Mike Rogers (MI) Lies Racist Michigan

CNN Played Mike Rogers the Clip of His Opponent Saying 'Yes, Absolutely' He Disavows the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers Said, 'That's Not True.'

On CNN's State of the Union, Mike Rogers kept saying Abdul El-Sayed 'didn't disavow' the Muslim Brotherhood after Dana Bash played video of El-Sayed doing exactly that — and wouldn't say whether he wished Trump hadn't called El-Sayed a 'jihadist.'

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 19, 2026

CNN Played Mike Rogers the Clip of His Opponent Saying 'Yes, Absolutely' He Disavows the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers Said, 'That's Not True.'

Mike Rogers (MI) went on national television on Sunday and denied something the host had just shown him on tape.

The Republican running for Senate in Michigan was a guest on CNN's State of the Union on October 18. He told host Dana Bash that his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has a "long history of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood." So Bash played a clip of El-Sayed being asked, at a town hall the night before, whether he would disavow it. His answer started: "Sure. Yes, absolutely."

Rogers' reply, word for word from CNN's transcript: "No, that's not true."

What the tape shows

At the town hall, a man asked El-Sayed: "I have one simple question. Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?"

EL-SAYED: Sure. Yes, absolutely. But I want to — I want to ask to the question that you're asking, why are you asking the question?

MAN: Because they're a terrorist group.

EL-SAYED: OK. No, no, but what are you implying, though? Do you assume that I wouldn't?

El-Sayed went on to ask the man whether he had disavowed the group, and said the question assumed "that I will have dual loyalties." He is a Muslim American doctor and a former public health official. That is what he was pushing back on.

After the clip, Bash summed it up: "So he said, 'Yes, sure,' challenged the voter and said the voter only asked him because he's a Muslim."

What Rogers said anyway

Rogers said El-Sayed "didn't disavow it. He goes on this word salad trying to get around the fact that he can't do it."

Bash: "He said — he did — he did say — he said, 'Sure, yes.'"

Rogers: "No, that's not true. Dana, listen…"

Bash: "I want to be factual. He said, 'Yes, sure.'"

Rogers moved on, then circled back: "He didn't disavow it. He didn't say no… He didn't because he won't and he can't."

The man asked a yes-or-no question. El-Sayed's first word was "Sure" and his second was "Yes." Rogers heard it played to him on national TV and said it didn't happen. When the record contradicted him, he didn't change his claim. He went after the press instead: "I don't know why the press is so eager for him — to protect this guy."

'The president is going to do what he's going to do'

The Muslim Brotherhood exchange came right after Bash asked Rogers about Trump. At a rally two nights earlier, Trump had mangled El-Sayed's name — "Abdullahbabababa Mohamed El-Sayed" — and then said: "He's a jihadist."

Bash pointed out that the president was effectively calling Rogers' opponent a terrorist, and asked Rogers — a former FBI agent and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — whether he was comfortable with that.

Rogers said: "I have never called him a terrorist."

Bash kept asking, in different words, whether Rogers wished Trump hadn't said it. Rogers wouldn't answer. "I don't speak for the president. I don't represent the president. The president is going to do what he's going to do." Then: "I know you guys want this to be about Trump." Then he changed the subject to fourth-grade reading scores.

"I have never called him a terrorist"

That line deserves a closer look, because eight days earlier Rogers did something very close to it.

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy posted a clip of El-Sayed making a joke about Michigan football, with the words: El-Sayed "really is a terrorist." On October 10, Rogers reposted it and said Portnoy was "exactly right." When the Detroit News asked whether Rogers actually believes El-Sayed is a terrorist, his campaign answered with a football joke.

So no — Rogers didn't type the word himself. He shared a post that said it and called it "exactly right." Then he went on CNN and asked to be judged as a man who has "never called him a terrorist."

A campaign built on this

This isn't a one-off. Back in August, Rogers claimed El-Sayed "believes America deserved 9/11." He was quoting a Twitch streamer, not El-Sayed — and PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire, its worst rating. The Senate Republicans' campaign arm opened its general-election ads by calling him "Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed" and tying him to the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, as we laid out in how Republicans turned "sharia" into a campaign word.

Rogers told Bash his attacks are "about the way you think, not the way you pray." But the specific thing he accused El-Sayed of on Sunday — refusing to disavow a group — is something El-Sayed did on camera, in one word, the night before. When the accusation is false and you keep making it after seeing the proof, the reason isn't the evidence.

What the transcript shows

On October 18, CNN played Mike Rogers (MI) video of Abdul El-Sayed answering "Sure. Yes, absolutely" when asked to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers said, "No, that's not true," and repeated that El-Sayed "didn't disavow it." Asked again and again whether he wished Trump hadn't called El-Sayed a "jihadist," Rogers wouldn't say, and claimed he had "never called him a terrorist" — eight days after sharing a post calling El-Sayed a terrorist and calling it "exactly right."