Trump’s Muslim Brotherhood claim about El-Sayed remains unsubstantiated

Donald Trump has renewed his backing for Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race with an unsubstantiated Muslim Brotherhood allegation against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Reports about relatives’ activism and older political writings cited by El-Sayed’s critics do not establish his personal membership in the organisation. [1] [8] [11]

The 17 October 2026 Truth Social post, preserved by the Trump’s Truth archive, calls El-Sayed a “terrible Candidate” and gives Rogers Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement”. The Brotherhood accusation appears in the archive’s transcript of the attached video, rather than the written message: Trump calls El-Sayed “absolutely Muslim Brotherhood” and urges Michigan voters not to elect him. [1]

That echoes a more explicit accusation in a separate exchange with reporters, transcribed by RealClearPolitics on 14 October. “He’s a member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Trump said. He also claimed El-Sayed had acknowledged membership years earlier, without identifying a date or quotation in that exchange. [10]

The allegation carries particular weight because the Trump administration has acted against specific Brotherhood branches. On 13 January, the Treasury designated the Egyptian and Jordanian branches as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, while the State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organisation. Those measures establish the legal status of named branches, not El-Sayed’s affiliation. [5]

El-Sayed and Rogers are the Democratic and Republican nominees for Michigan’s US Senate seat in the 3 November election. Trump’s endorsement is longstanding: he backed Rogers for this contest in July 2025 and supported Rogers’s unsuccessful 2024 Senate bid. The latest message appeared among several endorsement posts archived that afternoon. [2] [7] [6]

Rogers’s campaign had already alleged, in a 5 August statement after the primary, that El-Sayed “pledged his support to the Muslim Brotherhood”. [4]

A Bridge Michigan review published on 3 September examined two older texts invoked by his opponents: a 2011 column urging US support for Egypt’s revolution and a 2012 group letter defending then-president Mohamed Morsi, who had the Brotherhood’s backing. Bridge found no pledge of support to the organisation in either text. That review preceded the October reporting about El-Sayed’s family. [8]

A separate question about family ties

The conservative Washington Free Beacon reported on 11 October that El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, had written in 2012: “My family has long been MB.” It also quoted a 2013 post saying she had relatives jailed for belonging to the group. The outlet contrasted those statements with El-Sayed’s answers on NBC’s Meet the Press, where he denied that either he or his family had ties. [11]

In an NBC interview broadcast on 14 October, El-Sayed maintained: “I have no ties. We have no ties.” Asked about his mother, he said he had never discussed the matter with her and had not been raised by her. He dismissed the tweet-based account as hearsay. AP also reported his description of the posts as “hearsay”. [12] [9]

The broader campaign rhetoric had already drawn criticism from Bishara Bahbah, who helped lead Trump’s outreach in Michigan in 2024. He told AP that the president’s rhetoric towards El-Sayed had crossed a “red line”. “Any attack based on a person’s religion is not acceptable,” he said. [9]

Bridge’s September report also quoted Rogers’s campaign saying he “vehemently condemns hate against all religious groups, including the Muslim community”. [8]

The family accounts challenge the breadth of El-Sayed’s denial. But even accepting them as accurate, they do not specify that he was a member. Together with the older political writings, they fall short of substantiating Trump’s categorical claim about the candidate himself. [8] [11]