Abdul El-Sayed Bristles at Questions on Muslim Brotherhood Family Ties

Democratic Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed became agitated during a recent interview when questioned about alleged family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed, who had previously stated on NBC's "Meet the Press" that his family had no connections to the organization, bristled when pressed further by "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Llamas.

"Are you serious?" El-Sayed responded when asked if he had lied. "I have no ties. We have no ties." He attributed the questioning to "hearsay evidence from a tweet," asserting, "It's just not serious."

The controversy stems from 2012 tweets by El-Sayed's half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, a professor at the University of Chicago. In the posts, Abdelhadi stated that their mother was active in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 1970s while a student in Egypt. She also wrote, "My family has long been MB, but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively."

El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, has cited these tweets in his campaign. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has been linked to groups like Hamas, though its leaders maintain the organization renounced violence decades ago and seeks Islamic rule through peaceful means. Several countries, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, have designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, though the U.S. has not.

The report also noted that El-Sayed's birth mother, Fatten El-Komy, previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency. The U.S. Treasury Department designated this agency as a terrorist organization in 2004 for supporting Al Qaeda and Hamas. El-Komy was not implicated in any criminal activity. El-Sayed's parents divorced when he was young, and he was raised by his father and stepmother.