Hosts of the “Pod Save America” podcast, a show run by former staffers of President Barack Obama, spent part of a recent episode debating how Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has responded to questions about his family’s alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The discussion centered on an October 17 town hall, where an audience member asked El-Sayed whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed disavowed the group, then pushed back on the questioner, saying, “You’re asking the question because implicitly, you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties, right? You assume that I wouldn’t disavow, or that I’ll have some higher order allegiance than to the Constitution, correct? Tommy, is that what you imply?”
Questions about the El-Sayed family’s history with the Muslim Brotherhood surfaced after the Washington Free Beacon reported on social media posts from El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, describing her family’s connection to the organization, including that of her and El-Sayed’s mother.
On the podcast, co-host Jon Favreau said he found Republican attacks linking El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood through his family to be unfair, but argued the GOP was using the issue deliberately because many voters know little about the organization.
“It’s somewhat smarter for them to throw out the Muslim Brotherhood thing because it’s like, ‘This is a new piece of information that people might have no idea what the Muslim Brotherhood is,'” Favreau said. “‘Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it?’ ‘Terrorist organization.’ ‘Maybe you don’t know the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.’ ‘Maybe it’s got foreign ties to Egypt and he, you know, his family, his family’s from Egypt.'”
Favreau said El-Sayed’s answer at the town hall, while effective in knocking down the premise of the question, carried too much of an edge toward voters who might have sincere concerns rather than bigoted ones.
“You’ve got to forget about the a–hole asking you the question,” Favreau said. “You’ve got to give the answer as if someone who might have a question about a Muslim Brotherhood tie is not necessarily like totally Islamophobic… and you don’t want to condescend to that person.”
He added that he wasn’t accusing El-Sayed of doing that outright. “I thought it was a good — I thought he could have used like 20% less condescension in the answer,” Favreau said.
Co-host Tommy Vietor agreed the tone could have been softer, saying, “There’s a slightly more empathetic version of that.” Fellow host Jon Lovett put it more bluntly: “Stop fighting with that guy and speak to the people that are not.”
Favreau, who worked for Obama, said he understood the frustration candidates feel when their loyalty is questioned but argued that politicians don’t have the luxury of showing that frustration publicly.
“You can say this from the cheap seats because I am sure when you are Abdul, and you’re going around doing this and there are people who are f—ing just calling into question your loyalty to your country that you love, it must f—ing infuriate you,” Favreau said. “And it’s not fair that what he has to do in response is to eat s— and just give a nice answer with a smile.”
Favreau compared the situation to past moments faced by Obama and by New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, saying public figures from certain backgrounds face a double standard but still have to manage it to win elections.
Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Jesse Arm, vice president of external affairs at the Manhattan Institute and a former pollster tracking the Michigan Senate race, argued that El-Sayed’s demeanor could be hurting him relative to the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee.
“The ‘Pod Save America’ guys are partisan hacks who bend over backward to excuse El-Sayed’s radicalism and dismiss legitimate scrutiny as bigotry. But even they recognize that his nastiness and condescension are deeply off-putting,” Arm said. “And if even his most sympathetic defenders can see it, imagine how he comes across to ordinary Michigan voters. This is a big part of the reason he’s poised to dramatically underperform the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee.”
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