Why the Muslim Brotherhood has become a flashpoint in the Michigan Senate race

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The Muslim Brotherhood has become a flashpoint in Michigan’s Senate race, with Republicans trying to cast Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed as sympathetic to interests connected to Islamic terror and El-Sayed arguing that he is being unfairly accused of the same “dual loyalties” that former Presidents John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama once were.

El-Sayed this weekend denounced the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political movement founded in Egypt in 1928 — first in a heated exchange with a voter, and later when speaking with reporters — after Republicans have sought to highlight his family’s ties to the group and his past comments about it.

“I do want to talk about why they want to make this their closing argument,” El-Sayed told reporters after a rally Sunday in Flint. “They want to speak to a certain implicit dual loyalty. This has a long history in our politics, that notion that people might pray a little bit differently, have a dual loyalty. It was the same thing they did to JFK when he ran for president, the notion that because he was Catholic that he somehow had dual loyalties. They did the same thing to President Obama simply because his father was of Muslim origin, even though his father is an avowed Christian.”

He added: “This is nothing new. This is what they do when they have no message about the real issues in people’s lives.”

Republicans have increasingly drawn attention to El-Sayed’s Muslim faith in the closing weeks of one of the most important Senate races on the 2026 midterm election map.

President Donald Trump, at a campaign rally Friday night, referred to El-Sayed as “Mohammed” and falsely declared that the Democratic former public health official is a “jihadist.” Those comments have become staples of recent Trump rallies and social media comments.

El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, said Sunday on CNN that he has “never called him a terrorist” and said he does not “speak for the president.”

But Rogers accused El-Sayed of aligning with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist movement with global offshoots that once wielded significant political power in Egypt, where it was founded. The movement officially rejects the use of violent means to secure its goals. However, offshoots of the group have been linked to attacks in the past.

Trump signed an executive order in November that initiated a process by which certain chapters or other subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood could be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

“You know, he wants to play the victim. This is not about that. This is about the way you think, not the way you pray,” Rogers told CNN’s Dana Bash. “This is about your ideology and how dangerous it is.”

The GOP efforts to tie El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamic extremism, burst into the open this weekend at a town hall in Caro.

An attendee repeatedly pressed El-Sayed about the Muslim Brotherhood, saying he had yet to hear the candidate reject the organization.

“Abdul, will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” the man shouted from the crowd.

Abdul El-Sayed pressed on Muslim Brotherhood by town hall attendee

El-Sayed, after disavowing the movement, blasted the man for implicitly assuming his “dual loyalty.”

“You assume … that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution,” El-Sayed said. He later added, “For me, that Constitution is the guiding light.”

The audience member walked out after the exchange as the crowd cheered for El-Sayed.

The GOP attacks come after old tweets from El-Sayed’s half-sister resurfaced online, including a post from 2012 in which she described having “an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college.”

El-Sayed has said he does not know what his mother was doing in Egypt during the 1970s, explaining he was 3 when his parents divorced and didn’t see his mother for years. He was primarily raised in Michigan by his father and stepmother.

El-Sayed in 2012 also signed an open letter supporting then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who had been elected earlier that year with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood after the overthrow of the country’s authoritarian government.

A year earlier, he penned a Huffington Post op-ed calling on the United States to support young Arab protesters in Egypt, and downplaying concerns that supporting democracy there would lead to Muslim Brotherhood control of the nation.

During a recent debate, Rogers pointed out that El-Sayed’s mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, a non-profit that the Treasury Department in 2004 designated as an organization supporting terrorism.

“Are you going after my mom?” said El-Sayed.

“I was going after that organization that was indicted for funneling money to Al Qaeda,” Rogers said. “Look, that’s your mom. My mom worked at a small chamber of commerce. I’ll put my mom up any day for that.”

El-Sayed responded he is a “dad and a doctor” who wants to “get money out of politics, put money in your pocket and pass Medicare for All.” He said Rogers “wants this to be about anything but his own record.”

El-Sayed in recent days also addressed his sister-in-law, Mariam Jukaku, being placed on the federal Terrorism Screening Database — a situation she challenged as part of a 2016 class action lawsuit . It’s not clear why Jukaku, who was once p resident of UCLA’s Muslim Student Association and is now a home-school teacher and writer in California , was added to the list.

“She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,” El-Sayed told Fox News when asked about his wife’s sister being placed on the terrorist watchlist, which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks. “You’ve got this system where folks are guilty until proven innocent because they’ve got different kinds of names, because of the infrastructure that people like Mike Rogers set up.”

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Aleena Fayaz contributed to this report.

Katie McTiernan/Anadolu/Getty Images

穆斯林兄弟会已成为密歇根州参议员竞选的焦点，共和党人试图将民主党候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德描绘成同情与伊斯兰恐怖主义有关的利益集团，而埃尔-赛义德则辩称，他被不公平地指控犯有与前总统约翰·F·肯尼迪和巴拉克·奥巴马曾经犯下的同样的“双重效忠”罪行。

本周末，埃尔-赛义德谴责了穆斯林兄弟会——一个于 1928 年在埃及成立的伊斯兰政治运动——他先是在与一位选民的激烈争论中，后来又在与记者交谈时表达了这一立场——此前共和党人一直试图强调他的家族与该组织的关系以及他过去对该组织的言论。

“我想谈谈他们为什么想把这作为最后的论点，”埃尔-赛义德周日在弗林特的一次集会后告诉记者。“他们想利用某种隐含的双重效忠观念。这种观念在我们的政治中由来已久，认为人们的祈祷方式可能略有不同，因此可能存在双重效忠。肯尼迪竞选总统时，他们也用了同样的伎俩，认为因为他是天主教徒，所以他必然存在双重效忠。他们对奥巴马总统也用了同样的伎俩，仅仅因为他的父亲是穆斯林，尽管他的父亲是一位虔诚的基督徒。”

他补充道：“这没什么新鲜的。当他们对人们生活中真正的问题没有发言权时，他们就会这么做。”

在 2026 年中期选举中最重要的一场参议院竞选的最后几周，共和党人越来越关注埃尔-赛义德的穆斯林信仰。

周五晚间，唐纳德·特朗普总统在一次竞选集会上将埃尔-赛义德称为“穆罕默德”，并错误地宣称这位民主党前公共卫生官员是“圣战分子”。这些言论已成为特朗普近期竞选集会和社交媒体评论中的常见内容。

埃尔-赛义德的共和党对手、前众议员迈克·罗杰斯周日在 CNN 上表示，他“从未称埃尔-赛义德为恐怖分子”，并表示他“不代表总统发言”。

但罗杰斯指责埃尔-赛义德与穆斯林兄弟会勾结。

穆斯林兄弟会是一个伊斯兰主义运动，在全球各地拥有分支机构，曾一度在其发源地埃及拥有强大的政治影响力。该运动官方否认使用暴力手段实现其目标。然而，该组织的多个分支机构过去曾与一些袭击事件有关。

特朗普于 11 月签署了一项行政命令，启动了一项程序，根据该程序，穆斯林兄弟会的某些分会或其他分支机构可能会被考虑指定为外国恐怖组织。

“你知道，他想扮演受害者。但这无关乎此。这关乎你的思维方式，而非你的祈祷方式，”罗杰斯告诉CNN的达娜·巴什。“这关乎你的意识形态以及它有多么危险。”

本周末，共和党试图将埃尔-赛义德与穆斯林兄弟会和伊斯兰极端主义联系起来，这一举动在卡罗的一次市政厅会议上公开爆发。

一位与会者反复追问埃尔-赛义德关于穆斯林兄弟会的问题，称他还没有听到这位候选人公开反对该组织。

“阿卜杜勒，你愿意与穆斯林兄弟会断绝关系吗？”人群中有人喊道。

阿卜杜勒·赛义德在市政厅会议上受到与会者的质问，被问及穆斯林兄弟会问题。

埃尔-赛义德在公开否认该运动后，抨击该男子暗中假定他“效忠双重国家”。

“你们认为……因为我是穆斯林，所以我就会效忠于宪法之外的东西，”埃尔-赛义德说道。他随后补充道，“对我而言，宪法就是指路明灯。”

交流结束后，一名观众离场，人群则为埃尔-赛义德欢呼。

共和党的攻击发生在埃尔-赛义德的同父异母妹妹的旧推文在网上重新出现之后，其中包括她在 2012 年发布的一条推文，她在推文中描述了“与我母亲进行了一次精彩的谈话，谈到了她在 70 年代初上大学时参与穆斯林兄弟会的活动”。

埃尔-赛义德表示，他不知道母亲在20世纪70年代身在埃及做什么，并解释说，他3岁时父母离异，之后多年未见母亲。他主要由父亲和继母在密歇根州抚养长大。

2012年，埃尔-赛义德还签署了一封公开信，支持当时的埃及总统穆罕默德·穆尔西。穆尔西在推翻该国独裁政府后，于当年早些时候在穆斯林兄弟会的支持下当选总统。

一年前，他曾在《赫芬顿邮报》上发表评论文章，呼吁美国支持埃及的年轻阿拉伯抗议者，并淡化了支持埃及民主会导致穆斯林兄弟会控制该国的担忧。

在最近的一次辩论中，罗杰斯指出，埃尔-赛义德的母亲曾在伊斯兰美国救济机构工作，该机构是一个非营利组织，财政部在 2004 年将其认定为支持恐怖主义的组织。

“你要对我妈妈下手吗？”埃尔-赛义德问道。

罗杰斯说：“我当时正在调查那个被指控向基地组织输送资金的组织。听着，那是你妈。我妈在一家小型商会工作。为了这件事，我随时都愿意让我妈顶替我。”

埃尔-赛义德回应说，他是一位“父亲和医生”，他希望“让金钱退出政治，让民众受益，并推动全民医保”。他还说，罗杰斯“只想把话题引到其他任何事情上，就是不想谈他自己的政绩”。

近日，埃尔-赛义德还谈到了他的弟媳玛丽亚姆·朱卡库被列入联邦恐怖主义筛查数据库一事——朱卡库曾在2016年提起集体诉讼，对此事提出质疑。目前尚不清楚朱卡库为何会被列入该名单。朱卡库曾任加州大学洛杉矶分校穆斯林学生会主席，现为加州的一名家庭教师和作家。

“她没做错任何事，却因此被抓，然后提起诉讼，最终脱罪，”埃尔-赛义德在被问及他妻子的妹妹被列入恐怖分子监视名单一事时告诉福克斯新闻。该名单是在2001年9月11日袭击事件后设立的。“现在这套系统让人们在被证明无罪之前就被认定有罪，因为他们被贴上了各种各样的标签，这都是像迈克·罗杰斯这样的人建立的体系造成的。”

CNN的杰夫·泽莱尼和阿莉娜·法亚兹对本报道亦有贡献。