'The View' co-hosts defend El Sayed comparing himself to JFK over Muslim Brotherhood scrutiny
"The View" co-hosts clashed over whether Abdul El-Sayed's family's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are a legitimate concern or Islamophobic questioning.
"The View" co-hosts defended Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over his comparison of questions about his family's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood to scrutiny former President John F. Kennedy faced over his Catholic faith.
El-Sayed made the comparison during an "MS NOW Reports" interview on Saturday, likening questions about his family's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood to scrutiny Kennedy faced over his Catholic faith.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg highlighted an incident at a recent town hall when El-Sayed was asked whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed did so, but objected to the question, saying the audience member was "implicitly assuming that I’ll have dual loyalties."
"I liked what he said. He compared the question he received to John F. Kennedy's question because John F. Kennedy, as you know, was a Catholic, and in the days he was running that was a huge deal and people wanted to know ‘Are you going to listen to the Pope? Are you going to listen to the people?’" Goldberg said.
"Yeah, because he was the first Catholic president," co-host Sunny Hostin agreed. "And I loved that comparison because, when John F. Kennedy was asked, he said, ‘I am not running to be a Catholic president, I'm running to be president who happens to be Catholic.’ And candidate El-Sayed said the same thing. ‘I am running to a senator who happens be Muslim.’"
"I think he does politics extremely well," she continued. "And there has been these constant Islamophobic — these Islamophobic comments around his candidacy. Trump called him a jihadist. I mean, this is just, I think it's out of line. I think it's out of pocket for our country to be a country where all religions aren't welcome. I think that it's really despicable the way he's been treated."
Concerns about El-Sayed's family's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood emerged after social media posts uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon showed El-Sayed's half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, described her family's history with the organization.
In one 2012 post, Abdelhadi described a conversation with her and El-Sayed's mother, Fatten Elkomy, about her involvement with the organization during college in Egypt, saying, "Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect."
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin noted how quickly El-Sayed disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, but said she was still troubled by his response to an antisemitic terror attack in Michigan, arguing that such concerns cannot be disregarded as "Islamophobic." She also pointed to his past campaigning with far-left streamer Hasan Piker.
Fellow co-host Sara Haines argued, "The comparison to JFK isn't quite an equitable comparison, because when you question his loyalty based on his Catholicism, that's different than asking a question about reported ties to a terrorist organization."
She added that while the reported ties involved El-Sayed's family, not El-Sayed himself, the fact that people were framing concern about the Muslim Brotherhood as Islamophobia was making the entire conversation worse.
Co-host Ana Navarro argued that concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood were overblown.
"The Muslim Brotherhood is practically defunct in Egypt. That's like asking him to denounce bell-bottoms," she said.
"To me, this is a binary choice. Do I want somebody that's going to push back on Trump or do I want someone that's gonna rubber-stamp Trump?" Navarro asked. "Well, I want something that's going to demand accountability, that is going to demand oversight, and that's to pushback on the abuses of power that are going on in this country by this administration right now."
Human rights attorney Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project and founder of the #EndJewHatred movement, spoke to Fox News Digital about the segment and criticized Navarro for downplaying the Muslim Brotherhood.
"Nobody asked El-Sayed about his faith," Goldstein said. "He was asked about the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Egyptian and Jordanian chapters were designated as foreign terrorist entities by the Treasury Department this year for materially supporting Hamas, and whose Lebanese chapter was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. Hamas even describes itself as the Brotherhood’s wing — and clearly neither the Brotherhood nor Hamas is 'defunct.'"
"The question El-Sayed deflected — the comparison to Kennedy is inapt because Kennedy actually did answer the question, to a room full of Protestant ministers — is about national security concerns, not religious ones," she continued. "The Kennedy comparison is nothing more than a deflection from unanswered questions about a designated terrorist organization."
"The co-hosts of ‘The View’ are missing the point," Goldstein added. "JFK faced religious prejudice. Questions about Abdul El-Sayed’s alleged family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood raise a different concern: where does a candidate’s loyalty lie, with the United States and its constitutional values, or with a foreign terrorist organization?"
"The evidence cited to raise these concerns is compelling enough to warrant serious scrutiny and direct answers," she said. "Voters have every right to demand transparency when potential connections to Islamist movements are questioned. National security is not bigotry, and invoking discrimination should not end legitimate debate."
"Anytime there’s serious questions into somebody’s affiliation with a terrorist group, they claim religious prejudice," Goldstein continued. "Asking somebody about their ties to a terrorist organization is anti-Islam, what then, is pro-Islam?"
"Meanwhile, DSA candidates are advancing an anti-Western ideological agenda that deserves far more scrutiny. Their radical socialist policies and hostility toward traditional American values risk weakening the institutions and freedoms that made this country exceptional," she said.
Goldstein cited rioting in France as an example of what can happen if such issues aren't taken seriously.
"France is a warning of what can happen when progressive ideology, failed integration policies, and inadequate responses to Islamist extremism collide," she said. "America must not follow that path by handing power to DSA radicals who put ideology ahead of national interests."