'Tommy' from viral El-Sayed video is former Sen. Hawley staffer with Christian nationalist ties

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In the now-viral video, we see a young white man in a gray long-sleeve shirt standing up in a crowd and shouting a question: “Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” He aimed his question at Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a town hall event in Caro, Michigan, on Saturday. From the stage, El-Sayed met it with steely resolve. “Why are you asking the question?” he replied. “What are you implying?” 

For nearly five minutes, El-Sayed questioned the man—who said his name was “Tommy” and identified himself as a Christian—about his understanding of the Constitution and the religious freedom it affords all Americans. He compared the “dual loyalty” question to those asked of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, and asked whether Tommy would disavow any attempts to read religion into the Constitution. Tommy refused, rejecting El-Sayed’s point that the Constitution allows us all to worship any god, or none at all. After outing himself as a bad-faith interlocutor, Tommy sullenly left the room.

The Handbasket is first to report that Tommy is Thomas Teepell, who, according to his X and Facebook profiles, currently lives in Detroit. Teepell served as Operations Director for Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley until February of this year, according to Legistorm. He then took a job as Political Director for the failed gubernatorial campaign of Philip Sarnecki, a Republican businessman in Kansas. 

Tommy’s father is Timmy Teepell, a Republican strategist who worked for congressman and then Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal from 2004 to 2011; he also ran Jindal’s ill-fated presidential primary campaign in 2015. He joined the consulting firm OnMessage in 2011, and helped the virtually unknown Hawley get elected Attorney General of Missouri in 2016. Two years later, he helped Hawley become a United States Senator.

What brought the younger Teepell to the small town of Caro and his viral moment with El-Sayed? An October 2nd story in the University of Michigan student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, revealed that a conservative PAC called America Next offered College Republicans $200 to travel to an upcoming El-Sayed town hall in Flint to “boo” him and ask him inflammatory questions—hoping to spark embarrassing viral moments for the candidate. 

“If you don’t know, I asked Abdul a tough question during his last town hall meeting, and it generated a VERY negative news cycle for him,” one member wrote in a Michigan College Republicans GroupMe chat, according to the Daily. “We are going to coordinate questions to ask him and spread out to increase the chances we’re called on. We’re gonna boo him. We’re gonna show everyone that ABDUL IS NOT WELCOME IN THE SENATE.”

But by all accounts, there were no major fireworks at the event in Flint on October 4th. 

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. (Unfortunately, it may already be working: CNN’s coverage of the moment featured a terrible headline suggesting El-Sayed’s disavowal was the news, rather than his compelling defense of the Constitution.) Furthermore, it turns out America Next is a nonprofit founded by Tommy’s dad’s old boss, Bobby Jindal, in 2013. Jindal still seems involved with the project,  appearing as the author or co-author of most of the recent News links on the nonprofit’s website. America Next is also behind an unhinged ad called “Race Wars,” which targets Michigan’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Jocelyn Benson.  

I reached out to the general email address listed on the organization’s website to ask if they hired and/or paid the younger Teepell to attend El-Sayed’s town hall but have yet to hear back. 

Aside from his strong ties to Jindal and Hawley, Timmy Teepell has a close relationship with Sean Feucht, a Christian Nationalist who rose to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic for opposing lockdowns. He started a tour in 2020 called “Let Us Worship” to protest the closure of churches, spreading his music and Christian supremacy across the country while loudly supporting President Trump. In 2023, he co-hosted the “Kingdom to the Capital” tour with the late Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Points USA. 

A 2024 story by the National Catholic Reporter titled “The Washington insiders helping Sean Feucht spread Christian nationalism in Congress,” describes Timmy as “arguably” Feucht’s “most powerful ally.” He and Tommy both feature prominently in the story, with a screenshot from a video showing Feucht praying over father and son. The story notes that when Timmy was 18 he went “to work for Michael Farris, the leader of the Christian homeschool movement who later became CEO of the far-right legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.”

For an April 2024 episode of his podcast, Feucht interviewed Tommy on stage at Camp Elah, the Washington, DC townhouse that serves as headquarters for Feucht’s ministry. In the interview, Tommy describes himself as being “a weed addict sleeping around…just doing everything but following Jesus” a few years prior; that is, until he showed up in the pouring rain at one of Feucht’s rallies. “I realized that not a single drop had touched me,” Tommy recalled, “and so that's when it clicked for me that wow, God is real.”

According to the site Ministry Watch, Feucht has faced numerous controversies and legal issues, which include “a longstanding pattern of moral and ethical misconduct, including manipulation, exaggeration, control, lying, gaslighting, and spiritual and emotional abuse.” 

So it appears that the “Tommy” who questioned El-Sayed was no ordinary citizen of small-town Caro, Michigan, but a long-serving right-wing operative tied to Josh Hawley, Bobby Jindal, and one of the most influential Christian Nationalists in the country. It appears he went to Caro looking not for real answers from the candidate, but a viral moment—which he got, just not in the way he expected. 

I reached out to Tommy Teepell via multiple social media accounts and an email address but have not yet heard back. I also reached out to Senator Hawley’s office and the El-Sayed campaign for comment, but have not yet heard back. 

This story was edited by Jesse Hicks.