Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed appeared on “The View” Thursday and revived his campaign challenge to President Trump: He is willing to pass through a metal detector if Trump agrees to take a lie-detector test.
“I’ll do a metal detector all day because I got nothing to hide,” the progressive Democrat told the panel, two days after defeating former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). “But Donald, if you’re watching, lie detector still on the table.”
El-Sayed made the appeal after co-host Sunny Hostin suggested that Trump watches the program occasionally.
At 42, El-Sayed will become the first Muslim to serve in the US Senate.
The dispute over metal detectors began at an Oct. 25 rally in Port Huron, where Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and said he “would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”
Several days later, at a rally in Kalamazoo, El-Sayed said he would submit to security screening at the Capitol every day if Trump took a polygraph. He said his first questions would concern deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and whether Trump won the 2020 election.
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Hostin also cited other attacks El-Sayed faced during the campaign, including Vice President JD Vance’s August claim that there was something “very, very evil” about him and the insult Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) directed at him: “jihadist leprechaun.”
“I want a hat!” El-Sayed joked in response.
Cruz coined the phrase at a campaign stop outside Detroit, where he also attempted to link El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed has repeatedly denied having any connection to the Islamist organization and said he rejects its views.
El-Sayed said the attention directed at his faith reflected the lack of substantive arguments his opponents had presented on the issues.
“If they had something to say about the price of gas or the price of groceries or the fact that people can’t see a doctor, they would have said it,” he said.
El-Sayed appeared on “The View” one day after Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-Tex.), making them the second and third Democrats to visit the program this week after winning Senate seats.