Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Republicans including Michigan U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers and President Donald Trump have claimed that Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit health director, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Fact-checkers at PolitiFact, Bridge Michigan and Michigan Public have found no evidence that El-Sayed is a member, pledged support to the group, or has documented family ties to it. El-Sayed has denied the claims and publicly disavowed the group. The election is Nov. 3.
Below is a breakdown of who made each Abdul El-Sayed Muslim Brotherhood claim, what the records show and what remains unconfirmed. For more on the race, see our Senate and House battleground ratings and our guide to key midterm dates and what to watch.
The claims
“Pledged his support.” Shortly after El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination, Rogers said in an Aug. 5 statement that El-Sayed “pledged his support to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Bridge Michigan reported.
“Didn’t disavow.” After an Oct. 17 town hall, Rogers told CNN on Oct. 18 that El-Sayed “didn’t disavow it.” Rogers campaign spokesperson Alyssa Brouillet told PolitiFact that El-Sayed’s record “speaks for itself: from his op-ed and pledge to support the Muslim Brotherhood, to his family ties to the organization, and even their donations to his campaign.”
Family ties. The family claim rests mainly on three social media posts from 2012 and 2013 by El-Sayed’s half-sister. According to The Hill, one 2012 post described a talk with her mother “about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college” in Egypt. That woman is also El-Sayed’s birth mother. The Hill reported that the posts also said some relatives had been jailed in Egypt over activism in the group. In an October debate in Grand Rapids, Rogers also accused El-Sayed’s birth mother of working for an organization that helped al-Qaida, Michigan Public reported.
“Jihadist.” Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member,” PolitiFact reported Oct. 27. PolitiFact said the White House did not respond to a request for evidence.
What’s confirmed
- A 2011 op-ed. El-Sayed wrote a 2011 Huffington Post essay backing Egypt’s pro-democracy protesters against President Hosni Mubarak. He argued that fears of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover should not stop the U.S. from supporting the protesters, according to PolitiFact.
- A 2012 group statement. He was one of 46 Egyptian-American signers of a 2012 Arabic-language statement saying they were “united in support of the elected President,” Mohamed Morsi, who was backed by the Brotherhood. PolitiFact and Bridge Michigan both concluded the statement was not a pledge of support for the Brotherhood as an organization.
- The half-sister’s posts exist. The 2012 and 2013 posts are real and were reported by The Hill and PolitiFact. They are statements by a relative about their mother’s activities in Egypt in the early 1970s, before El-Sayed was born.
- His upbringing. El-Sayed was born and raised in Michigan. His parents divorced when he was about 3, and he has said he was raised mainly by his father and stepmother.
- He disavowed the group. Video of the Oct. 17 town hall shows that when asked whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, he answered, “Sure, yeah, absolutely.” PolitiFact rated Rogers’ “didn’t disavow” claim False.
What isn’t confirmed
No credible record reviewed by The Boston Report or by the fact-checkers cited here shows that El-Sayed is or was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. None shows he pledged support to it, or that his father was involved with it. The family-ties claim relies on a relative’s secondhand social media posts about events in the 1970s. Bridge Michigan and Michigan Public found no evidence of family ties to the Brotherhood. Michigan Public also reported that El-Sayed’s birth mother does not appear in any indictment in the case Rogers cited. The Rogers campaign’s claim about relatives’ “donations to his campaign” did not name donors or amounts in its statement to PolitiFact, and The Boston Report has not verified it.
| Claim | Who made it | Status |
|---|---|---|
| El-Sayed “pledged his support” to the Brotherhood | Mike Rogers, Aug. 5 | Unconfirmed; no evidence, per Bridge Michigan |
| El-Sayed “didn’t disavow” the group | Mike Rogers, Oct. 18 on CNN | False, per PolitiFact |
| El-Sayed is a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” | Donald Trump | Pants on Fire, per PolitiFact |
| His family has ties to the Brotherhood | Rogers campaign, citing the half-sister’s 2012–13 posts | Unconfirmed and disputed; no evidence found, per Michigan Public and Bridge Michigan |
| His birth mother worked for a group that helped al-Qaida | Mike Rogers, October debate | Not supported by the evidence, per Michigan Public |
| Family members donated to his campaign | Rogers campaign | Unconfirmed; no donors named |
His response
In an Oct. 14 NBC interview, El-Sayed responded to the half-sister’s posts: “I have never had these conversations with my mother. I wasn’t raised by my mother. You’re using hearsay evidence from a tweet. It’s just not serious,” PolitiFact reported.
He told Michigan Public: “To the best of my knowledge, nobody in my family’s been a member of this organization. It’s, like, an insane thing to assume.” At an Oct. 26 Detroit news conference, he called Trump’s attacks “deflections and deceptions based on no evidence,” according to PolitiFact.
Rogers has denied that the attacks are about El-Sayed’s religion. “It’s not about the way he prays,” Rogers said, according to Michigan Public. “It’s about the way he thinks.” Bridge Michigan reported that Rogers says he “vehemently condemns hate against all religious groups.”
The Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. legal status
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 and has national branches that are not under one leadership. On Jan. 13, 2026, the Treasury Department designated the Egyptian and Jordanian branches as Specially Designated Global Terrorists for material support to Hamas. The State Department designated the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, also known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The movement as a whole has not been designated. None of these designations existed in 2011 or 2012, when El-Sayed wrote about Egypt’s revolution and signed the Morsi statement.
What comes next
Michigan voters choose between El-Sayed and Rogers on Nov. 3 in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. The Boston Report will update this story if either campaign releases new documents.
Sources
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Treasury and State Departments Designate Muslim Brotherhood Branches as Terrorist Organizations,” Jan. 13, 2026: home.treasury.gov
- U.S. Department of State, “Designations of Muslim Brotherhood Chapters,” Jan. 13, 2026: state.gov
- PolitiFact, Rogers “didn’t disavow” fact-check, Oct. 19, 2026: politifact.com
- PolitiFact, Trump “jihadist” fact-check, Oct. 27, 2026: politifact.com
- Bridge Michigan via BridgeDetroit, “No evidence Abdul El-Sayed ‘pledged support’ to Muslim Brotherhood,” Sept. 7, 2026: bridgedetroit.com
- Michigan Public, “Rogers’ claims about El-Sayed’s mother don’t match the evidence,” Oct. 24, 2026: michiganpublic.org
Additional sources
- OFAC, Counter Terrorism Designations SDN list entries, Jan. 13, 2026: ofac.treasury.gov
- Federal Register, FTO designation of the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, Jan. 14, 2026: federalregister.gov
- The Hill, “Republicans target Abdul El-Sayed with Muslim Brotherhood allegations”: thehill.com
- The Washington Post, “El-Sayed again denies ties to Muslim Brotherhood,” Oct. 15, 2026: washingtonpost.com
- The Washington Post, “Examining the Muslim Brotherhood claims in Michigan’s Senate race,” Oct. 23, 2026: washingtonpost.com
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