Cruz says 'Americans will die' if El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate seat and Intel post

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Wednesday in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, that Americans could die if Democrat Abdul El-Sayed wins the state's U.S. Senate seat. Cruz argued that El-Sayed could land on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which handles the nation's most sensitive secrets. ¹

Cruz said a new senator gets the highest-level security clearance simply by being elected. He said nothing would stop Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, from placing El-Sayed on the committee. ¹

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there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result.

The claim behind the warning

Cruz's warning rests on an "if." He said he was relying on the idea that El-Sayed is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist movement founded in Egypt in 1928. ¹

El-Sayed has repeatedly denied any personal or family ties to the group. Newsweek reports he has said he was not raised by his mother. ¹ Questions grew over a resurfaced 2012 post by his half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, about their mother's activism in the group in the early 1970s while in college. ¹

From Channel GOPEl-Sayed lists Mike Rogers' corporate donorsAbdul El-Sayed · 144 plays · captioned, with the source named

Republican nominee Mike Rogers and President Donald Trump have also claimed during the campaign that El-Sayed has ties to the Brotherhood. ¹ Newsweek said it contacted Cruz and El-Sayed's campaign for comment and did not report a response. ¹

What fact-checkers found

PolitiFact, a fact-checking group, rated False a claim by Rogers that El-Sayed "didn't disavow" the Brotherhood. At an Oct. 17 event in Michigan, a man asked whether El-Sayed would disavow it. ²

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Sure, yeah, absolutely,

PolitiFact also noted that El-Sayed called the sister's social media posts "hearsay evidence from a tweet." ² Newsweek reports that PolitiFact published a fact-check this week on El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood. ¹

The State Department announced in January that the U.S. had imposed terrorist designations on the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Brotherhood. The U.S. has not designated the entire organization as a terrorist group. ¹

Why it matters

The race is a close one. Trump carried Michigan by 1.4 percentage points in 2024. If El-Sayed wins, he would become the first Muslim U.S. senator. ¹

That matters because the claim goes beyond a policy fight. Cruz tied a specific outcome, Americans dying, to a candidate's election, and the Brotherhood link he relied on has been disputed by El-Sayed and by PolitiFact's rating of Rogers's related claim. ¹²

Voters will decide in days whether this kind of message moves Michigan. Committee assignments would come only after a win, and Cruz's scenario depends on a decision he said Schumer could make. ¹

The Record

1. Oct 17, 2026At an event in Michigan, El-Sayed answered 'Sure, yeah, absolutely' when asked whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. ²
2. Oct 19, 2026PolitiFact rated False Rogers's claim that El-Sayed 'didn't disavow' the group. ²
3. Oct 28, 2026Cruz told a crowd in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, that Americans could die if El-Sayed joined the Senate Intelligence Committee. ¹

Sources

1. Newsweek, “Ted Cruz Says 'Americans Will Die' If El-Sayed Joins Senate Intel Committee” (2026-10-29). newsweek.com/ted-cruz-says-americans-will-die-if-abdul-el-sa
2. PolitiFact, “Fact-check: Mike Rogers on El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood” (2026-10-19). politifact.com/factchecks/2026/oct/19/mike-rogers/el-sayed-m

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