Tiana Lowe Doescher and Lulu Garcia-Navarro/CNN
New York Times journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro grew visibly exasperated during a CNN panel discussion after conservative commentator Tiana Lowe Doescher kept pressing claims tying Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The panel, led by anchor Audie Cornish, was discussing whether former President Barack Obama, who was dogged for years by Donald Trump’s racist birther conspiracy theories, was the right person to campaign for El-Sayed, who has faced attacks from the current president labeling him a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member."
Doescher argued that El-Sayed’s case is “a little different” from birtherism, arguing that his mother “was allegedly in the Muslim Brotherhood” and said it was “reasonable to ask someone if you disavow that.”
Cornish noted that El-Sayed had already done exactly that when a voter asked him directly.
Doescher was unmoved, calling his answer “a little milquetoast” and arguing that Obama could serve as a “human meat shield” for El-Sayed because the former president is “probably the most popular politician still alive.”
“Not probably, actually,” Garcia-Navarro cut in.
Garcia-Navarro then tried to steer the conversation toward El-Sayed’s campaign message. She said he had cleverly connected criticism of AIPAC to the wider problem of money in politics, a theme she said Democrats nationwide have been “hammering” with unusual message discipline.
Doescher interrupted to bring up El-Sayed’s “2012 letter supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“That is a complete misunderstanding of what he did,” Garcia-Navarro shot back. “That was not a letter supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. Do you know the United States position with the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 and 2012? Do you know what it was?”
Doescher said she did, and that she thought the policy was wrong.
“You can think it was wrong or it wasn’t,” Garcia-Navarro replied. She explained that after the Arab Spring, the U.S. government’s position was to engage with the legitimately elected leaders of a country it had a relationship with.
When Doescher brought up a press crackdown, Garcia-Navarro waved off the detour.
“I’m not taking a position on what the United States government should or should not have been,” she said. “I’m just saying that he was in lockstep with what the elected government of the United States was doing at the time.”
Then she landed her main point.
“Republicans constantly want to bring us back to 2011 and litigate something that most people don’t really have any idea about,” Garcia-Navarro said. “Most regular Americans, I don’t think, have any sense of what Obama’s foreign policy was towards Egypt.”
Doescher replied that El-Sayed wants a seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Garcia-Navarro said he also talks about “the things that people care about,” such as affordability, and that Democrats’ closing message is “us against them.”
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