CNN's Cornish Pleads: Don't Tar Abdul El-Sayed With the Platner Brush!

The extent to which the Platner fiasco is fracturing the left was on full display on CNN today. Former NPRer turned CNN This Morning host Audie Cornish interrupted Democrat panelist Meghan Hays, calling her out over what Cornish saw as an attempt at "smearing" other Democrat candidates — and in particular, radical Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Hays, who's recently shown her distaste for the Democratic Socialists faction, had ripped into the Democrats behind Graham Platner's disastrous Senate candidacy in Maine, blasting the lack of vetting and the men who continued to stand by him even after allegations surfaced. 

Hays didn't mince words:

"This person was bad from the beginning, I have said it for months. He has no business being in the Senate, he has no business being on a campaign, and the fact that the Democratic Party stood with him after the first allegations, and the men of the Democratic Party stood with him is disgusting . . . These are the same consultants that are bringing you Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. They're the same people who are bringing you other candidates who are not vetted. 

Cornish interjected to defend El-Sayed:

"Can I add something here? Abdul Sayed is not facing any kind of allegation of sexual abuse, and he's also a former public health worker. I just want to put that -- I want to make sure that we are not taking a very serious allegation and smearing it across the entire slate. Because I think that is a question that has come up time and time again about Trump. As we are talking today, a judge is trying to force the president to release payment that is due to her for a case that involved sexual abuse, and then, damages for defamation, saying she was lying about it." 

Cornish then declared:

"I'm watching all the cable shows, and it is a whataboutism waterfall of which men in which party are the ones that should be disqualified."

Incredibly, Cornish kvetched about whataboutism immediately after, as you see above, pouring her own generous stream into that whataboutism waterfall!

Meanwhile, former Obama aide and ex-Bernie Sanders Jewish liaison Joel Rubin didn't hold back, calling out Sanders for not merely endorsing Platner, but effectively creating his candidacy — and suggested he owes the party an apology for forcing such a flawed candidate into the system. 

Cornish tried to frame Platner's issues as possibly just a "bad" campaign that wasn't necessarily "malicious" or "malignant." Hays and others weren't buying it, labeling it a "fake candidacy" with nonexistent vetting — more pageant than process. Mike Dubke shot back: "I'm sorry, when you've got a womanizing Nazi, what could go wrong?"

Cornish's effort to quarantine the scandal and protect El-Sayed rang hollow. While he's not facing Platner's specific sexual abuse allegations, El-Sayed bears a barrel of tar of his own. He endorsed "defund the police" in 2020 interviews, saying "We do need to defund the police."  He subsequently deleted old tweets and claimed he "never, never called for defunding," dismissing them as out of context. He accuses Israel of a "genocide" in Gaza, and claims that Israel is just as "evil" as Hamas.

El-Sayed has also actively campaigned with the odious far-left streamer Hasan Piker, whose toxic record includes antisemitic rhetoric and extreme statements that have drawn widespread condemnation. 

Being a "former public health worker" doesn't magically erase all that. (Platner was an "oysterman," after all.)

Maine Democrats are now scrambling to replace Platner via a convention, with fears his baggage could taint the eventual nominee. 

On CNN This Morning, host Cornish's priority was shielding the broader Democratic slate and redirecting fire toward Trump. Viewers saw the anger from Hays — and the protective instincts from Cornish — in real time.

Here's the transcript.

CNN This Morning
7/9/26
6:11 am EDT

AUDIE CORNISH: Like all Democratic political autopsies, this one is a vivisection. People are now looking at the strategist -- who brought this guy into Maine? Who recruited him?

The Wall Street Journal did an interview with some of the folks behind that, back in June. I just wanna play a sample for you. This is reporter Aaron Zitner asking about the vetting process, which we all have questions about now.

AARON ZITNER: Did the vetting process turn up the tattoo that became so controversial?

DANIEL MORAFF: No.

ZITNER: The Reddit posts, did that turn up in the vetting process?

MORAFF: The firm sent us a thing, and it had some of the posts. I said, none of this will or should stop him from becoming a US senator.

CORNISH: Sounds like there's a lot more here than the tattoo, right? Which also was revealed by an ex-girlfriend. I saw you scribbling up a storm, Joel. So what are your thoughts here?

JOEL RUBIN: I, I can't help it. Look, Audie, this is a fake candidacy. This was a fake candidate. There was no vetting process done, but that's because they did it as a pageant. They brought in people to try to figure out who they could put in as their candidate to carry a message. 

And so, what Daniel Moraff is pointing out there is, no, we didn't do vetting because we wanted political vetting. We didn't care about the actual person himself. 

CORNISH: I know, but just sometimes because something's bad doesn't mean it's malignant. I mean, is this just a bad campaign in the sense that it's not done well, not a malicious one?

MIKE DUBKE: I, I'm sorry, when you've got a womanizing Nazi, what could go wrong? Right? That's the original question here, and he proved it with his own text and ink on his body.

MEGHAN HAYS: But the fact of the matter is, is these are the same consultants that are bringing you Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. They're the same people who are bringing you other candidates who are not vetted. Because they think that if you are online, and you are popular online, that you are going to win people.

And it is disgusting and gross. This person was bad from the beginning, I have said it for months. He has no business being in the Senate, he has no business being on a campaign, and the fact that the Democratic Party stood with him after the first allegations, and the men of the Democratic Party stood with him is disgusting. And the women are the only ones that stood up to him.

CORNISH: Can I add something here? Abdul Sayed is not facing any kind of allegation of sexual abuse, and --

HAYS: And he's an unvetted, untested candidate.

CORNISH: He's also a former public health worker. I just want to put that -- I want to make sure that we are not taking a very serious allegation and smearing it across the entire slate. 

Because I think that is a question that has come up time and time again about Trump. As we are talking today, a judge is trying to force the president to release payment that is due to her for a case that involved sexual abuse, and then, damages for defamation, saying she was lying about it. 

So this has been -- I'm watching all the cable shows, and it is a whataboutism waterfall of which men in which party are the ones that should be disqualified.

ANNA KRAMER: One thing I'd like to note too is that with the campaign moving forward now, our reporters have been, talking to folks about how there's this fear that Graham Platner may sort of remain as a specter for the remaining candidates. 

And there's this question of will the remaining candidates be tainted by association with him? Will whoever gets the nomination end up being someone who has to run away from his endorsement, even though he might want to endorse. 

CORNISH: The answer is yes. [Laughter]

I mean, Mike, Mike, I'll just help you out here. The answer from my Mike is yes. 

HAYS: Did we not learn as children two wrongs don't make a right? The Democrats don't, didn't want to vote for Donald Trump because of all these allegations They shouldn't have wanted to vote for a Democrat in the same token. So how can we have it both ways?

RUBIN: I wanna pick up on what Meghan is saying. Look, I think the whole ethical problem here for Democrats is that we've been spending years saying we're not going to do what the Republicans did. We're not going to support a candidate who now is going to have to pay money to someone who he sexually abused.

But here we are essentially turning a blind eye to a candidate who-- and I gotta say, as a Jewish person, it really bothers me that the Nazi tattoo wasn't enough, that that wasn't somehow disqualifying. 

And Senator Sanders, who I worked for as his Jewish director in 2020, you know, he pushed this candidate into the system. 

CORNISH: Right. 

RUBIN: This wasn't an endorsement. This was a creation of Bernie Sanders, and I feel like he owes us all an apology for forcing a candidate like that into the system who obviously backfired. And now it may blow up the chances to get that seat back, which is a highly winnable seat for Democrats.