Rogers Accuses El-Sayed of “Lying” About Family Ties to Muslim Brotherhood in New Campaign Ad

Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers wasted no time turning his Democratic opponent’s Sunday appearance on “Meet the Press” into a campaign ad, accusing Abdul El-Sayed of lying about his family’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

“Can you set the record straight about whether you or your family have any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood?” moderator Kristen Welker asked El-Sayed.
“No, but let’s talk about this,” El-Sayed responded.

“No, you don’t have any ties?” Welker pressed, to which El-Sayed replied, “No.”

“And your family doesn’t?” Welker followed up. El-Sayed again answered, “No.”

Rogers fired back on social media.

“This morning, Abdul El-Sayed was asked about his family’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. And he denied it — an outright lie,” Rogers wrote. “The truth is, Abdul and his family have surrounded themselves with some of the most heinous organizations and anti-American actors in history. He is too extreme to get anywhere near the US Senate.”

Right-leaning commentators quickly pointed to past remarks from El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, a University of Chicago professor with a history of controversial statements. In social media posts from 2012 and 2013, Abdelhadi said her family was connected to the group.

The Washington Free Beacon unearthed the posts and reported on them over the weekend.

“My family has long been MB,” Abdelhadi wrote on June 24, 2012, just days after Egypt elected Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi as president.
“I have had family jailed for being a part of it,” she wrote on July 3, 2013. “Praying for all my family that supports the #MB in Egypt. Lie low, stay safe.”

Seizing on the apparent contradiction, the Rogers campaign rolled out a blistering new ad targeting El-Sayed’s family. The spot opens and closes with clips from the Welker interview, with other news media segments spliced in between.

“El-Sayed’s birth mother reportedly worked for a designated terror group that provided financial support to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and also Hamas,” a local news anchor says in the ad.

“His father-in-law sits on the board of an organization that is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood,” another newscaster says.

“The Muslim Brotherhood celebrated his win in the primary,” says a host who appears to be a podcaster.

In one clip, Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld says, “He said El-Sayed took money linked directly to terrorist groups, and El-Sayed couldn’t deny the claim.”

“His sister-in-law was on a terrorist watch list, and his sister publicly praised the October 7 terrorist attack,” another clip states.

The ad wraps up with news reports about El-Sayed’s past claim that he holds Egyptian citizenship.

El-Sayed has previously faced accusations of lying about being a dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen, as well as of claiming to be a physician even though he does not currently hold a medical license. He is a doctor.

“I carry dual citizenship, and I grew up spending most of my summers in another country where I understood what it meant not to have the right to self-govern,” El-Sayed told a Detroit GlobeMed conference in 2016.

Responding to reporting on that statement, El-Sayed campaign spokeswoman Roxie Richner called it an error, stating, “Abdul is not a dual citizen by any verifiable metric and never has been.”