Abdul El-Sayed tried to shut down Bret Baier Friday as the Fox News host attempted to ask the Michigan Senate hopeful a question about the Muslim Brotherhood.
The polarizing Democrat immediately got defensive and repeatedly interrupted Baier during an interview on âSpecial Reportâ as the newsman pressed him on a 2012 letter addressed to the leader of the extremist group in Egypt that was signed by El-Sayed.
âBret, Bret ⦠no, no, no ⦠let me just stop there,â El-Sayed interjected, cutting off Baier before he could finish the question.
âYou are asking this question to raise the question about whether or not I have dual loyalty,â the former public health official assumed.
Baier shot back: âIâm not, this is specific.â
âMy loyalty will be to the Constitution of the United States, and as as every senator who’s ever served, I will swear an oath to that Constitution,â El-Sayed said, interrupting the host again.
Undeterred, Baier attempted to ask the question once more, but El-Sayed, again, started talking over the journalist.
âIâm not interested in anything youâre going to pull out from a 2012 statement, a letter, youâre going to pull that out of context, youâre going to ask questions about my allegiance,â he said.
âDon’t be Rogers’ campaign. Be a journalist,â El-Sayed snapped.
âSo as a journalist,â he told Baier condescendingly, âif 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 a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I am interested in serving the United States. I’m interested in swearing an oath to the Constitution that every senator has sworn oath to.â
The 2012 letter, signed by El-Sayed and more than 30 others, urged Mohamed Morsi, the then-newly crowned president of Egypt and a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood, to âpurgeâ the media and police, the Washington Free Beacon first reported last month.
The letter was published on Egyptian news site Al-Ahram Gate and was followed by a cruel crackdown on journalists in Egypt by Morsiâs government.
In a separate interview with Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, the former congressman argued that El-Sayed didnât “disavow” the Muslim Brotherhood in his contentious conversation with Baier.
“He’s been dancing around this issue for a while,” Rogers said.
âWhen you support an organization and say you’re going to purge the press and purge the police, not to say it, encourage them to do it ⦠he has adopted the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood,â the Republican argued.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a designated terrorist organization by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates â but not the US.
The group is controversial in part because of its radical offshoots such as Hamas.
El-Sayedâs parents were Egyptian immigrants and the Democratâs half-sister touted their familyâs ties to the Brotherhood in resurfaced tweets from 2012.
El-Sayed has accused his opponent of making his Muslim faith a campaign issue, which Rogers has denied.
âIt is not how he prays; it’s how he thinks,â Rogers told Baier.
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