Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s 2011 praise for Muslim Brotherhood-linked protesters is drawing sharp Republican opposition as he eyes a seat on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Fox News reports that El-Sayed’s past writing on Egypt, plus a former staffer’s claim that he wants the Foreign Relations seat if he wins in November, has put two Republican members of that panel on record against him.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania say a candidate with that record has no business near the committee that shapes U.S. foreign policy. El-Sayed, the left-wing Michigan nominee and son of Egyptian immigrant parents, has denied family ties to the Brotherhood and says he disavows the group. His campaign did not answer questions about the 2011 op-ed.
The fight is not abstract. It is about who sits on a power committee, what they once urged Washington to do overseas, and whether voters get a straight answer before November.
Lee, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News Digital the nominee should stay far from the chamber and farther from the panel.
"A man with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, who cheered their takeover of Egypt 15 years ago, and who campaigns with people saying America deserved 9/11, should not come anywhere near the U.S. Senate, and especially not the Foreign Relations Committee,"
McCormick, also on the committee, answered on X after a former El-Sayed staffer’s comments circulated. He framed the gap between the campaign message and the committee ambition in plain terms.
"El-Sayed says he’s running on affordability, so why does he want a seat on @SenateForeign? I sit on that committee, and someone with El-Sayed's radical views has no business on it."
That is the core Republican case: a candidate selling kitchen-table economics while, according to people who worked with him and watched him, aiming at one of the Senate’s most sensitive foreign-policy posts.
In 2011, while an assistant professor at Columbia University, El-Sayed wrote a Huffington Post essay urging the Obama administration to back Egyptian protesters tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. He argued U.S. interests lined up with their push for a greater voice in how Egypt was governed.
"It is in America’s interest to support Egyptian protesters’ efforts to achieve the ability to speak their mind and have a say in how they are governed,"
He went further. He wrote that if Washington wanted to live up to its own talk about justice and liberty, the Obama administration should stand decisively with those protesters. The piece also argued that even if the Brotherhood overthrew Egypt’s government, the outcome would not necessarily look like Iran.
History moved fast after that. A Muslim Brotherhood-backed government took power in Egypt in 2012. The military ousted it in 2013. Fifteen years later, Lee is still citing the cheerleading as disqualifying for Foreign Relations work.
El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond when Fox News Digital asked about the op-ed. In a recent town hall, he said he does disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. The written record from 2011 remains public.
Jordan Domingue worked as El-Sayed’s security chief during the 2018 Michigan governor race. His comments, carried by The Midwesterner and then answered by McCormick, put the committee ambition in blunt language.
"It is extremely difficult to comprehend how dangerous this can be if he is elected,"
Domingue added that the lack of foreign-policy experience made the preference for Foreign Relations even more troubling.
"It’s especially troubling knowing that despite no foreign policy experience, he REALLY wants a seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."
Committee seats are not participation trophies. Members handle alliances, sanctions, treaties, and oversight of the agencies that execute American power abroad. Wanting that gavel while running mainly on grocery prices and gas is the contradiction McCormick highlighted.
Separate reporting has pressed El-Sayed on alleged family connections to the Brotherhood. The New York Post reported that he grew sharp when pressed, denying any ties and dismissing the material as hearsay from a tweet. He said he was not raised by his mother and had never had those conversations with her.
“Are you serious? I have no ties. We have no ties,” he said. He also told questioners the claims were not serious because they rested on secondhand social media.
The Washington Free Beacon examined unearthed posts from El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, describing long family involvement in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Those posts are the spine of the family-ties dispute now following the nominee into the general-election stretch.
Just The News reported additional detail from Abdelhadi’s 2012 and 2013 posts: one recalled an “amazing talk” with her mother about Brotherhood activism in college in the early 1970s; another said, “My family has long been MB,” while criticizing how the group handled politics. A further post described praying for family supporting the Brotherhood in Egypt and relatives jailed for involvement.
El-Sayed’s answer has been consistent and absolute: no ties, not raised by his mother, hearsay. Lee’s public statement still treats “ties” as part of the disqualification case. The sister’s old posts sit on one side of the ledger. The candidate’s denials sit on the other. Voters are left to weigh both.
On the trail, El-Sayed has stressed cost-of-living themes. During the primary against Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, he hit a familiar note: it should not be this hard to get by in the richest, most powerful country in the world. Healthcare, gas, and grocery prices have been front and center.
He has also tried to put distance between himself and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, even as he has been associated with controversial streamer Hasan Piker. That mix, kitchen-table branding, left-wing associations, and a reported hunger for Foreign Relations, is what Republican senators are using to argue the nomination carries real risk if it becomes a Senate seat with committee power.
None of this is a criminal charge. No indictment appears in the reporting. The issue is judgment, associations, transparency, and fitness for a committee that deals with hostile movements and fragile allies. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a campus debate club. ISGAP has called on the United States to designate it a terrorist organization. Egypt’s own 2012, 2013 chapter ended with a military ouster after the Brotherhood-backed government took power.
A Senate nominee who once urged America to fall in behind Brotherhood-linked protesters, who now faces family-history questions he calls hearsay, and who, per a former security chief, wants Foreign Relations without foreign-policy experience, is asking Michigan and the Senate to take a lot on trust.
Key gaps remain. The full town-hall transcript where El-Sayed disavowed the Brotherhood is not laid out in detail. The campaign’s non-answer on the 2011 op-ed leaves the essay’s plain language unaddressed by the candidate in that exchange. Lee’s reference to campaigning with people who said America deserved 9/11 is a serious charge that the public record in this dispute does not unpack name by name.
What is on the table is enough for a confirmation-style fight before any oath is sworn: a 2011 call for U.S. backing of Brotherhood-linked protesters, Republican senators already saying no to Foreign Relations, a former staffer warning about the danger, and family social-media claims the nominee rejects as hearsay while insisting he was not raised by his mother.
Committee assignments are votes of confidence by the Senate. They are not participation prizes for winning a purple-state primary on grocery-price ads.
Voters who care about secure borders, clear-eyed foreign policy, and honest answers should treat a Foreign Relations seat as a privilege earned by judgment, not a consolation prize for a campaign that prefers slogans to scrutiny.
