On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, if he could “set the record straight” on claims that his family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“No,” he said.
Welker gave him room to be sure. “No, you don’t have any ties, and your family doesn’t?”
“No,” El-Sayed repeated.
Then he went on offense. Before giving that direct answer, he told Welker his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, had raised the issue only because he “really wanted to repeat the word Muslim.”
It was a clean, confident denial.
The trouble is that his own family put a different account on the record years ago.
His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, now a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote about the Brotherhood on X more than once. Not as an outsider. As family.
“Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect,” she posted in 2012, as first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
Their mother, Fatten Elkomy, attended Egypt’s Alexandria University. According to the Brookings Institution, the school was a hotbed of Brotherhood activity in the 1970s.
Another 2012 post from Abdelhadi was blunter still: “My family has long been MB, but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively.”
And in 2013: “Praying for all my family that supports the #MB in #Egypt. Lie low, stay safe.”
“My family has long been MB.” Hard to read that any other way.
BREAKING: Abdul El-Sayed's campaign is responding to @FoxNews after unearthed social media posts from El Sayed's sister in 2012 appear to show her saying her family has been involved with and supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood. I asked the campaign if they deny the posts are in… pic.twitter.com/txziS8VO2i
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 12, 2026
To be precise about it: the posts are Abdelhadi’s words, not her brother’s. The Free Beacon noted it’s unclear which relatives on their mother’s side are Brotherhood members, or whether El-Sayed himself has met them.
But Welker didn’t only ask about him. She asked about his family.
And he answered for them.
It isn’t the only family detail drawing attention.
According to recent reports, El-Sayed’s mother also once worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization for backing al-Qaida.
An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson told 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.”
The campaign has also called the Brotherhood accusations “debunked as racist and untrue.”
The fact-checks are real, but they’re narrower than the campaign suggests.
Bridge Michigan concluded there’s no evidence El-Sayed personally pledged support to the Brotherhood, a claim Rogers built largely on a 2011 HuffPost column El-Sayed wrote about Egypt’s revolution. That check didn’t address what his sister said about their family.
Nobody chooses their relatives. Voters understand that. What they notice is when a flat “no” on national television doesn’t square with the family’s own words, written in public, in its own voice.
With this race potentially deciding control of the Senate, Michigan voters will have to decide which account to believe.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! Bombshell discovery shows that MI Senate candidate Abdul Mohamed El Sayed LIED, his family IS tied to the Muslim Brotherhood — a TERROR ORGANIZATION.
His half-sister's posts are being resurfaced despite Abdul telling Kristen Welker his family has no ties
Mike… pic.twitter.com/1yYzpZ47Qp
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 12, 2026
