Abdul El-Sayed tried to silence Bret Baier on Friday as the Fox News host attempted to ask the Michigan Senate a question about the Muslim Brotherhood.
The polarizing Democrat immediately went on the defensive and repeatedly interrupted Baier during an interview on “Special Report” as the reporter pressed him to talk about a 2012 letter to the extremist group’s leader in Egypt signed by El-Sayed.
“Bret, Bret… no, no, no… let me stop there,” El-Sayed interjected, cutting Baier off before he could finish his question.
“You ask that question to raise the question of whether or not I have dual loyalties,” the former public health official surmised.
Baier retorted: “I’m not, that’s specific.”
“My loyalty will be to the Constitution of the United States, and like every senator who has ever served, I will take an oath to that Constitution,” El-Sayed said, interrupting the host again.
Undeterred, Baier tried to ask the question again, but El-Sayed began talking over the reporter again.
“I’m not interested in anything that you’re going to take from a 2012 statement, a letter, you’re going to take that out of context, you’re going to ask questions about my allegiance,” he said.
“Don’t be Rogers’ campaign. Be a journalist,” El-Sayed said.
“So, as a journalist,” he condescendingly told Baier, “if you ask the question of my allegiance to the Constitution: I have never been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I will never be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I wish to serve the United States. I wish to take an oath to the Constitution that every senator has sworn an oath to.”
The 2012 letter, signed by El-Sayed and more than 30 others, urged Mohamed Morsi, then-new Egyptian president and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to “purge” the media and police, the Washington Free Beacon first reported last month.
The letter was published on the Egyptian news site Al-Ahram Gate and was followed by a cruel crackdown on journalists in Egypt by Morsi’s government.
In a separate interview with Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, the former congressman argued that El-Sayed did not “disavow” the Muslim Brotherhood in his controversial conversation with Baier.
“It’s been circling around this issue for a while,” Rogers said.
“When you support an organization and say you’re going to purge the press and the police, not to mention encourage them to do it… he has adopted the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood,” the Republican argued.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization designated by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – but not the United States.
The group is controversial in part because of its radical offshoots such as Hamas.
El-Sayed’s parents were Egyptian immigrants, and the Democrat’s half-sister touted their family’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in resurfaced tweets from 2012.
El-Sayed accused his opponent of making his Muslim faith a campaign issue, which Rogers denied.
“It’s not the way he prays, it’s the way he thinks,” Rogers told Baier.
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