A 2012 tweet, a 2004 Treasury Department sanction and a tense television exchange now sit side by side in the Michigan Senate race.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed spent part of a national NBC interview answering questions about his mother.
The sit-down aired on “Meet the Press.” An NBC interviewer asked El-Sayed about social media posts written by his half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi. The two share the same mother.
Abdelhadi published the post in 2012. It reads: “Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist organization. Abdelhadi’s message places her mother’s involvement in the early 1970s, when the woman was a college student.
El-Sayed pushed back on the premise within moments. He pointed to his own roots in Michigan and challenged the interviewer for raising events from decades ago in another country.
“It’s funny to me. I was born in 1984, down the street in Rochester Hills. I was raised here in Michigan. Went to the University of Michigan. Rebuilt the health department in this city. Led the health department in this county. And you want to ask me about what was happening in Egypt in 1970? Are you serious?” El-Sayed said.
He then repeated a denial he has issued before. “I have no ties, we have no ties” to the Muslim Brotherhood, he said.
He addressed his conversations with his mother directly. “I have never had these conversations with my mother.”
El-Sayed also questioned the quality of the source material behind the interviewer’s questions.
“I’m just telling you that, like, you’re using hearsay evidence from a tweet. This is not serious. It’s not serious,” he added.
The interviewer did not drop the topic.
Citing El-Sayed’s public criticism of the president, the interviewer said: “But you’ve also gone after the president for truthfulness. You’ve also gone after the president for truthfulness. So when people ask you a question, they all do expect the truth.”
El-Sayed answered with a question of his own. “And do you think? Do you think? Are you, are you insinuating that somehow I was lying? I’m telling you, I was not.”
The exchange moved through three stages. The interviewer opened with the posts, El-Sayed answered with his biography, and the questioning then turned to truthfulness.
Elsewhere in the Meet the Press interview, El-Sayed suggested that Republican opponent Mike Rogers is using the allegations to attack his Muslim faith.
A separate set of reports centers on the candidate’s mother, Fatten Fathy Elkomy.
Those reports say she worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, known as IARA-USA, from 1999 through at least 2004.
The U.S. Treasury Department took action against the agency in 2004. It sanctioned the IARA’s worldwide network along with five of its senior officials.
Treasury officials said the network had provided financial support to Osama bin Laden.
El-Sayed was born in 1984 in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan. He said he rebuilt a city health department and later led a county health department.
The dates tied to the story stretch from the early 1970s, the period described in the 2012 post, to 2004, the year of the Treasury sanctions.
The reported IARA-USA employment falls between them, running from 1999 through at least 2004.
El-Sayed’s position, as he stated it on air, is that neither he nor his family has any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The interview marks the latest time he has publicly addressed the matter. El-Sayed has said previously that his family has no ties to the group.
The story involves one family: El-Sayed, his half-sister Abdelhadi and their mother, Elkomy.
