NBC News’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker kept insisting on Sunday that Abdul el Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, had denounced the Muslim Brotherhood. I was flabbergasted. How could I have missed such major news?
Until now, the progressive candidate’s campaign playbook has been to routinely deny any ties to the radical Muslim Brotherhood before turning the tables by questioning the motives of anyone who asks. That’s what happened earlier this month when el Sayed was asked whether he disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood. He responded “Absolutely” before attacking the questioner. But disavowal entails distancing oneself from a group’s activities; denunciation entails condemnation of the group itself.
Still, during her combative interview with el Sayed’s challenger, Republican former congressman Mike Rogers, Welker was adamant. “Congressman,” she insisted, “he has denied and denounced the Muslim Brotherhood … He did in an interview with me.”
Rogers, a former FBI special agent, politely disagreed and tried to point out that el Sayed had actually signed a public letter in support of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, briefly Egypt’s leader. He added that el Sayed had been evasive about ties between his stepmother and the group. In keeping with his FBI training, Rogers focused on the facts as known.
And a known fact is that whatever else el Sayed has said about the Brotherhood, he has never denounced it. Rogers tried to draw the distinction between disavowing Muslim Brotherhood membership and denouncing the group, but Welker wouldn’t let up. Undeterred, she doubled down on her dubious claim. “And he has denounced.” Welker persisted, “He was asked directly if he denounced the Muslim Brotherhood. He has.”
Well, if he has, I can’t find it. Neither can Google AI nor other artificial intelligence search assistants. Maybe Welker doesn’t realize to denounce an organization is not the same as denying membership or ties to it. Again, however, denunciation involves criticizing an organization’s ideology, actions, or leaders. Denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood is what the U.S. government did in January, in declaring two of the group’s chapters as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
That designation noted that “The Muslim Brotherhood has inspired, nurtured, and funded terrorist groups like Hamas that are direct threats to the safety and security of the American people and our allies. This Administration will use all tools at our disposal to hold them accountable for the violence they have encouraged across the Middle East and the world in pursuit of their extreme version of Islam.”
Two interesting questions spring to mind from this episode. Does Welker honestly believe el Sayed’s blanket denials of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are the same as a denunciation? And why hasn’t el Sayed simply put the issue to rest by unequivocally denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist tactics?
Take the Welker question first. Welker was NBC’s White House correspondent before hosting Meet the Press. Her salary is reportedly in the seven-figure range. As one of journalism’s elite, she ought to be able to distinguish between a denial of ties and a denunciation. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. If she truly believes they are one and the same, then she’s living proof of the Peter Principle that people get promoted to the level of their incompetence.
Of course, there’s a less savory possibility. Namely, that Welker may be fully aware of the distinction, but is using her platform to confuse her audience into believing that el Sayed has denounced the Muslim Brotherhood.
But what about el Sayed? What’s stopping him from putting the issue behind him by simply declaring that he doesn’t support terrorism, full stop?
As a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University, el Sayed surely grasps the distinction between disavowing membership and denouncing the Brotherhood. Employing the principle of Occam’s Razor, he hasn’t denounced the Muslim Brotherhood because he can’t. El Sayed shares too many of the Brotherhood’s beliefs, hence his support for curbing U.S. aid to the regimes in Egypt and Pakistan as well as Israel. Nor can he afford to alienate the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel democratic socialist progressives he’s counting on to vote for him.
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None of this makes el Sayed a terrorist. But he may still fall into a category James Mitchell describes in his 2016 book Enhanced Interrogation. Mitchell was one of the interrogators of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. KSM, along with Osama Bin Laden, was an adherent of the Muslim Brotherhood.
KSM told Mitchell that there are four kinds of Jihad: jihad by the heart, by the tongue, by the hand, and by the sword. True Muslims, KSM believed, would conduct their quest for Islamic domination by any of these means, including al Taqiyya, the use of deception to disguise one’s true beliefs while undermining the non-believers.
John B. Roberts II was a Reagan White House official, international political strategist, and executive producer of The McLaughlin Group. He is an author and artist.