Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood present a “national security risk,” according to Republican senators.
“If [Abdul El-Sayed] wins, I believe that poses an unprecedented national security risk,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on his latest podcast episode. Cruz added that if El-Sayed is appointed to committees with classified materials, there is “an acute risk that U.S. service men and women will be killed.”
Cruz has pushed to label American branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. His bill, the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025,” has the support of 11 senators, including Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), but it has been stuck in the Senate for over a year. The bill requires the State Department to determine if each branch of the Muslim Brotherhood meets certain criteria. Then the department must alert Congress of its findings and the president must designate the chapter.
The State Department’s branch-by-branch evaluation extends across the globe to territories outside of the United States, including in the United Kingdom, France, and Canada. Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated Muslim Brotherhood branches in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan as terrorist organizations.
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“I fully support labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. They have spent decades spreading radical Islamic extremism that threatens American security and seeks to wipe Western civilization off the map,” Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a former Navy SEAL, told The Daily Wire.
“Abdul El-Sayed’s ties to this group raise serious national security questions. As senators, we have access to some of our nation’s most sensitive, classified information, and I have serious concerns about the security risks posed by anyone associated with such a group serving in the Senate,” added Sheehy, who sits on the Armed Services Committee.
The national security warning about El-Sayed also reached the campaign trail in Michigan Wednesday morning when El-Sayed’s Republican opponent Mike Rogers, who served as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, released an ad hammering “El-Sayed’s ideology” as “a threat to our national security.” The ad mentions the Democrat’s family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Abdul El-Sayed’s radical ideology is a threat to our national security. https://t.co/xFeRgyW6xd
— Mike Rogers (@MikeRogersForMI) October 21, 2026
The Brotherhood’s goal in North America is to wage “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,” an internal Brotherhood document seized by the FBI revealed. Since 1991, the Brotherhood and its “friends” have operated at least 29 U.S.-based organizations.
The Muslim Brotherhood is already a designated terror organization in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is an organization committed to terrorism. I fully support designating it as a foreign terrorist organization. Many of our allies have already done so,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) told The Daily Wire. “Abdul El-Sayed and others with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have no business serving in the United States Senate.”
The bill would also ban Brotherhood members from acquiring visas.
El-Sayed has struggled to answer reporters’ questions about his ties to the Brotherhood. Despite extensive documented connection between El-Sayed’s family and the Muslim Brotherhood, he told an NBC reporter that he and his family had no such connection to the group.
NBC just confronted Abdul El-Sayed about his family’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
NBC: “When people ask you a question, they do expect the truth.”
EL-SAYED: “Are you insinuating that somehow I was lying?!?” https://t.co/zOtB4nk7gO
— America (@america) October 15, 2026
The bipartisan bill also strangles the financing network of the Brotherhood and its affiliated organizations.
“Wherever the Muslim Brotherhood operates, we see one constant: support for terrorism that directly threatens U.S. interests. The administration was right to designate three of its branches in January, and S.2293 would provide more tools to sanction this terror organization,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told The Daily Wire. “No one with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood has any business serving the American people in Congress. If there is credible evidence, the Senate Ethics Committee should use every resource available to investigate any senator who has betrayed their oath of office.”
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) also backed the bill.
“This bill rightfully directs the Secretary of State to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and imposes strict sanctions against them and their proxies who chant ‘death to America,’ sending a clear message that their anti-western agenda and threats to the American people and our allies will not be tolerated,” Cornyn said.
Cruz has introduced versions of the bill in 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2021.
Senator Jim Risch (R-ID), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where the bill now sits, has not co-sponsored the bill, and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
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