Cheers erupted Saturday night during a town hall in Caro, Michigan, after Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed fired back against an attendee who admittedly assumed the Muslim candidate would have “dual loyalties” if elected to Congress.
“I have one simple question. Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” asked a town hall attendee who identified himself as Tommy, referencing the Sunni Islamist organization that the United States designated as a terrorist group earlier this year.
El-Sayed said that he “absolutely” disavowed the group, but pressed Tommy on why he asked the question.
“What are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?” El-Sayed asked.
Tommy said that he did assume El-Sayed would not disavow the Muslim Brotherhood because he had “not heard [El-Sayed] disavow them yet.”
“Have you disavowed them? I haven’t heard you disavow them,” El-Sayed fired back. “Have you asked everybody in your life if they disavow them?”
Tommy admitted that he had not asked everyone in his life whether they disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, leading El-Sayed to deliver the attendee a fierce lecture.
“You’re asking the question because implicitly you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties,” El-Sayed said, a suspicion that Tommy confirmed as accurate.
To illustrate what he argued was the flaw in Tommy’s assumption, El-Sayed cited scrutiny that former President John F. Kennedy faced as the first Catholic president. Kennedy was accused of having “dual loyalties” to both the United States and the Vatican.
Furthermore, El-Sayed cited the religious protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution for Americans to practice however they so choose, and pressed Tommy on whether he objected to Republican-led efforts to incorporate Christian religious doctrine into U.S. law.
“So I’m gonna ask you, do you disavow any attempt to read any religious doctrine into the laws of our country?” El-Sayed asked.
Tommy said that he did not disavow such efforts.
“You don’t disavow that? So I think it’s you who needs to understand the Constitution, not me,” El-Sayed said, sparking cheers from the audience as Tommy left the room.
The progressive news outlet The Tennessee Holler championed El-Sayed for “skillfully” handling what it described as a “bigoted [Islamophobic] heckler,” and for exposing Tommy as what it called “the true religious zealot in the room.”
Prominent liberal influencer Brian Krassenstein said that “every bigot in America needs to listen” to El-Sayed’s exchange “three times,” and countless others described El-Sayed’s response as “amazing” or “so d--- good.”
“This is how you dismantle hate,” wrote singer-songwriter Bill Madden. “When an Islamophobe bigot targeted his faith and questioned his loyalty, Abdul El-Sayed delivered a masterful response — invoking John F. Kennedy's historic legacy to firmly declare where his true allegiance lies.”
This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his. https://t.co/p09eMtsh0x
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) October 18, 2026