Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a top contender to be the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, has a history of downplaying the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood — now designated a terrorist group by the U.S. — and even defended a brazen power grab by the Islamist group’s leader during the Brotherhood’s brief reign in Egypt.

El-Sayed, who is seeking to be the first Muslim in the U.S. Senate, signed onto a 2012 statement which defended the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule of Egypt and further defended a massive power grab by Mohammed Morsi, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The statement purportedly signed by El-Sayed and published in an Egyptian newspaper, contended that the “revolutionary decisions, which we have long called for but which the president [Morsi] has delayed for reasons unknown to us, were necessary."

The Muslim Brotherhood — a radical Islamist group which had spent decades trying to overthrow Egypt’s military government — briefly came to power in Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. The Muslim Brotherhood-backed January 2011 Egyptian Revolution — notable for massive protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square — resulted in the February 2011 resignation of longtime Egyptian president and military strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Calls opponents of terrorism "racists" and "bigots"

El-Sayed wrote opinion pieces in 2011 which criticized then-President Barack Obama for not doing enough to oppose Mubarak, which greatly downplayed and dismissed the threat posed by a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt, and suggested that Americans who were worried about the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt were racist and bigoted.

The Democratic candidate’s 2020 autobiography — titled "Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic" — also talks at great length about El-Sayed’s Egyptian-American identity, his sense at times that he is not truly American, and his anger at President Barack Obama for not, in his view, doing enough to oppose Mubarak during the Brotherhood-led protests against him.

The Trump Administration recently designated the Egyptian chapter of the Brotherhood as being a terrorist organization.

Just the News previously reported that El-Sayed is a years-long protégé of controversial Muslim activist Linda Sarsour, whose endorsement of El-Sayed during his previous failed bid to be Michigan governor in 2018 helped elevate him from relative obscurity nearly a decade ago. Just the News also previously reported on El-Sayed’s role in promoting a hoax hate crime murder which he claimed had been driven by anti-Muslim bigotry but which a jury later found had been committed by a Muslim husband.

The polling average by Real Clear Polling suggests that El-Sayed is the slight frontrunner in the Democratic primary, where his opponents are Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., and Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

El-Sayed wrote multiple articles downplaying the Muslim Brotherhood threat

The would-be U.S. senator spent hundreds and hundreds of words arguing that the Muslim Brotherhood was not a threat in 2011.

El-Sayed penned a late January 2011 opinion piece for the anti-Israeli Guardian, saying: “President Obama, the Egyptian people must hear your voice. You said once in Cairo that democratic freedoms are not just American ideas, but human rights. Please say it again now.” He argued strenuously that Obama must back the then-ongoing revolution inside Egypt against Mubarak. The fear among many inside the U.S. and around the world was that the fall of Mubarak would mean the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“President Obama, when I helped elect you into office as the 44th president of the United States of America, I believed I was a doing a service by my country – after all, you represented change; a fresh new perspective; and a hopeful departure from the brand of American imperialism that came to characterize the Bush years,” El-Sayed wrote, adding that “I believed I could trust you to uphold America's lofty ideals – the ideals that motivated my father, and yours, to immigrate to these soils; ideals you yourself have affirmed again this week – both at home, and abroad.”

El-Sayed added, “As an American, I ask you to support these freedom fighters because not only is it in our American self-interest to promote democracy in the Middle East, but this is the only avenue our ideals will allow us. As an Egyptian, I ask you to support them because I know, firsthand, the injustice that the Mubarak regime has inflicted, and because I dream that some day my 80 million Egyptian brothers and sisters will enjoy the same dignity and freedom that my 300 million American brothers and sisters do.”

Behind the scenes, the Obama Administration was indeed pushing Mubarak to give up power in Egypt.

El-Sayed wrote another piece in late January 2011 for The Huffington Post, where he claimed, “Why the U.S. Should Support the Protesters in Egypt. America has little to lose by supporting this movement; and what to gain? The trust and allegiance of a generation of young Arabs who will, ultimately, be free.” In this article, El-Sayed repeatedly downplayed the danger posed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I'd like to turn my attention here to the perplexing fixation among pundits and politicians about a ‘delicate balance’ the Obama Administration should apparently heed when considering its allegiances in this situation. Why are they so worried?” El-Sayed wrote. “Supporting the protestors too early might weaken the American bargaining position with Mubarak if, in fact, this revolution fails; the Mubarak regime is a key ally in maintaining the peace with Israel; supporting democracy in Egypt might allow the country to fall to the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood a la the Islamic republic in Iran and Hamas in the Gaza strip; and empowering protesters in Egypt might contribute to further instability of the region.”

El-Sayed then argued that “none of these issues substantiates American backing of the Mubarak regime, and ultimately, American interests lay with the protestors fighting for their freedoms in Cairo's ‘Liberation’ square.” Mubarak announced on February 1, 2011 that he would not serve another term as Egypt’s president, but that was not good enough for Obama.

"The whole world is watching,” Obama said in response, arguing that there must be a "transition period that begins now" where Mubarak would end his rule of Egypt.

Criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood is "racist"

El-Sayed then wrote an early February 2011 piece for The Huffington Post on “The Orientalist Narrative Distorting the Egyptian Struggle for Freedom” where he suggested that anyone who was worried about a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt was simply being racist.

“For centuries, scholars have attempted to twist and reinterpret the history and politics of Muslims, Arabs, and the Middle East around distinctly American or British narratives. Intellectual giants, like Edward Said and others, criticize the legitimacy of this approach, arguing that it fails to recognize the nuanced differences between ‘the West’ and ‘the Muslim World’ and that more critical, objective assessments of these differences are in order,” El-Sayed wrote. “They highlight a fundamental flaw of this kind of thinking, which they call Orientalism: it assumes that Muslims or Arabs are more motivated by their religion or culture than their Western counterparts, because these religions or cultures are not as well-understood by the Western mind as their own.”

El-Sayed lamented that “just as my well-meaning acquaintances pigeonhole me, orientalists attempt to fit the history and politics of Muslims or Arabs into a greater arc that is dominated by cultural or religious stereotypes.”

El-Sayed then sought to soften the image of the Muslim Brotherhood protesters.

“Orientalist framings have, expectedly, also come to dominate the public discourse about the most recent news from the Middle East. En masse, the Egyptian people are demonstrating unequivocally for their freedom,” El-Sayed wrote. “Their demands? Fundamental human rights that many of us take for granted every day — freedom of speech, equal protection under the law, freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention, freedom to peacefully assemble, and the right to choose their representatives. Under the brutal dictatorship of a shameless despot (who has milked his $70 billion fortune from the bread money of Egyptian peasants), they have suffered quietly for over 30 years.”

El-Sayed then criticized anyone worried about a Muslim Brotherhood takeover.

El-Sayed continued, “In lock step with the orientalist narrative, this racist framing of Arab and Muslim behaviors overemphasizes the roles of religion and culture in motivating the revolution we are witnessing and ignores the collective will of the Egyptian people to be free. Just like the synonymization of Islam and terrorism, our preoccupation with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood appeals to the orientalist need to explain the Egyptian struggle for self-determinism via religiously or culturally stereotyped explanations. In succumbing to this simplistic and misguided framework, we fail to acknowledge the will of the Egyptian people to reclaim their country and the legitimate grievances against which they demonstrate.”

El-Sayed claimed that fearing the Muslim Brotherhood was the same sort of “bigoted” thinking which allegedly led to the mistreatment of American Muslims as well.

“When we allow this inherently bigoted thinking to aggregate and take hold in our public discourse, it has real implications on the lives and livelihoods of those whose agency we distort,” El-Sayed concluded. “Abroad, we use this rationale to justify our fear of Egyptian democracy, just as it has been used at home to excuse our assault on the dignity and civil liberties of our Arab-American and Muslim-American neighbors.”

“"The people of Egypt have spoken. Their voices have been heard. And Egypt will never be the same," Obama said in a White House speech that day.

The Muslim Brotherhood would soon take charge of the country.

Muslim Brotherhood support dogged El-Sayed during failed 2018 gubernatorial bid

Patrick Colbeck, then a Republican member of the Michigan Senate who was also running for Michigan governor in 2018, repeatedly raised the allegation that El-Sayed had links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Colbeck noted that El-Sayed’s father-in-law sat on the board of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and that El-Sayed had been a leader within the Muslim Students Association while at the University of Michigan.

The Justice Department inspector general noted in a 2013 report that, “in 2008, the FBI developed a policy on its interactions with CAIR based in part on evidence presented during the 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.” The DOJ watchdog found that “the evidence at trial linked CAIR leaders to Hamas, a specially designated terrorist organization, and CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.”

“I’m not going to say he’s part of the jihadi or anything, but he’s been in those organizations that have followed such beliefs,” Colbeck said in April 2018, according to The Detroit News.

“Of course, I knew that in choosing to run for governor as an unapologetic, proud Muslim and American, I was going to contend with the ugly face of white supremacy that Donald Trump and his friends have sanctioned,” El-Sayed told the outlet in a statement that month. “But I know that every day I serve this state and this country by holding us to our ideals and our constitution which empower and inspire me to serve every single person in our state, regardless of my ethnicity, color, or faith.”

During a debate put on by the Michigan Press Association in early May 2018, Colbeck again alleged that El-Sayed had links to the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly through his leadership role at the Muslim Students Association while at the University of Michigan.

El-Sayed: "You may not hate Muslims, but Muslims definitely hate you”

“This is one of those areas that gets me ticked off in regard to the fairness of the media,” Colbeck said during the debate. “They pitch this as a comment around or concerns around ties to the Muslim Brotherhood as a concern with Muslims in general. I love Muslims. That’s not an issue. The issue is a terrorist organization like the Muslim Brotherhood.”

El-Sayed replied, “I knew that when I decided to run as the first Muslim-American to ever run for governor that I would face the ugliest of white supremacy, the ugliest of racism […] I do not believe sharia law is a question in this state.”

Colbeck himself then retorted that “I’m not gonna sit there and be silent when there is a genuine concern out there in our society that we need to be addressing.”

“Dr. Abdel said it very cleverly. He tries to characterize an issue with a terrorist organization like the Muslim Brotherhood as an issue with race […] It’s not racist,” Colbeck added. “He’s talking about it as a function of religion. Well, it has nothing to do with religion […] This is very serious stuff, guys. This is about civilizational jihad.”

El-Sayed then told Colbeck that while Colbeck might not hate Muslims, Muslims hated Colbeck.

“One of the biggest frustrations that I’ve had is the assumption that there should be some sort of association between me and some dastardly group functioning simply on the fact that I choose to pray a certain way […] Now, you may not hate Muslims, but Muslims definitely hate you,” El-Sayed said.

Local outlets such as Bridge Michigan and the Detroit Free Press both reported later that month that El-Sayed apologized for his comments.

Muslim Brotherhood chapters labeled global terrorist groups by Trump Admin

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 and helped inspire many of the terrorist offshoots which would emerge in the ensuing decades. The Brotherhood’s motto is "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

The Brotherhood was founded by Sunni imam Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in the 1920s, with the aim of establishing an Islamic state — a caliphate — which would be governed by sharia law. Sayyid Qutb — a major thinker for and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s — was an Egyptian revolutionary whose promotion of jihad is believed to have inspired more modern jihadists such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Zawahiri joined the Muslim Brotherhood as a teenager and later founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which successfully assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. After his jihadist group merged with al Qaeda in the 1990s, Zawahiri became bin Laden’s longtime deputy, and the group went on to conduct global terrorist attacks, including 9/11. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks — had joined the Kuwaiti chapter of the Brotherhood as a teenager.

Zawahiri took over Al-Qaeda after bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011. Zawahiri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul in 2022 after the Taliban took over the country again in August 2021.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad was formed in Gaza in 1979 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has been active in attacking Israel ever since. Hamas is also considered to be a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and numerous other Muslim groups and organizations are closely linked to the brotherhood.

Congressional Republicans for many years pushed for the Brotherhood to be designated a foreign terrorist organization.

“The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond.  Relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests,” Trump said in a November 2025 executive order.

Trump continued: “For example, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel.  A senior leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas. Such activities threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East, as well as the safety and stability of our regional partners.”

The president said local Brotherhood branches were being designated as foreign terrorist groups.

The Treasury Department in January 2026 announced that the Brotherhood chapters in Egypt and Jordan were being designated “for their material support to Hamas as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” The State Department announced at the same time that the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood was being designated as a foreign terrorist organization and as a specially designated global terrorist.

A number of Middle Eastern countries had already taken action against the Brotherhood, with Egypt and Jordan banning the group and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain labeling it a terrorist organization.

The Brotherhood pushed back against a potential terrorism label during the first Trump Administration, arguing in 2019 that “we will remain [...] steadfast in our work in accordance with our moderate and peaceful thinking in what we believe to be right, for honest and constructive cooperation, to serve the communities in which we live and humanity as a whole.”

"The Muslim Brotherhood will remain stronger — through God's grace and power — than any decision,” the MB added at that time.