Islamist Democrat Adam Hamawy — New Jersey’s newly elected representative — got into an extraordinary exchange with CNN's Pamela Brown on Tuesday where he repeatedly refused to label Iran as an adversary of the United States.
BROWN: "Do you see Iran as the adversary and Israel as an ally to the US?"
HAMAWY: "Well, now what I see is that we were pushed into this war by Israel. It’s not helping Americans. Americans didn’t ask for it. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. And at this point, I think the United States and the Iranians want this war to end."
BROWN: "Do you see Iran as the adversary?"
HAMAWY: "I see — we pushed them into a fight, and so, I think we both have to step back and say, 'Is this helping either one of us?'"
BROWN: "But are they the adversary?"
HAMAWY: "We’re making adversaries when we should be making friends."
BROWN: "They've been saying ‘death to America’ for decades."
HAMAWY: "We've been saying 'death to Iran’ for decades as well. And so, what we need to do is use diplomacy…"
BROWN: "They've killed a lot of Americans."
HAMAWY: "And we've killed a lot of them as well."
BROWN: "So you don't see Iran as an adversary?"
HAMAWY: "I see that we are pushing Iran into a fight when we have the leverage to kind of bring them to the table…"
Insane exchange. Newly elected Democrat Adam Hamawy refuses to call Iran an adversary. BROWN: Do you see Iran as the adversary? HAMAWY: "We pushed them into a fight" BROWN: But are they the adversary? HAMAWY: "We should be making friends" BROWN: They've been saying "death to America" for decades HAMAWY: "We've been saying 'death to Iran'" BROWN: They've killed a lot of Americans HAMAWY: "And we've killed a lot of them" BROWN: So you don't see Iran as an adversary? HAMAWY: "I see that we are pushing Iran into a fight"
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 10, 2026
Brown then pressed Hamawy over Israel as an ally. The incoming congressman hemmed and hawed before finally acknowledging that Iran is the bad guy.
BROWN: "I think people want to understand your views and have clarity of how you view various countries, and whether you view the country that we’re currently at war with – whether or not you agree with the war – as an adversary, and whether you think it’s a worthy objective to make sure that they don’t have nuclear weapons that could be used against our allies."
HAMAWY: "I think that is a worthy objective. There’s different ways we could do that. We could do it by going into war, putting our troops at risk, and creating an economic crisis, or we could do it diplomatically like the Obama administration did. You know, I don’t agree with the Iranian government. I think it’s an authoritarian government. It’s a dictatorship. It is not good for its people. But going to war this way, it’s made it actually worse. It has made it more radical, and it has created a crisis here at home that we didn’t need."
Not only does this bring to mind the hot mic comments from Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, who said earlier this year that he didn’t want to discuss the Ayatollah’s death because it would upset his Muslim constituents — but to anyone paying attention, this isn’t a surprise.
As Townhall has reported multiple times over the last election cycle, Hamawy has numerous ties to radical Islamic leaders and organizations.
Here are a few of his connections:
- The Egyptian-born Hamawy went on a road trip in 1991 with Omar Abdel-Rahman — otherwise known as “the Blind Sheikh,” who was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy over a “plot to blow up the United Nations, an FBI building, and two tunnels and a bridge linking New York and New Jersey,” PBS reports. Abdel-Rahman was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
- Hamawy was Abdel-Rahman’s translator at the presser where he denied being involved in the WTC bombing, The Jewish Insider reports, and he testified as a witness for the defense at Abdel-Rahman's 1995 trial.
- Hamawy also volunteered in Bosnia in 1994 with a non-profit known as the Benevolence International Foundation, which was later designated by the U.S. Treasury as a financier of terrorism with ties to Al-Qaeda.
- Hamawy also volunteered in the Gaza Strip during the recent war in a hospital in Khan Younis. The IDF bombed the hospital in 2025 to destroy a Hamas command center, which Hamawy denied was there. Later footage from the IDF confirmed its existence.
What makes this even worse is that Hamawy will serve as the congressman for New Jersey’s District 12, where United 93 passenger and hero Todd Beamer lived and is buried.
Hamawy was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and he won his race with 70 percent of the vote.