Ted Cruz called Abdul El-Sayed a ‘jihadist leprechaun,’ and now the first Muslim elected to the Senate has told ‘The View,’ ‘I want a hat!’

Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed joked “I want a hat!” on The View after co-host Sunny Hostin brought up Sen. Ted Cruz calling him a “jihadist leprechaun,” as reported by Variety. The appearance came two days after the 42-year-old Democrat defeated Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate.

El-Sayed reflected on rhetoric he said targeted his Muslim faith during the final weeks of his campaign and credited Michigan voters with rejecting it. “They weren’t attacking me. They were attacking the idea of an America big enough for me,” he told the co-hosts. He added, “I didn’t take a bet on my abilities or anything. I took a bet on the goodness of the people of Michigan.”

Hostin also read out a remark from Vice President JD Vance, who suggested there was something “very, very evil” about El-Sayed. She then brought up President Donald Trump’s October campaign rally in Michigan, where Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and suggested he would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.” Trump also referenced the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while urging voters to reject the Democratic candidate.

He took the insults in stride

El-Sayed, who mentioned AIPAC in his Michigan Senate victory speech, said the attacks were not about policy. “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’ve said it,” he said. “But they didn’t have anything to say.”

He also spoke about what he called “red meat” politics. “I kind of knew they were gonna reach for the red meat,” he said, adding that the approach “becomes an addiction.” He continued, “Once you go there and you put that out there, then you’re forced to defend it. So what do they do? They double down. They triple down again.”

Responding to Trump’s metal detector remark, El-Sayed repeated a challenge he first issued at a campaign rally in Kalamazoo last week. “I’ll do a metal detector test all day because I have nothing to hide,” he said, before addressing the president directly: “Donald, if you’re watching, a lie detector is still on the table.”

El-Sayed’s win helped Democrats regain control of the Senate, according to Al Jazeera. Michigan is home to a large Arab American community, and the outlet reported that early results showed El-Sayed also performed well with Black voters in Detroit.