CNN's Pamela Brown asked incoming New Jersey Congressman Adam Hamawy a question that should require zero thought: "Do you see Iran as the adversary and Israel as an ally to the US?" He wouldn't answer it. She asked again. He still wouldn't answer it. She pointed out that Iran has been chanting "death to America" for decades.
His response: "We've been saying 'death to Iran' for decades as well."
That's a sitting congressman-elect drawing a moral equivalence between the United States and a theocratic regime that funds Hezbollah, Hamas, and has actively killed American servicemembers. Not a protester outside a campus building. Not a talking head on a podcast. A man who won his New Jersey District 12 race with 70 percent of the vote and is about to take an oath to defend the Constitution.
Brown pressed further, noting that Iran has killed a lot of Americans. Hamawy's answer: "And we've killed a lot of them as well." When asked specifically about preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the best he could manage was calling it "a worthy objective" — the kind of tepid, hedged language you use when you're trying not to offend the side you're supposed to be opposing.
The interview didn't happen in a vacuum. As Townhall reported, Hamawy's background includes a 1991 road trip with Omar Abdel-Rahman — the Blind Sheikh — who was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy involving plots against the UN, the FBI building, and New York tunnels and bridges, after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hamawy also volunteered in Bosnia in 1994 and had ties to the Benevolence International Foundation, a designated terrorism financier with documented Al-Qaeda connections.
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both endorsed him.
The word "adversary" isn't a trick question. Iran seized American hostages. Iran built IEDs that killed American soldiers in Iraq. Iran funds proxy armies across the Middle East. Iran's leadership has called for the destruction of both the United States and Israel as a matter of official state policy for over four decades. Every member of Congress — left, right, center — has managed to say "yes, Iran is an adversary" without breaking a sweat. It's the lowest bar in American foreign policy.
Hamawy couldn't clear it. Not because the question was hard, but because the honest answer would alienate the constituency that put him there. When Brown reminded him that Iran chants "death to America," he didn't push back on Iran. He pushed back on America. That's not nuance. That's a tell.
Todd Beamer said "let's roll" on United 93. Adam Hamawy can't say "adversary" on CNN.
He starts December with a vote and a salary. The oath says "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Apparently he's still working out which is which.
