‘Just Stop’: El-Sayed Tangles With Fox’s Bret Baier in Tense Interview

Abdul El-Sayed repeatedly talked over Fox News host Bret Baier for asking about allegations regarding the Muslim Brotherhood.

El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, has been hammered by his Republican opponent Mike Rogers over alleged ties to the transnational Islamic movement. Rogers has claimed – without evidence – that El-Sayed has “pledged his support” to the group. Critics of El-Sayed have cited social media posts from his half-sister, who claimed that the “family has long been [Muslim Brotherhood], but that the movement “has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively.” She also posted that her mother engaged in “activism” with the group in the 1970s.

El-Sayed’s parents separated when he was three, and he grew up with neither his mother nor half-sister.

On Friday’s Special Report, Baier spoke with El-Sayed in Detroit, not far from where he was born in the city’s suburbs. Baier brought up Rogers’ Muslim Brotherhood attacks, but did not get very far:

BAIER: Mike Rogers has been really hitting this Muslim Brotherhood thing. I know you don’t want to talk about your family and the history there. But he goes back–

EL-SAYED: Bret, let me just–

BAIER: He goes back to–

EL-SAYED: No, no, no. Let me just stop there. You are asking this question, to raise a question about–

BAIER: I’m not.

EL-SAYED: –about whether or not I have dual loyalty.

BAIER: This is specific. His campaign said today, 2012 statement–

EL-SAYED: My loyalty will be to the Constitution of the United States.

BAIER: Thank you.

EL-SAYED: And as every senator who’s ever served, I will swear an oath to the Constitution.

BAIER: He said his campaign–

EL-SAYED: I’m not interested–

[CROSSTALK]

BAIER: You don’t wanna walk that back?

EL-SAYED: You’re gonna pull that out of context.

BAIER: I’m not pulling it out.

EL-SAYED: You’re gonna ask questions about my allegiance. Let me just be clear.

BAIER: This is Rogers’ campaign. I’m asking you about that.

EL-SAYED: Don’t be Rogers’ campaign.

BAIER: I’m asking a question.

EL-SAYED: Be a journalist.

BAIER: I am.

EL-SAYED: So, as a journalist, if 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. I am interested in serving the United States. I am interested in swearing an oath to the Constitution that every senator has sworn an oath to. If the question about my faith is the issue, which Mike Rogers wants it to be, I think it is sad and beneath him, and frankly beneath the president of the United States to make that an issue because under our Constitution, you’re guaranteed the right to pray as you choose to pray.

Baier then moved on to a new topic.

In 2012, El-Sayed signed an open letter to then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The signers urged Morsi, a U.S. ally, to “purge the media and police” of supporters of the recently ousted dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

Watch above via Fox News.

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