Fox News anchor Bret Baier never got to the end of his Muslim Brotherhood question, and the Democrat standing in front of him in Detroit made sure of it.
Abdul El-Sayed, 41, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, cut Baier off repeatedly during an on-the-street interview in Detroit that aired Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, on “Special Report.” The subject was the allegation pushed by his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, 63, that he has ties to the Islamist movement.
“Mike Rogers has been really hitting this Muslim Brotherhood thing,” Baier began, getting as far as El-Sayed’s family before the candidate stopped him and said the question existed to raise the issue of whether he holds dual loyalty.
His loyalty, El-Sayed said, would be to the U.S. Constitution, and he would take the same oath every senator has taken.
A Letter From 2012 Resurfaces
Baier wanted to ask about a 2012 open letter El-Sayed signed concerning Egypt’s then-president Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader. El-Sayed interrupted again. “I’m not interested,” he said. Baier pushed, asking whether he wanted to walk the letter back.
El-Sayed accused the anchor of yanking it out of context and acting like an arm of the Rogers campaign, then told him to “be a journalist.” Baier shot back that he was one.
El-Sayed insisted he had never belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood and never would. Making his faith the issue, which he said Rogers wants it to be, is “sad and beneath” Rogers and beneath the president of the United States, he added, because the Constitution guarantees the right to pray as one chooses.
The Half-Sister’s Posts Behind the Claim
The allegations trace to social media posts by Eman Abdelhadi, El-Sayed’s estranged half-sister, who wrote that their family had long been part of the Muslim Brotherhood and that her mother took part in activism with the group in the 1970s. El-Sayed’s parents separated when he was three, and he did not grow up with his mother or his half-sister. Recent reporting found no evidence that he has been affiliated with the organization, which was founded in Egypt in 1928 and whose offshoots range from non-violent political factions to extremist groups like Hamas.
The Trump administration has designated certain branches as terrorist groups. Asked by Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Oct. 5, 2026, whether he would back terrorist designations for Brotherhood organizations in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, El-Sayed said he would support a designation for any group engaged in or committed to political violence, and asked to be shown that the Brotherhood is. The questions are not new: a Michigan gubernatorial forum in May 2018 saw Republican rival Patrick Colbeck raise Sharia law and El-Sayed’s involvement with the Muslim Students Association at the University of Michigan.
The Heckler Who Worked for Hawley
Footage of a young man called “Tommy” demanding El-Sayed disavow the Brotherhood went viral. He was later identified as Thomas Teepell, who once worked for Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and for a Kansas Republican who lost a run for governor.
Days later, at the Oct. 21 Senate debate in Southfield, Mich., Rogers said again that El-Sayed had never disavowed the group. President Donald Trump has publicly linked the candidate to the Brotherhood as well.
Obama Takes the Stage in Detroit
A day after the interview aired, former President Barack Obama campaigned for El-Sayed in Detroit on Saturday, Oct. 24. After a bruising Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., El-Sayed is narrowly ahead in some surveys, with several putting the gap at a point or two.
He has given the same answer away from the cameras. At a rally in Caro, Mich., on Oct. 17, he told a heckler, “I’m running for the U.S. Senate and happen to be Muslim.”