Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), facing a serious primary challenge from his right, released a new campaign ad on Thursday calling “radical Islam” a “bloodthirsty ideology” that has influenced recent terror attacks targeting Jews.

“It fueled the unspeakable crimes on Oct. 7,” Cornyn says in the 30-second ad, called “Evil Face,” before citing the mass shooting last month during a Hanukkah gathering in Australia that was allegedly motivated by the terrorist group ISIS. “It showed its evil face again at Bondi Beach.”

Speaking directly to the camera, Cornyn touted his recent efforts to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit advocacy group whose executive director has drawn scrutiny for celebrating the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

“Let me be clear: No organization that supports terrorists should receive taxpayer benefits,” Cornyn concludes in the ad. “And Sharia law has no place in American courts or communities.”

The seven-figure ad buy is now running statewide on broadcast, cable and digital platforms, according to the campaign.

The ad comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued a declaration last November designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist group as well as a “successor” to the Muslim Brotherhood effectively posing as a front for Hamas, prohibiting the organization from purchasing land in the state. 

The declaration allows the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, the right-wing Republican mounting a competitive challenge to Cornyn in the March primary, to sue to shut down the group and impose fines on its leaders.

CAIR, which called the proclamation defamatory and unconstitutional, has filed suit to challenge the designation, which Paxton has vowed to vigorously defend.

Following Abbott’s announcement, Cornyn, for his part, introduced legislation in the Senate in December that seeks to strip CAIR of its nonprofit status over its alleged support for terrorism. In a statement about the bill, Cornyn, who is seeking reelection to a fifth term, described the organization as “a radical group of terrorist sympathizers with a long history of undermining American values,” while endorsing the governor’s designation.

Both Cornyn and Paxton have otherwise boasted of their records supporting Israel and fighting the rise of antisemitism.