Gloves Come Off as Rogers Accuses El-Sayed’s Mother of Working For Al-Qaeda Linked Org
Alex Griffing
Oct 9th, 2026, 10:59 am
The U.S. Senate debate in Michigan turned personal on Thursday night when Republican candidate Mike Rogerstook a swipe at Abdul El-Sayed’smother, accusing her of working for a group “indicted for funneling money to Al Qaeda.”
The heated exchange came after El-Sayedattacked Rogers’s position on Flock Safety cameras, saying the Republican and former FBI agent wanted to use them to spy on the public.
“Why would that bother you?” Rogers hit back in the debate hosted by Nexstar’s WOOD-TV and NewsNation, adding, “Well, if you have someone in your family that might be on the, on the watch list …”
“Go ahead and say it,” El-Sayed shot back, “You’ve been tiptoeing around it the whole time.”
Rogers added, “Well, let’s do this. Let’s open up this can of worms. I’ll tell you what my mother did. She was a small–”
El-Sayed cut in, “You go after my mom?”
Rogers replied,“I’m not going after your mom.”
El-Sayed answered, “That’s exactly what you are doing.”
“What your mom was working at, I was going after that organization that was indicted for funneling money to Al Qaeda. That’s your mom. My mom worked at a smoke chamber of commerce. I’ll put my mom up any day for that,” Rogers replied.
The moderator then turned to El-Sayed, “Alright, we will give you a rebuttal, and we’re moving away from this subject.”
“He wants this to be about anything but his own record,” El-Sayed answered, ignoring the attack, and adding, “He’s okay if the federal government spies on you, but he wants to make this about anybody else, going after my mom, my sister. Got nothing to actually say about me. I’m a dad and a doctor. I’m trying to get money out of politics, put money in the pocket–”
Rogers interjected, “Not really a doctor.”
El-Sayed finished, “Pass Medicare for All. He wants to take every corporate dollar he can to jump hoops for Donald Trump.”
A local ABC4 News report in late August noted, “New documents reported by ‘The Midwesterner’ say El-Sayed’s birth mother, Fatten Elkomy, worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, also known as the IARA. The U.S. Treasury Department in 2004 designated the network as an organization supporting terrorism, including support for Osama bin Laden and Hamas.”
The report added:
In 2007, the Department of Justice charged IARA with a 33-count indictment for illegally transferring funds to Iraq. An exhibit list filed in court referenced Elkomy more than a dozen times, documenting participation in wire transfers and recorded phone calls between 1999 and 2002, as well as an IARA-USA transfer request form for over $24,000 to its Iraq office.
Elkomy was never charged with a crime. El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, was arrested in October 2025 during an anti-ICE protest and later “entered a ‘not guilty’ plea to felony charges of aggravated battery after allegedly spitting on an Illinois state trooper,” reported Fox News.
Abdelhadi has also grabbed headlines during the campaign for her past comments on Hamas’s October 7th terror attacks. “Abdul loves his sister and also disagrees with her on a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy,” El-Sayed’s campaign told Fox News Digital when asked about those statements.
Abdul El-Sayed vs. Mike Rogers Michigan Senate debate
57:54
https://www.youtu.be/RCNDrlzoAfo
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/gloves-come-off-as-rogers-accuses-el-sayeds-mother-of-working-for-al-qaeda-linked-org/