El-Sayed disavows Muslim Brotherhood at Michigan town hall, rejects “dual loyalty” charge

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood during a heated exchange at a town hall in Caro, Michigan, on Saturday, after an attendee repeatedly pressed him to reject the organization, CNN reported.

“Abdul, will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” the man shouted from the crowd, according to the report. After disavowing the movement, El-Sayed blasted the question's implicit assumption of “dual loyalty,” saying: “You assume ... that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution.” He later added, “For me, that Constitution is the guiding light.” The attendee walked out as the crowd cheered, CNN reported.

El-Sayed, who could become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, has faced repeated Republican accusations of ties to the organization, including from his GOP challenger Mike Rogers and President Donald Trump, after old tweets by his half-sister resurfaced describing her mother's activism in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the early 1970s, the report said.

Earlier in the week, El-Sayed called it “an insane thing to assume” that anyone in his family belonged to the organization, telling reporters he does not know what his mother was doing in Egypt at the time, having been raised by his father and stepmother after his parents divorced when he was 3, CNN reported. “I'm running for office. Judge me by my actions and my work,” he said Thursday.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist movement founded in Egypt that officially rejects violence, though offshoots have been linked to attacks, the report noted, adding that Trump signed an executive order in November initiating a process under which certain chapters of the organization could be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Speaking on MSNOW on Sunday, El-Sayed suggested the questions are rooted in bigotry: “To insinuate that somehow, because of my Muslim faith, as somebody who might be the first senator who has that faith, that I would have anything but allegiance to the Constitution, that should be called into question,” he said, according to CNN.