Michigan Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Abdul El-Sayed responded to a heckler at a recent campaign event who appeared to question his loyalty to the country based solely on his religious beliefs.

El-Sayed, who is Muslim, spoke on Saturday at a campaign event in Caro, Michigan, a Republican-leaning area of the state. A heckler who identified himself as “Tommy” shouted toward the candidate, interrupting the forum by asking El-Sayed if he would “disavow the Muslim Brotherhood.”

El-Sayed has already repeatedly disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, and has fended off myriad attacks against him that have emanated from anti-Muslim voices. He responded to the outburst by questioning why Tommy would ask the question in the first place.

“Sure, yeah, absolutely,” El-Sayed said, according to a video that has now been shared by his campaign. “But I want to ask the question — why are you asking the question? … What are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?”

“Yes,” Tommy responded, rationalizing his action by saying he had not heard El-Sayed distance himself from the group before.

El-Sayed turned the question around on Tommy. “Have you disavowed them? I haven’t heard you disavow them yet,” the candidate pointed out.

“You’re asking the question because, implicitly, you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties, right? You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow, or that I’ll have some higher order of allegiance other than the Constitution,” El-Sayed continued. “Tommy, is that what you imply?”

The heckler responded, “Yes,” to which El-Sayed added: “Why would you think that about me?”

Tommy continued to claim it was because he hadn’t heard El-Sayed expressly disavow the organization. When El-Sayed said that he just did, and continued to press Tommy to actually answer the question, the heckler wouldn’t do so.

“Have you asked everybody in your life if they disavow them?” he said to Tommy, who responded that he hadn’t. El-Sayed asked once more why the question was really asked. Tommy again said it was because he hadn’t personally heard El-Sayed say he disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Everybody knows the answer, Tommy, answer the question,” El-Sayed pressed.

After it became clear that Tommy wouldn’t recognize his bias against Muslims as the basis of the question, El-Sayed redirected the conversation once again, pointing out that he would have to affirm an oath to the Constitution if he is sworn into office.

“I’m going to swear to the Constitution of the United States and that Constitution guarantees us all the right to practice whatever faith we want to or no faith at all,” El-Sayed said.

The Senate candidate also cited the example of President John F. Kennedy, who was attacked for his Catholic faith in the election of 1960. Kennedy famously said he was “not running to be a Catholic president but was running to be president and happened to be Catholic,” El-Sayed reminded Tommy. “I’m not running to be a Muslim senator. I’m running for the U.S. Senate and happen to be Muslim.”

I’m never going to tell you what faith you can or cannot practice. I want to protect your right to practice your faith as you choose as a Christian man. The only question though is that it seems like you don’t want to protect my right to practice as I choose.

He then asked Tommy whether he would disavow any violations of the separation between church and state. Tommy said he wouldn’t.

“I think it’s you who needs to understand the Constitution, not me,” El-Sayed countered.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas has identified “Tommy” as Thomas Teepell, a former aide to Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, reporting that his presence at the event may be part of a larger operation of young Republicans in Michigan working to disrupt events in support of El-Sayed.

The polite but assertive back-and-forth between the candidate and heckler went viral on social media over the weekend, with many analysts praising El-Sayed for his nuanced arguments defending religious freedom and rejecting baseless attacks on his own faith that wrongly insinuate he isn’t qualified to run or has dual loyalties.

Despite El-Sayed’s citations of Kennedy’s arguments and the Constitution’s protections of religious freedom — including Article VI and the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights — some commentators still criticized his response.

Writing on X after the video went viral, CBS News’s chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford sided with Tommy over El-Sayed, complaining that the candidate’s refutation of the Muslim Brotherhood was too abbreviated for her liking.

“I had to watch this twice to catch Dr[.] Abdul El-Sayed’s nanosecond, ‘yeah, absolutely,’ response,” Crawford wrote. “His subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe proving your exact point is the kind of spectacular self own most [people] only dream about triggering. Congrats.”

Crawford later apologized for the tweet, but didn’t acknowledge its errors. “Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall,” she wrote. “I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards. I apologize.”

An urgent fundraising appeal: 72 Hours to raise $31,000

Truthout is one of only a few platforms for justice-oriented, grassroots journalism. Today, we face an existential threat.

Due to Google’s launch of AI search, we’ve seen a drastic plunge in our site traffic and, as a result, our revenue. We lost 15 percent of our readership overnight. This was a readership we painstakingly built over decades, and it vanished because Google chose corporate greed over a healthy democracy.

We are fundraising right now to meet our basic operating expenses. If you can support Truthout with a one-time or monthly donation, you will make a significant impact on our work. Anything you can do makes a difference — we appreciate your support.