Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers released a digital ad featuring David Beamer, father of Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer, endorsing Rogers and rebuking Democratic opponent Abdul El-Sayed over his past remarks about the September 11 attacks.
David Beamer, who has spent decades honoring his son's sacrifice aboard United Airlines Flight 93, appeared in the new spot and delivered a pointed message aimed at El-Sayed's record. Beamer endorsed Rogers this week as the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, lending the weight of a Gold Star, era family to a Michigan contest that has increasingly turned on questions of patriotism and political associations.
Rogers, a former FBI agent and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has made El-Sayed's past 9/11 commentary a central line of attack against the former public health official. The new ad sharpens that focus by putting a face and a family legacy behind the criticism, one tied directly to the passengers who fought back against al Qaeda hijackers on the morning of September 11, 2001.
In the ad, Beamer responded to the rhetoric that has dogged El-Sayed's campaign, including the Democrat's association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who said in 2019 that "America deserved 9/11." El-Sayed has repeatedly stumped with Piker and later disavowed that specific remark, but the connection has remained a liability.
Beamer's words in the spot were measured but unmistakable. Referring to such statements, he said:
"A citizen, I guess, has a free will and a right to say that. An American would not."
He went further, framing the broader stakes in generational terms:
"So with every generation, the responsibility is to carry on, because America didn't just happen. America was built. America was protected, and that's what it takes."
Beamer also urged Michigan voters to "vote America this time", a phrase that doubles as an endorsement of Rogers and a challenge to El-Sayed's fitness for the seat. El-Sayed has drawn criticism from members of both parties over his ties to Piker and his broader positioning on national security issues.
The ad and Rogers' own remarks lean heavily on the documented record of what happened aboard Flight 93. On the morning of September 11, four al Qaeda hijackers seized control of the Newark-to-San Francisco flight. As passengers learned, through phone calls to loved ones and operators on the ground, that other hijacked planes had already struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they made the decision to fight back.
Todd Beamer spoke with GTE Airfone operator Lisa Jefferson during the hijacking. He told Jefferson the plane had been hijacked and that passengers were preparing to confront the attackers. Jefferson later recalled hearing passengers discuss their plan to subdue the hijackers shortly before the counterattack began, the New York Post reported.
Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the plane had been headed toward Washington, D.C., with the hijackers' likely objective being either the Capitol or the White House. The Commission found that the passengers' actions "saved the lives of countless others" by preventing the aircraft from reaching its intended target.
Rogers told the Post that Todd Beamer "was an American hero who courageously stood up and faced down evil," adding that "Todd's selfless actions saved countless lives."
El-Sayed's vulnerability on this issue is not new, but it has intensified as the anniversary nears. He made several since-deleted social media posts referencing the 9/11 attacks. Those posts reportedly compared COVID-19 fatalities to 9/11 death tolls and noted anti-Muslim sentiment that followed the attacks.
El-Sayed has pushed back on the scrutiny, emphasizing that he considers 9/11 a terrible disaster. But the deletion of the posts has itself become part of the story, raising questions about whether he was trying to distance himself from remarks he knew would be politically damaging. His campaign has faced sustained criticism over those deleted posts and past comments, and the pattern has given Rogers and his allies a recurring opening.
The association with Piker compounds the problem. Piker's 2019 declaration that "America deserved 9/11" is the kind of statement that, once attached to a candidate through repeated joint appearances, does not wash off with a disavowal. El-Sayed chose to campaign alongside Piker. Voters can weigh whether the subsequent disavowal reflects a genuine disagreement or a political calculation made after the liability became clear.
Rogers has not been subtle about exploiting the opening. "We have a state to save, and David knows it," he told the Post, linking Beamer's endorsement to the broader argument that Michigan needs leadership with an unambiguous posture on national security and American identity.
The timing of the ad is deliberate. With the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, the national mood will turn, however briefly, toward remembrance, sacrifice, and the question of what Americans owe to the memory of that day. Rogers is betting that voters in Michigan will look at El-Sayed's record on 9/11-related speech and find it wanting.
That bet carries weight because it is not built on abstraction. David Beamer is not a political operative. He is a father who lost a son in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil, a son whose actions, documented in FBI interview records and the 9/11 Commission report, helped prevent an even greater catastrophe. When Beamer speaks about what it means to be an American, the words carry a moral authority that no campaign consultant can manufacture.
El-Sayed, meanwhile, faces pressure from multiple directions. Michigan Jewish leaders have confronted him with pointed questions about his positions, and progressive Democrats in the state have drawn scrutiny for the way they deploy faith and identity on the campaign trail.
Rogers' background as a former FBI agent and former House Intelligence Committee chairman gives him a natural platform to press national-security arguments. Pairing that résumé with Beamer's endorsement creates a contrast El-Sayed will struggle to neutralize, not because the attack is unfair, but because the underlying facts are on the record. El-Sayed campaigned with a man who said America deserved 9/11. He posted about the attacks in terms he later felt compelled to delete. Those are choices, and choices have consequences in a general election.
Progressive candidates across the country have faced questions about whether their rhetoric on American history and foreign policy alienates mainstream voters. In Michigan, critics have accused progressive Democrats of using faith as a campaign prop while advancing platforms that sit uneasily with the values of the congregations they court.
El-Sayed's path to the Senate runs through a state where patriotism is not a punchline and where the memory of 9/11 still carries real weight with voters old enough to remember exactly where they were that morning. Rogers and David Beamer are making sure those voters remember what El-Sayed said, and what he deleted.
When the father of a man who charged a cockpit full of hijackers tells you someone's words disqualify them, that is not a campaign talking point. That is a verdict earned the hardest way possible.
