Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) used an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday to accuse Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democrat running for U.S. Senate, of harboring antisemitic views and maintaining ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The exchange began when host Sean Hannity raised El-Sayed’s friendship with commentator Hasan Piker, asking how El-Sayed could be “a viable candidate for the Democratic Party.”
Cruz responded by naming El-Sayed alongside Texas Democratic candidate James Talarico as what he called the two most radical candidates in the country.
“El-Sayed — it’s not complicated. He hates Israel. He hates Jews. I think this man is an open antisemite,” Cruz said.
Cruz noted that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders have backed El-Sayed’s candidacy, while criticizing El-Sayed for not distancing himself from Piker, whom Cruz accused of using a racial slur against African-Americans and saying, in Cruz’s words, that “America deserved 9/11.”
Cruz also pointed to a recent appearance by El-Sayed on “Meet the Press,” during which El-Sayed was asked about his family’s alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and denied any such ties. Cruz called that denial a lie, invoking the late moderator Tim Russert and saying “the evidence is overwhelming.”
According to Cruz, El-Sayed has written op-eds defending and advocating for the Muslim Brotherhood, and urged former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to “purge the press and purge the police” after Morsi took power. Cruz said El-Sayed’s sister has tweeted that the family has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood, and claimed the largest donor to the biggest super PAC backing El-Sayed is his father-in-law, whom Cruz identified as the founder of an Islamic organization named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case — a prosecution over the funneling of more than $12 million to Hamas for terrorist activities.
“I believe this man is Muslim Brotherhood,” Cruz said.
Cruz went on to warn that if El-Sayed were elected, he would automatically be deemed to hold a security clearance as a matter of constitutional office, without the vetting process other officials undergo. Cruz raised the possibility that Schumer could place El-Sayed on the Senate Intelligence Committee, giving him access to highly classified material.
“I believed if that were to happen, there would be an unacceptably high risk that American servicemen and women, their lives would be endangered and that our covert intelligence assets, their lives would be endangered because there’s every reason to believe Abdul El-Sayed would share that classified information with Muslim Brotherhood terrorists,” Cruz said.
El-Sayed is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan. The claims above reflect statements made by Cruz during the broadcast; they have not been independently verified in this report.
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