El-Sayed's Hypocrisy: Criticizing Trump's Press Restrictions After Supporting Muslim Brotherhood's Media Crackdown
Source: M.D. Kittle. "El-Sayed Called On Egyptian President To 'Purge the Media'." September 24, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is being hypocritical when he criticizes Trump for restricting press access, because El-Sayed once supported a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt that violently suppressed journalists. The piece suggests mainstream media are ignoring this inconsistency while unfairly protecting El-Sayed from scrutiny.
Conclusion
Abdul El-Sayed is a hypocrite whose criticism of Trump for 'interfering with the freedom of the press' is illegitimate given his own history of supporting press suppression under an authoritarian Islamist regime.
Premises
- El-Sayed publicly criticized Trump this week for revoking White House press credentials from MS Now, CNN, and Politico, calling it interference with freedom of the press and evidence Trump 'hates democracy.'
- In 2012, El-Sayed signed a letter with 45 other Egyptian community leaders supporting Mohamed Morsi's power grab and explicitly calling on him to 'purge the media and the police.'
- Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood subsequently cracked down on journalists, with reporters harassed, attacked, and put on trial for crimes like 'insulting Islam.'
- The Muslim Brotherhood has since been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
- Trump's press credential revocations are far less severe than the Egyptian crackdown, since the affected outlets retain legal recourse and are actively suing on First Amendment grounds, unlike Egyptian journalists who had no such protections.
- A fact-check outlet (Bridge Michigan) downplayed El-Sayed's connection to the letter, but the letter's language of 'support' for Morsi's 'revolutionary decisions' constitutes support for the regime and its media purge, contrary to the fact-check's framing.
Assumptions
- Signing a letter supporting a regime's 'revolutionary decisions' equates to endorsing all subsequent actions of that regime, including specific media purges.
- Consistency in principles (opposing press suppression) should apply equally regardless of the political/religious context in which suppression occurs.
- The mainstream media's relative silence on El-Sayed's 2012 letter, compared to their coverage of Trump's press restrictions, reflects bias rather than differences in newsworthiness or verification standards.
- Criticism of El-Sayed's actions and statements is journalism rather than religious bigotry, despite CAIR's framing of such criticism as Islamophobic.
- A person's past political statements/affiliations remain relevant and disqualifying for current political judgments about their character.