Rogers seizes opening as El-Sayed denies Muslim Brotherhood family ties on Meet the Press

Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s flat denial of Muslim Brotherhood family ties is handing Republican Mike Rogers fresh campaign ground after the candidate’s half-sister’s old posts resurfaced.

El-Sayed sat for a weekend Meet the Press interview and answered “no” when pressed on whether he or his family had any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood. Republican Mike Rogers and his allies moved fast, calling the denial false and pointing to materials that had already been reported in public view.

The fight sits at the center of Michigan’s open Senate race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Gary Peters. El-Sayed, a former public health official, holds a narrow edge. Rogers is trailing by 2.7 points in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average and has used debates to keep the family-history question alive.

What makes the exchange stick is not a new rumor. It is a set of 2012 posts from El-Sayed’s half-sister, University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, that critics say clash with the one-word denial he gave national television.

Half-sister’s 2012 posts put family history in writing

Just the News reported that Abdelhadi posted on X on June 24, 2012, about a conversation with their mother and about the family’s longer association with the group. Scrutiny of those posts grew after El-Sayed’s Meet the Press answers, which came as one-word denials with no extended follow-up on air.

Abdelhadi wrote about her mother’s college years in Egypt:

"Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect"

In a second post the same day, she went further:

":(:( s***. My family has long been MB, but I've always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively."

The Washington Free Beacon first surfaced the posts and later reporting. National Review later noted Abdelhadi also wrote that she had “had family jailed for being a part of it,” language that deepened the gap between the sister’s record and the candidate’s on-air denial.

El-Sayed’s family background is Egyptian. The Muslim Brotherhood has long advocated a political project rooted in Islamic law and has been designated a terrorist organization by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia because of violent offshoots such as Hamas. The United States has not designated the Brotherhood itself, though it has designated several offshoots.

On Meet the Press, El-Sayed dismissed the posts as hearsay

When the sister’s writing was raised, El-Sayed did not only say “no.” He framed the material as secondhand and not serious. The Washington Free Beacon reported his pushback in full, including his claim that he had never had those conversations with his mother and that the campaign attack rested on a tweet.

He told the network:

"I have never had these conversations with my mom... you're using hearsay evidence from a tweet. This is not serious."

And he repeated the core denial:

"Yeah, I'm telling you, like, we, I have no ties. We have no ties."

Breitbart carried the same exchange and noted El-Sayed’s additional personal framing: he was born in Michigan in 1984, long after the early-1970s period his sister described, said he was not raised by his mother, and insisted he never discussed the subject with her.

That defense collides with other reported family contact. Free Beacon reporting described close ties that included a Mother’s Day video appearance, Venmo money for a gift, and paperwork showing El-Sayed served as his half-sister’s guardian and dowry manager in her 2016 Sharia marriage. Those details sit beside a resurfaced interview on Sharia compliance that already put his own public comments on religious law under a brighter light.

Mother’s former employer and in-law posts add more names to the file

The dispute is not limited to two old tweets. National Review reported that El-Sayed’s birth mother, Fatten El-Komy, previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency. The U.S. Treasury Department designated that group a terrorist organization in 2004 for funneling resources to al Qaeda and Hamas. Court records referenced her in connection with wire transfers and calls. She was never charged with a crime or named as a co-conspirator.

El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, has served on a committee of the Islamic Society of North America, an organization the Free Beacon has described as having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Jukaku has also contributed to a super PAC backing El-Sayed’s Senate bid.

None of those associations amount to a criminal charge against El-Sayed. They do explain why Rogers keeps asking how a flat “no” on family connections can stand next to the sister’s writing, the mother’s employment history, and the in-law’s organizational role.

The same candidate has already drawn heat on other fronts, including whistleblower claims tied to his Detroit animal-shelter record, so the Brotherhood fight lands on a campaign already used to rapid-response damage control.

Rogers calls the denial a lie and says voters deserve better

Rogers and his allies have not treated the Meet the Press answer as a minor slip. A Rogers spokesperson said El-Sayed “lied about his connections to designated terrorist organizations on national television” and that the cleanup “isn’t going so well.” The same statement argued that “Michiganders deserve to know the truth, and the more they find out, the less they like him.”

Allies have run ads casting El-Sayed in harsh terms on extremism. During their debate, Rogers repeatedly needled him over family history while El-Sayed tried to go on offense rather than linger on the accusations. One more debate is set for Oct. 21.

President Trump, speaking Wednesday, went further than Rogers’s campaign language. Trump said El-Sayed is “a member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” added that “he said that years ago,” and argued, “You can’t have a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Congress.” Trump is expected to campaign in Michigan during the midterm stretch; former President Barack Obama is also expected to visit the state for Democrats.

El-Sayed’s campaign answered with biography and counterattack. A campaign statement called him “a dad and a doctor” who has “spent his entire career working to keep Michiganders healthy and safe.” A spokesperson said “independent fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked Mike’s lies” and accused Rogers of “bad-faith attacks on Abdul’s faith and family” meant to distract from “Trump’s agenda that is terrorizing Michigan families at the pump and at the grocery store.” Some allies have labeled the line of attack Islamophobia.

The campaign has not produced a detailed public accounting that reconciles the sister’s 2012 posts with the national-TV denial. That gap is the opening Rogers is working.

Senate stakes keep the pressure on both candidates

If El-Sayed wins, he would become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, a historic marker that also raises the volume on every character and association question in the race. Rogers, slightly behind in the aggregate, has every incentive to keep the Brotherhood file in the news through the final debate and the closing weeks.

Resurfaced material has already defined stretches of this campaign, from old comments about Mackinac Island to sharper online fights. Each new clip or post feeds the same voter question: what else is still sitting in plain sight?

El-Sayed has also faced bipartisan backlash over posts targeting Usha Vance and Natalie Harp, another reminder that personal judgment, not only policy white papers, is driving coverage in this contest.

Earlier remarks that told Americans looking for the American dream to consider Canada added to the pile of clips opponents recycle. Together with the family posts, they form a pattern Rogers can summarize in a single line at the next debate: answer the record, or keep explaining it away.

For now, the documented pieces are straightforward. A half-sister wrote that her mother was active in the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1970s and that the family had “long been MB.” The candidate said on Meet the Press that he and his family have no ties and called the posts hearsay. His mother’s former employer was designated by Treasury in 2004. His father-in-law held a committee role at ISNA. He served as guardian in his sister’s Sharia marriage. Trump calls him a Brotherhood member. Rogers says he lied on national television. El-Sayed’s campaign says the attacks are bad faith and changing the subject from prices at the pump.

Michigan voters can weigh those facts without a middleman. The next debate is the cleanest place to force a longer answer than “no.”

A Senate candidate who wants statewide trust should clear family-history contradictions with records and plain speech, not one-word denials and a hearsay shrug, because voters can read the posts for themselves.