Abdul El-Sayed heckler exposed as ex-GOP staffer with ‘Christian nationalist ties’: report

The attendee who pressed Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood at a tense town hall this weekend was exposed as a former GOP staffer with “Christian nationalist ties,” journalist Marisa Kabas reported.Saturday in Caro, Michigan, an attendee who identified himself as Tommy asked El-Sayed, who is Muslim, if he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sunni Islamist organization that the Trump administration designated as a terrorist group earlier this year. El-Sayed said he “absolutely” disavowed the group, but pressed Tommy on his motivation for the question. After a tense back-and-forth, Tommy admitted that he suspected El-Sayed would have dual loyalties — a longstanding Islamophobic trope that casts Muslims’ faith as overriding their loyalty to the United States.As first reported by Kabas on her Substack The Handbasket, Tommy was actually Thomas Teepell, who previously served as operations director for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) until February of this...