"He is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood": Trump escalates attack on Democratic candidate

President Trump accused Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, stating that "you can't have a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Congress." This comes amid the exposure of tweets by his half-sister about the family's ties to the movement, and a heated confrontation by El-Sayed on NBC. The Michigan Senate race is tight, about three weeks before the election.

President Donald Trump escalated his attack on Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, directly accusing him of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Speaking to reporters in Arizona, Trump said: "Abdul, or as I call him, Mohammed El-Sayed, is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He said it years ago, he was a proud member." Trump added that "you can't have a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Congress, sitting on one of our security committees." This comes amid the exposure of tweets by El-Sayed's half-sister, Iman Abd al-Hadi, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, in which she wrote in 2012 that "my family has long been in the Muslim Brotherhood" and recounted their mother's activity in the movement in Egypt in the 1970s. El-Sayed himself clashed with NBC host Tom Yams, who read the tweets and demanded an explanation. El-Sayed emphasized that he was born and raised in Michigan, called reliance on the tweets "hearsay," and insisted he did not lie. Later in the interview, El-Sayed accused Israel of increasing wars worldwide and attacked US spending on arming Israel, claiming that last month the US paid $2.8 billion for 2,000-pound bombs. The controversy erupts less than three weeks before the midterm elections on November 3, in a tight race against Republican Mike Rogers for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters.