Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed repeatedly pushed back against Fox News anchor Bret Baier over questions about his alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sayed, 41, is running against Republican Mike Rogers, 63, for a Michigan Senate seat in the upcoming midterms and has been the target of repeated allegations that he has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The implication that El-Sayed, who is Muslim, has “dual loyalties” to the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood has been pushed by Rogers’ campaign. The Trump administration has designated certain branches of the organization as terrorist groups.
On Friday, during an on-the-street interview with Baier, El-Sayed didn’t even let the host finish a question about the issue before he began responding.
“Mike Rogers has been really hitting this Muslim Brotherhood thing. I know you don’t want to talk about your family and the history there, but he goes back—” Baier began.
“Let me just stop there,” El-Sayed interjected. “You are asking this question to raise a question about… about whether or not I have dual loyalty.”
Baier said he wanted to ask about a 2012 open letter El-Sayed signed concerning Egypt’s then-president Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, but El-Sayed interrupted him again.
“My loyalty will be to the Constitution of the United States,” El-Sayed said emphatically. “And as every senator who’s ever served, I will swear an oath to the Constitution.”
The two then went back and forth as Baier pressed him on the allegations.
“I’m not interested,” El-Sayed said, again cutting Baier off.
“You don’t wanna walk that back?” Baier pushed.
“You’re going to pull that out of context,” El-Sayed replied. “Don’t be Rogers’ campaign. Be a journalist,” he added.
“I am,” Baier insisted.
El-Sayed again disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood.
“So, as a journalist, if you’re asking the question about my allegiance to the Constitution, I have never been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I never will be. I am interested in serving the United States. I am interested in swearing an oath to the Constitution that every senator has sworn an oath to,” he said.
“If the question about my faith is the issue, which Mike Rogers wants it to be, I think it is sad and beneath him—and frankly beneath the president of the United States—to make that an issue because under our Constitution, you’re guaranteed the right to pray as you choose to pray.”
El-Sayed won a hotly contested primary for the seat currently held by retiring Democrat Gary Peters.
Footage of a young man named “Tommy” challenging El-Sayed to disavow the Brotherhood went viral last weekend, with El-Sayed absolutely dismantling the premise of the question.
Tommy turned out to be Thomas Teepell, a former staffer for Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and for a failed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Kansas.
At the Michigan Senate debate on Wednesday, Rogers again claimed El-Sayed had never disavowed the Brotherhood, despite El-Sayed having done so in the exchange with Teepell just days before.
Recent reporting found no evidence that El-Sayed has been affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He has repeatedly denied any connection
The claims stem from social media posts made by El-Sayed’s estranged half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi.
She claimed the “family has long been [part of the Muslim Brotherhood],” but that the group had “navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively.” She also posted that her mother engaged in “activism” with the group in the 1970s.
El-Sayed’s parents separated when he was 3, and he didn’t grow up with his mother or his half-sister.
El-Sayed has a narrow lead in some polls, with several showing him ahead by just one or two points.
