09/12/2026
Just sick and appalling.
Michigan's open Senate seat is one of the most closely watched races of the midterms. Republican Mike Rogers has spent weeks attacking Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and former public health official who is Muslim, over old social media posts about 9/11.
Rogers falsely claimed El-Sayed said America deserved the attacks. He called El-Sayed a ‘con man’ and said ‘he wants to represent Palestine, I want to represent Michigan.’ El-Sayed repeatedly called out Rogers's mischaracterization of his posts.
In 2010, Congress voted on the James Zadroga Act, a law to provide medical treatment and health monitoring for the roughly 40,000 people who worked in toxic conditions at Ground Zero after the towers fell, many of whom later developed cancer. Rogers voted against it.
When the bill came back for a second vote, he voted against it again. His stated reason was that guaranteed healthcare for first responders would ‘jeopardize the financial health of the United States.’
John Feal is a 9/11 first responder who had part of his foot amputated after a steel beam fell on him at Ground Zero. He recalls Rogers dismissing the legislation directly to him on the floor of Congress, calling it a ‘New York problem.’
Rogers said guaranteed care for sick first responders was too expensive. He is now spending that same anniversary praising those same first responders on camera and asking Michigan voters to send him to the Senate. Those two things cannot both be true at the same time.
