The Dr. Oz Muslim comparison accidentally demolishes the Left’s own argument

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A viral post claims MAGA’s support for Muslim Republican Mehmet Oz exposes hypocrisy in its opposition to Abdul El-Sayed.
But conservatives backed Oz’s Republican platform—not his religion. El-Sayed supports Medicare for All, abolishing ICE and ending U.S. military aid to Israel.

A progressive social-media personality believes she has uncovered a five-alarm MAGA contradiction: Republicans supported Mehmet Oz, a Muslim, for the U.S. Senate in 2022 but now fiercely oppose Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who is also Muslim.

“Funny how Dr. Oz being Muslim never bothered MAGA,” Jamie Bonkiewicz wrote in a viral X post.

She added:

“But Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed being Muslim justifies their attacks.”

There are unquestionably people who attack Muslim candidates because of their religion, and conservatives should reject that garbage when it appears. A candidate’s faith is not proof of disloyalty, radicalism or sympathy for terrorism.

But Bonkiewicz’s comparison presents a rather large problem for her argument.

If Trump endorsed a Muslim Senate candidate, Republican voters nominated him and MAGA activists spent months trying to elect him, perhaps their principal objection to El-Sayed is not that he attends a mosque.

Perhaps—and stay with me here—it is his politics.

El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, surviving more than $80 million in total spending in what the New York Post described as the most expensive Democratic Senate primary in history.

The margin was much closer than several late polls predicted: fewer than 15,000 votes separated the candidates out of more than 1.5 million cast.

Stevens entered the race with backing from much of Michigan’s Democratic establishment. El-Sayed assembled the progressive coalition, collecting endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

He built his campaign around a three-part slogan:

“Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All.”

El-Sayed now faces Republican Mike Rogers in November for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Michigan remains a genuine battleground: Trump carried it in 2016 and again in 2024, while Rogers lost the state’s 2024 Senate race by fewer than 20,000 votes.

If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim to serve in the United States Senate.

That would be historic. It would also give Michigan a senator substantially to the left of the candidate Democratic leaders initially wanted.

El-Sayed has called for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to be replaced. Schumer backed Stevens. Progressive activists attacked the Democratic establishment throughout the primary.

Naturally, everybody is now pretending the family dinner went beautifully.

After El-Sayed won, Schumer said they had a “great conversation” and joined Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand in a carefully worded statement.

“Democrats are united in our common purpose to defeat Donald Trump’s destructive agenda and lower costs for working families.”

The New York Post characterized Schumer’s support as “tepid,” particularly after El-Sayed previously said he preferred Sen. Chris Van Hollen as Democratic leader. Translation: The unity banquet is underway, but Schumer is keeping one hand on the silverware.

Republican Mike Rogers did not respond to El-Sayed’s victory by declaring that Muslims are ineligible for public office. He attacked what El-Sayed wants to do in office.

“The choice this November is simple: common sense or complete insanity.”

Rogers argues that El-Sayed’s progressive platform is too extreme for a state that has repeatedly swung between Republicans and Democrats.

Fox News reported that El-Sayed has made Medicare for All central to his campaign, called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and advocated ending American military assistance to Israel. He has characterized Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “genocide.”

Those positions—not the candidate’s prayer schedule—will drive the Republican campaign. El-Sayed insists he is not a socialist despite his endorsements from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.

“Because I’m simply not a socialist,” he told an interviewer, according to Fox News. “I believe in science. For me, you got to bring results.”

He describes Medicare for All, corporate-tax increases and government intervention in housing as practical responses to an economy that has become unaffordable for working people.

We call it socialism with better branding.

Bonkiewicz is correct about one important biographical fact: Mehmet Oz is Muslim.

Oz was born in Cleveland to Turkish immigrant parents. He described himself as a secular Muslim influenced by Sufi traditions. His religious background was widely reported throughout the 2022 campaign.

Fox News reported at the time that Oz would become the country’s first Muslim senator if he defeated Democrat John Fetterman.

Trump endorsed him. Republican voters nominated him. Conservative activists campaigned for him.

Oz even publicly confronted anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican primary opponent Kathy Barnette. After a 2015 social-media post attributed to Barnette called pedophilia a cornerstone of Islam, Oz denounced the remark.

“It’s reprehensible that she would tweet out something that is defamatory to an entire religion,” Oz said, according to Fox News.

He argued that Pennsylvania was founded upon religious liberty and said Americans of every faith deserved equal treatment. Republican voters proceeded to nominate Oz anyway. His Muslim faith was neither hidden nor treated as automatically disqualifying.

The conservative case for Oz was based on what he promised to do. Oz campaigned on stronger border enforcement, lower taxes, domestic energy production, tougher crime policies and opposition to federal COVID mandates. He opposed packing the Supreme Court and portrayed Fetterman as an advocate for the Democratic Party’s radical wing.

El-Sayed is running on almost the opposite platform.

Same religion. Different candidates. Different policies. Different election.

MAGA’s support for Oz was hardly unanimous. Many conservatives distrusted him over earlier positions on guns, abortion and transgender medical procedures.

Other Republicans questioned his connections to Turkey, his dual citizenship, his relationship with Turkish Airlines and whether the longtime television host had developed convenient conservative convictions shortly before running for office.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly raised national-security questions about Oz’s Turkish ties. Trump-backed Republican activists debated whether Oz was sufficiently conservative. David McCormick forced him into an exceptionally close primary recount.

In other words, Republicans scrutinized Oz. But the central argument was whether he was conservative enough—not whether a Muslim could serve in the Senate.

One of the sharpest recent policy stories surrounding El-Sayed involves his signature issue.

El-Sayed demands Medicare for All, saying health care should not depend upon employment and should be guaranteed “from cradle to grave.”

Yet Fox News reported that his wife’s private psychiatry practice operated outside insurance networks and previously stated that it did not accept insurance. Fox also reported that the couple disclosed nearly $686,000 in income for 2025.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not dispute the reported structure of the practice. His wife did not respond to Fox’s requests for comment.

There may be defensible professional reasons for a psychiatrist to remain outside Medicare and private-insurance networks. Even Fox noted that psychiatrists have one of the highest Medicare nonparticipation rates among medical specialties.

But the contradiction is politically irresistible: The candidate wants every American enrolled in a government health plan that apparently cannot persuade the psychiatrist at his own breakfast table to participate.

Again, no theological debate is required. Conservatives already have all the material they need.

Bonkiewicz also invoked New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, another Muslim progressive opposed by Trump and conservative media.

Mamdani is a democratic socialist who has championed aggressive rent controls, government-operated grocery stores, taxpayer-funded services and major tax increases on wealthy residents and corporations.

Conservatives would oppose that platform if it were introduced by a Southern Baptist named Earl who owned three bass boats and concluded every speech with “God bless Texas.”

A candidate’s religion does not immunize his policies from criticism.

Some attacks on Mamdani and El-Sayed unquestionably cross the line. Those attacks should be confronted on their own terms. But labeling every conservative objection “Islamophobia” does not combat prejudice. It converts a serious accusation into a partisan coupon code.

El-Sayed is asking voters to give him power over taxes, health care, immigration, judges, military aid and trillions of dollars in federal spending.

Voters are allowed to inspect the merchandise.

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