Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is being pressed to explain a flat denial he gave on national television after old social media posts from his half-sister surfaced describing their mother’s involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, host Kristen Welker asked El-Sayed whether he could “set the record straight” on allegations that he or his family had ties to the Islamist organization. “No,” he said. When Welker pressed further, asking, “No, you don’t have any ties, and your family doesn’t?” El-Sayed again answered “No,” and went on to accuse his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, of pushing Islamophobic attacks against him and his family.
But posts from 2012 and 2013 written by his half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, a University of Chicago professor, tell a different story about their mother’s past. “Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect,” Abdelhadi wrote on X in 2012, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which first reported the posts.
In a separate 2012 post, Abdelhadi wrote: “My family has long been MB, but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively.” A 2013 post read: “Praying for all my family that supports the #MB in #Egypt. Lie low, stay safe.”
The candidate’s mother, Fatten Elkomy, attended Egypt’s Alexandria University, which a Brookings Institution report says had significant Muslim Brotherhood activity during the 1970s.
An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson defended him in a statement to Fox News: “Abdul is a dad and a doctor. He has spent his entire career working to keep Michiganders healthy and safe. Independent fact checkers have repeatedly debunked Mike’s lies, but their campaign continues to use bad faith attacks on Abdul’s faith and family. Mike wants to distract from Trump’s agenda that is terrorizing Michigan families at the pump and at the grocery store.”
The campaign has separately described the Muslim Brotherhood allegations as “debunked as racist and untrue.”
NBC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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