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.
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 year.
Teepell’s father is Timmy Teepell, a GOP strategist who worked for former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal through his climb from congressman to governor. Jindal is the founder of America Next, a conservative PAC that, according to The Michigan Daily, offered Republican college students $200 to travel to an El-Sayed event to “heckle” the Democratic candidate and ask provocative questions.
Found the 4 minute exchange shown in the article on El-Sayed’s BlueSky instead of xitter: https://bsky.app/profile/abdulelsayed.bsky.social/post/3my4gocauzs2x (Another person posted a Mastodon re-up if you prefer that)
It’s worth a watch, it’s so good that you’d think El-Sayed’s campaign tried to set this moment up yet in fact it’s the right-wing provocateur that came in thinking they could get soundbites insinuating Abdul is a terrorist, but went away with their clock cleaned instead.