CNN host forced to intervene as tense El-Sayed Muslim Brotherhood debate goes off rails

A CNN panel discussion about Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s response to questions about the Muslim Brotherhood got so heated that the moderator had to step in.

The segment followed a tense moment at a Saturday town hall in Caro, Michigan, where an attendee repeatedly pressed El-Sayed about the Islamist political movement.

“Abdul, will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” the man shouted from the crowd.

El-Sayed disavowed the group, then turned on the man for implicitly questioning his loyalty.

“You assume … that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution,” El-Sayed said. “For me, that Constitution is the guiding light.”

The man walked out as the crowd cheered.

El-Sayed could become the first Muslim elected to the Senate. He has faced attacks from his GOP opponent, Mike Rogers, and President Donald Trump after 2012 tweets from his half-sister resurfaced. In one, she described “an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college.” El-Sayed has denied that he or his family has ties to the organization. He has said he was 3 years old when his parents divorced and that he was raised by his father and stepmother.

On CNN, Axios correspondent Sara Fischer praised his answer, saying that his describing the Constitution as his “guiding light” positioned El-Sayed “as being obviously America first,” while former congressional staffer Kurt Bardella compared the moment to John F. Kennedy, who was asked whether his Catholic faith meant his allegiance would be to the pope.

The panel then turned to Rogers, who has defended the line of questioning.

“He wants to play the victim. This is not about that,” Rogers said in a clip aired during the segment. “This is about the way you think, not the way you pray.” Rogers also claimed El-Sayed “didn’t disavow it” and accused him of a “word salad,” even though El-Sayed had disavowed the group at the town hall.

“The idea, again, that you would be somehow tethered to someone that divorced when you were 3 years old,” Bardella said.

“It’s your mother, who you wrote about in your memoir, and how close you are,” interjected the Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe Doescher.

“Who didn’t raise you,” Bardella continued. “Like, I just think that that’s a real challenge to make that like, oh, what your mom did in the '70s when she was in college.”

Doescher interrupted again, pointing out that El-Sayed’s half-sister had posted in 2012 that she had discussed their mother’s “activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college.”

“His half-sister?” Bardella countered. “His half-sister, yeah.”

“Most people are fairly close with their half-sisters,” Doescher replied.

“They are?” Bardella asked.

That’s when host Audie Cornish stepped in to cut them off.

“All right,” she said. “You’re both wading into territory you don’t know.”

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