Meet the Press Secretary

By Abe Greenwald

If Abdul El-Sayed wins his U.S. Senate race in Michigan on November 3, I hope he has the good manners to send a thank-you gift to a woman who has selflessly prioritized his fortunes over her own in order to get him over the finish line: MSNBC’s Kristen Welker.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Welker interviewed El-Sayed’s opponent Mike Rogers. In so doing, she invented a new political product: the live attack ad. 

The bias that was on display wasn’t particularly striking, not anymore. We’ve already seen the lengths to which liberal media will go to protect their favorite Democrats and defame Republican villains. Whatever you call an industry that promoted Joe Biden’s razor-sharp mind, you can’t call it objective.

What was astounding here is Welker’s equal combo of unbridled chutzpah and low self-esteem. 

Her first question was relatively mild: “Is a vote for you a vote for the Trump agenda?” Rogers had some technical trouble and answered broadly. Welker moved on but would be sure to close out the segment with a gotcha version of the same question.

Next, she asked Rogers to comment on Donald Trump’s Truth Social post describing El-Sayed as “a Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist who hates Jews and Blacks and Americans.” It would be a fair question but for what she tagged on at the end. “As you know,” she said, “there’s no evidence to support any of those claims. Do you agree with the president, Congressman? Yes or no?”

As Welker knows, there is evidence to support some of those claims. Two weeks ago, El-Sayed came on Meet the Press, and Welker asked him whether he or his family had any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. He said no, and she left it at that. 

Let’s say that, at the time, Welker was unaware that El-Sayed’s half-sister had boasted of the family’s Brotherhood ties, that his mother and father-in-law each have their own set of connections to Islamist- and Brotherhood-related organizations, that he receives large donations from people involved with those groups, and that he signed a 2012 letter in support of Egypt’s then-president, the Muslim Brotherhood figure Mohamed Morsi. 

She must know now. Those facts have only been amplified in the time between the two interviews. Wouldn’t a self-respecting journalist resent El-Sayed’s brazenly lying to her?

Yes, a self-respecting journalist would.

Rogers pushed back and cited the Morsi letter. “Let me just get some context to the 2012 letter that you’re talking about,” she responded. El-Sayed, she claimed, “supported the protesters against Egypt’s dictator, not the Muslim Brotherhood as a group.” 

Never mind that the letter was written in support of the Brotherhood’s nation-ruling head honcho and his purge of media and police—Welker was offering defensive “context” for something that El-Sayed himself refuses to comment on. 

But the next question was the masterpiece. She quoted Rogers, who had said in 2012 that there were some moderate Muslim Brotherhood members whom the U.S. would have to “watch carefully” but also try to talk with for security reasons. Welker then asked: “Do you acknowledge that at the time, in 2012, you were willing to work with some moderate members, as you said, of the Muslim Brotherhood?”

There you have it: El-Sayed has no Muslim Brotherhood ties, but Mike Rogers does. 

Should El-Sayed win and choose to express his appreciation, I wish him luck finding a gift basket big enough to properly thank Kristen Welker.

Abe Greenwald is the executive editor of COMMENTARY.