Bari Weiss’ opinion news site, The Free Press, has acknowledged an embarrassing error in its coverage of Abdul El-Sayed, the nation’s first Muslim senator-elect.
El-Sayed, who faced Islamophobic attacks throughout his campaign and opposition from pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, defeated Republican Mike Rogers. In his victory speech Tuesday, El-Sayed pronounced his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, and used three other Arabic expressions: “inshallah” (twice), “Alhamdulillah,” and “habibi.”
The Free Press blew that way out of proportion.
The site, which is marketed as “Honest,” “Independent,” and “Fearless,” inaccurately claimed in a Nov. 4 post on X that El-Sayed “gave his victory speech in Arabic last night.”
In the corresponding video, reporter and host Maya Sulkin made the same claim.
“So that is the first Muslim senator in American history giving his victory speech in Detroit—in Arabic,” she said, with what appeared to be an air of skepticism.
X users called out the false characterization. One asked Grok to analyze what percentage of El-Sayed’s approximately 20-minute address was in Arabic. Its answer: 0.27 percent.
About 44 hours after making the post, The Free Press finally replied to it with an acknowledgment:
“CORRECTION: This post and opinion video states that Abdul El-Sayed gave his acceptance speech in Arabic. That’s not accurate. In fact, he said a few phrases in Arabic, but the majority of his speech was in English. The Free Press regrets the error.”
Sulkin’s criticism wasn’t directed solely at El-Sayed. She also noted that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar spoke Somali at her re-election party, and grumbled that Aber Kawas, who became the first Palestinian-American elected to the New York State Legislature, marked the occasion in a social media post “not with an American flag, but a Palestinian flag.”
Sulkin was aghast.
“In their first speeches to the American public—on the night they win power—they address Americans in foreign languages, in Arabic and Somali, and in the name of the Palestinian flag,” she complained. “And no one in the Democratic Party seems to think that this is strange.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Sulkin and representatives for Weiss seeking comment.
When Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, an ardent supporter of Israel, brought in Weiss, 42, to lead the CBS newsroom last fall, he also bought The Free Press for $150 million. Under Weiss, a self-described “Zionist fanatic,” CBS’s website links to the publication—which features no shortage of pro-Israel points of view—on its homepage menu.
The Free Press correction on Friday followed another error on the site this week. On Thursday, Deputy Editor Oliver Wiseman called Iowa Senator-elect Josh Turek a “Special Olympics athlete,” even though the incoming Democratic lawmaker, who has spina bifida, is a Paralympian who played wheelchair basketball. The Special Olympics are for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The mistake was later fixed.
