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El-Sayed and Rogers Engage in Heated Debate Over Muslim Brotherhood and Gun Control
Confirmed
In Short: In a heated debate, Michigan Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Peter Meijer Rogers clashed over El-Sayed's past support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Rogers' stance on defunding the police.
During a recent debate hosted by WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Peter Meijer Rogers engaged in a fiery exchange over El-Sayed's past support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health official, signed a 2012 letter urging Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked president to purge the media and police, a revelation previously reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
Rogers accused El-Sayed of deleting social media content about defunding the police, a stance that gained traction among far-left Democrats in 2020 following the death of George Floyd.
The debate also saw Rogers, a former Republican congressman and FBI agent, defend his record on healthcare, noting his bipartisan work to cut $11 billion from a $78 billion budget.
El-Sayed countered by highlighting his support for 'Medicare for All' and criticized Rogers for voting against the Affordable Care Act.
The candidates also sparred over foreign policy, with El-Sayed accusing Rogers of being 'bought off' by weapons manufacturers and PACs, while Rogers accused El-Sayed of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
A heckler at a town hall event asked El-Sayed to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, to which El-Sayed responded, 'I’m not running to be a Muslim senator. I’m running for the U.S. Senate and happen to be Muslim.'
Despite El-Sayed's denials, the Washington Free Beacon reported that El-Sayed defended the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 articles published in The Huffington Post and The Guardian.
The race between El-Sayed and Rogers is considered a toss-up, with El-Sayed leading Rogers in a September poll by the Washington Post–Schar School, 48% to 45%, within the poll’s margin of error.
The debate highlighted the growing animosity between the candidates, with the race drawing national attention due to allegations involving El-Sayed's family’s Muslim Brotherhood connections and his positions on Israel.
What this adds
The debate also touched on Trump's endorsement of Rogers and his claims that El-Sayed is a 'Muslim Brotherhood guy,' despite El-Sayed's denials.
What's confirmed
- “If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know, are you for America. Or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?” he argued.
What's still developing
- El-Sayed and Rogers are in a toss-up race, according to Cook Political Report, and the growing animosity between them on the campaign trail has dominated the contests’ fourth-quarter dynamics.
- “I’d like to be a part of the debate, too,” Albin said.
- “I worked in a bipartisan way with my ranking Democrat. We sat down over the course of the summer and we cut out $11 billion of a $78 billion budget,” Rogers said.
- Live coverage of Rogers' visit to downtown Marquette begins Thursday at 8:30 a.m. online and on Facebook.
- Trump called El-Sayed a "Muslim radical" and said he was a member of the Islamist organization, despite the candidate denying any connection to the group.
- “In Egypt, the Brotherhood’s original branch gave rise to Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 after he made peace with Israel,” FDD noted.
- "He's a Muslim Brotherhood guy, 100%," Trump said during a lunch in the White House Rose Garden.
- Viral moments from the campaign trail often crystalize both the key issues in a race and how the candidates are responding to them.
- Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration voted Tuesday to designate the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and approximately 90 other groups as domestic terrorist groups.
- “It shows the success of the Muslim Brotherhood network over multiple decades. It achieved what they said they were going to achieve, which was to normalize support for Hamas and normalize support for terrorism,” Shideler said.
- Several branches of the Muslim Brotherhood have been designated terrorist organizations by the Trump administration, which has stepped up efforts to curb the Islamist movement’s international network.
- El-Sayed has publicly disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, and his campaign denies any connection to it.