Booker and Counter-Terrorism Official Clash Over Gabbard’s Comments on New Jersey Muslim Community

A heated exchange erupted Tuesday between Senator Cory Booker and a top U.S. counter-terrorism official following Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s controversial remarks about Paterson, New Jersey’s Muslim community during her recent speech at AmericaFest in Phoenix.

Booker, a Democrat representing New Jersey, expressed strong opposition to Gabbard’s characterization of his state’s third-largest city. Paterson, located between New York City and the Delaware Water Gap, has a growing Arab Christian and Muslim population and reportedly maintains the second-highest percentage of Muslim residents in the United States, behind only Hamtramck, Michigan.

“Paterson is one of New Jersey’s oldest cities and has always embodied the best American values — industry, perseverance, and diversity,” Booker wrote on social media. “Tulsi Gabbard’s dangerous attempt to sow fear, pit people against each other, and smear the Muslim Americans of Paterson is dishonest, cruel, and un-American — it endangers an entire community.”

The controversy stems from Gabbard’s speech at the conservative AmericaFest event, where she warned that Islamist ideology presents a “direct threat to freedom” because it seeks to “create a global caliphate that governs us here in America” and implement Sharia law. Gabbard specifically mentioned several American cities, including Paterson, claiming they are “working to implement in their own governments these Islamic principles.”

“Paterson is proud to call themselves the first Muslim city. They are working to implement in their own governments these Islamic principles that are forced on people through the use of laws or violence,” Gabbard stated during her address.

Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh promptly rejected Gabbard’s characterization, calling her “egregiously misinformed” at a press conference organized to respond to her comments. “We’re a better city because Muslims call Paterson home. It’s a point of pride that they contribute to the social and economic fabric of Paterson,” Sayegh said.

The city, named after Irish immigrant and Constitution signatory William Paterson, has established Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank as its sister city. In 2020, the Paterson city council approved an ordinance allowing the Adhan — the Muslim call to worship — to be broadcast within city limits, a measure local religious leaders compared to Christian churches using bells or Jewish communities using the Shofar.

National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, a Republican appointed by former President Donald Trump, defended Gabbard while sharply criticizing Senator Booker. Kent claimed that “insane policies championed by Booker and the Democrat Party under the Biden administration have allowed a staggering 18,000 known and suspected terrorists to enter our nation,” pointing to what he described as a “botched Afghanistan withdrawal and the open southern border.”

Kent further alleged that Gabbard had exposed threats from 2,000 Afghan evacuees with potential terrorism ties brought to the U.S. under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome. He credited the DNI with “confronting the dangers recklessly inflicted on our nation.”

This controversy emerges against a backdrop of heightened national security concerns. In recent months, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, a move that sparked legal challenges from Muslim civil rights groups.

The clash highlights ongoing tensions in American politics surrounding immigration, national security, and the treatment of Muslim communities, particularly as the country continues to grapple with complex questions of religious freedom, cultural integration, and the balance between security measures and civil liberties.