coded language meant. So did Tapper. So did El-Sayed. 

It was a polite invitation to address El-Sayed's radically anti-Israel views and associations, including his refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and his close association with the virulently antisemitic, pro-Hamas, October 7-defending Hasan Piker. A figure so vile, even some Democrats like James Carville and John Fetterman have disowned him. 

It must have occurred to Tapper to ask something along these lines: "What would you say to members of Michigan's Jewish community who are deeply concerned about your refusal to affirm Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state?"

Yet, incredibly, the words "Israel," "antisemitism," or "Hasan Piker" never crossed Jake's lips.

El-Sayed was thus emboldened to blatantly disregard the intent of the question. Instead of engaging the foreign-policy and values concerns at the heart of the matter, he pivoted straight into familiar Trump-and-Rogers-bashing. He talked about "moral bankruptcy," "moral rot," corporate enrichment, and the need for Democrats to "lock arms." 

There was absolutely nothing in his answer about world affairs — it was 100% partisan domestic politics. 

And Jake Tapper let him get away with it. No follow-up. No clarification. No attempt to bring the conversation back to the essence of the "worldview" critique. 

The softest of softballs, served up by a supine Tapper, in a disgraceful display of journalistic malpractice. 

Here's the transcript. 

CNN 
State of the Union 
8/9/26 
9:26 am EDT 

TAPPER: Welcome back to State of the Union. Abdul El-Sayed's victory in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary this week is a major win for progressives. But Republicans sense an opening to flip a Democratic-held seat. The question now, can a candidate from the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party win in a state that voted for Donald Trump twice? 

And joining me now is the brand new Michigan Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed. Thank you so much for joining us today, we really appreciate it. 

ABDUL EL-SAYED: Jake, thanks for having us. 

TAPPER: So the Trump administration, as you know, is trying to paint a rosy picture of the economy. You and others are pointing to the affordability crisis affecting people in Michigan and elsewhere. 

Democratic voters are frustrated, as I don't need to tell you. They don't think that your party's doing enough to fight Donald Trump on these issues, especially like affordability. 

If you're elected as a Democratic senator with a Republican president in November, what can you actually do about that? 

EL-SAYED: Well, look, let me just tell you the picture from my state. We've been up and down the state now. I've been at this for fifteen months, been to a hundred and ten cities, over five hundred public events. 

Everywhere I go, people say the same thing. It just shouldn't be this hard. Shouldn't be this hard to afford your groceries, or fill up your tank, or worry about getting sick without having to worry about losing everything too. And we ran this campaign to do three things: get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for all. 

When holding the Trump administration accountable. You know, when we win, God willing, I will take my seat as a member of a Senate majority. That gives us subpoena power to be able to investigate all of the ways that this administration has used their power for their gain and enrichment and against ours. 

And I think that means hauling them up to really understand all the conversations that were had about who got to get refunds after this terrible tariff policy. Who got to get excluded from those refunds. 

It means hauling up people like RFK Jr., and holding them accountable for the DOGEing of our public health apparatus for which we now need to be dodging lettuce across the state of Michigan for fear of getting explosive diarrhea, which nobody ever thought would be a consequence of electing Donald Trump, but here we are. 

So it's those powers and then the ability to set up, to build the runway for a president in 2028 who can come in and start doing the things to hold big corporations accountable, to start enforcing antitrust policy, to start rethinking our tax system so it's less burdensome on everyday people and we're taxing billionaires their wealth, and to stand up for unions who have been critical to winning fair wages. 

. . . 

TAPPER: One of your former Democratic opponents, state legislator Mallory McMorrow, supports you, endorsed you right out of the gate. But she says she told you that in her view, you need to improve on, quote, "being able to recognize that there are good people who just have a slightly different worldview. It's not turning everybody into an enemy," unquote. 

It was a similar criticism to what we heard from New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who wrote that you have, quote, a "blind spot," one endemic to his movement: an inability to grasp how and why people of good faith might see the world differently, unquote. How do you respond to those criticisms? 

EL-SAYED: No, I understand that we might see the world differently, but we also recognize the responsibility to come together. I was grateful for the conversation I got to share with Senator McMorrow, and also grateful for the conversation I got to share with the New York Times columnist. 

We have an opportunity right now to recognize that whatever differences we might have, have less to do with a moral bankruptcy and a lot more to do with differences in perspective. 

But what I will tell you is this: when you look at what Donald Trump is doing, when you look at what Mike Rogers wants to do and has done when he was in Congress, there are big moral questions to be asked. 

Should you be enriching yourself and your family to the tune of two point two billion dollars via the presidency? Should you be using corporations as pawns in this game to enrich yourself and giving them favors so that they can raise rates? Should you be in a scenario where you're questioning the outcomes of democratic elections? 

And I question the moral bankruptcy at the heart of that. 

Now, look, I've had a lot of different disagreements with some of my Democratic colleagues, and those are disagreements built on good faith differences when it comes to policy. 

But this is the time for us to come together now to take on the moral rot at the core of the Trump administration and the moral rot at the core of the corporatism that drives a guy like Mike Rogers. And I'm looking forward to locking arms to do that.