Marisa Kabas
Role at the time: Journalist and author of The Handbasket
Condemned
Statement summary
Kabas characterizes the question as an attempt to generate negative publicity rather than a good-faith inquiry about El-Sayed's beliefs.
“Then, on October 17th, Tommy asked his question in Caro, implying that El-Sayed had to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood simply because he’s a Muslim. Without knowing Tommy’s background and the effort by America Next to stoke controversy around El-Sayed’s public town halls, this might have seemed like an honest question, asked in good faith. Instead, it quickly appeared to be an inorganic attempt to generate negative publicity for El-Sayed.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Marisa Kabas criticizes the El-Sayed town-hall question · Marisa KabasBylined article
Why we used this label
Kabas argues that the question implies El-Sayed must disavow the group because he is Muslim and characterizes it as a publicity attempt rather than a good-faith inquiry.