Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has twice in a matter of days compared the scrutiny he faces over alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood to the religious bias John F. Kennedy confronted during his 1960 presidential run — a comparison that critics are calling both historically strained and politically convenient.
The Daily Wire, in a commentary by Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow at The Catholic Association, argued that El-Sayed’s invocation of JFK is a deliberate rhetorical move: by framing questions about his allegiances as religious bigotry, he implies his critics are bigots and places legitimate concerns out of bounds.
The exchange that started it
During a live television appearance, MS NOW correspondent Ali Velshi asked El-Sayed about the recurring questions surrounding the Muslim Brotherhood, terrorism, and radical Islamism, and how he would respond to them.
El-Sayed answered by saying the point of the question was to insinuate that he holds dual loyalties. He then reached for Kennedy, noting that when JFK ran for president, he was asked whether his allegiance would lie with the Constitution or with the Pope and the Vatican, because he would have been the first Catholic president.
According to the Daily Wire account, that parallel is the crux of the problem. The outlet characterized the comparison between concerns about allegiance to a terrorist network and 1960-era concerns about allegiance to Rome as “shaky” at best — and, in its view, “stunningly offensive.”
A family record under scrutiny
The commentary laid out a series of allegations it says form the basis of the questions El-Sayed fields. Among them: that his biological mother worked for an organization that financed terrorism, allegedly wiring funds to Osama bin Laden in the run-up to September 11; that his half-sister has described the family as having long been Muslim Brotherhood while criticizing how the movement has navigated politics; that his sister-in-law appeared on a terrorist watch list; and that his father-in-law has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The piece also states that El-Sayed has voiced support for a Muslim Brotherhood candidate in Egypt, whom he reportedly urged to “purge” the media and police. It further alleges that his primary victory was celebrated online by the Muslim Brotherhood and that he accepted money from the organization and other terrorist affiliates — one of whom, the outlet says, openly celebrated Hamas’s October 7 massacre and denied Israel’s right to self-defense. These are the outlet’s characterizations of the candidate’s record and associations.
On that basis, the Daily Wire argues that the questions El-Sayed faces are not rooted in the anti-Catholic animus Kennedy endured, but in specific, documented concerns about support for and family ties to terrorism. McGuire’s argument is that treating the two as equivalent isn’t just an insult to history — it makes a mockery of religious freedom by recasting scrutiny of conduct as discrimination against a faith.
Deflection at town halls
The commentary points to El-Sayed’s handling of direct questions as evidence he is unwilling to demonstrate trustworthiness to the electorate asking for it.
When a young man at a town hall asked whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed reportedly turned the question back on him, asking why he was posing it and whether he had asked everyone in his own life whether they disavow anyone.
The piece compares that to an earlier exchange with Jesse Watters, who asked El-Sayed to explain his stated view that getting rid of sharia law amounts to white supremacy. El-Sayed responded by asking Watters whether he knew what canon law is.
The Daily Wire’s conclusion is that El-Sayed’s campaign is not a replay of 1960 but a test of whether a candidate will answer serious allegations — and that, so far, he has chosen to deflect them by borrowing a martyr’s mantle instead.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/abdul-el-sayed-youre-no-jack-kennedy