by Jerry Dunleavy
The Brotherhood has spawned a host of radical Islamist groups and affiliates around the world. The White House may soon take action, spurred by state-level concerns.
Momentum seems to be growing in the push to convince the Trump Administration to designate the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a foreign terrorist organization, with the Republican governor of Texas publicizing the newly-established designation in his state. Members of Congress and think tanks are pushing the proposal as well.
The first Trump Administration indicated that they were strongly considering designating the MB — a radical Islamist group founded nearly a century ago in Egypt but with chapters, parties, and affiliated movements around the world — as a foreign terrorist organization, but they did not do so. The second Trump Administration has similarly suggested that such a designation is likely, but it has not happened nearly a year in.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week designated the MB and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as being “foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.” CAIR has denied the label and sued the Texas government. According to Politico, "CAIR says that proclamation, which bars its members from buying land in Texas, violates its members’ constitutional property and free speech rights."
Some Democrats joining the movement
Republicans in the House and the Senate, along with some Democrats, are currently pushing for the State Department to designate the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated in August that the designation of the MB as a foreign terrorist organization was “in the works” but that the process was a lengthy and careful one, including because the MB has numerous branches and affiliates to examine individually.
A number of Middle Eastern countries have already taken action against the MB, with Egypt and Jordan banning the group and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain labeling it a terrorist organization.
The MB pushed back against the potential terrorism label during the first Trump administration, arguing in 2019 that “we will remain [...] steadfast in our work in accordance with our moderate and peaceful thinking in what we believe to be right, for honest and constructive cooperation, to serve the communities in which we live and humanity as a whole.”
"The Muslim Brotherhood will remain stronger — through God's grace and power — than any decision,” the MB added at that time. The MB’s motto is "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
The Brotherhood did not respond to a request for comment sent to them through their official English language website. CAIR did not respond to a request for comment.
Abbott: "Not welcome in our state"
Gov. Abbott of Texas revealed on Tuesday that he had designated both the MB and CAIR as foreign terrorist groups — something that the Trump Administration has not yet done.
“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world.’ The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable,” Abbott said.
“Today, I designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations. These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.”
The proclamation by Abbott argued that the MB “provides support to localized branches in countries and territories throughout the world, including groups that conduct terrorism internationally” and that the activities of MB branches have been “limited or prohibited” by other governments due to the MB “engaging in terrorism or attempting to destabilize those countries.”
CAIR responded by claiming they were being defamed and by attacking Abbott. “Greg Abbott is an 'Israel First' politician who has spent months stoking anti-Muslim hysteria to smear American Muslims critical of the Israeli government,” CAIR’s national organization said in a press release.
“By defaming another prominent American Muslim institution with debunked conspiracy theories and made-up quotes, Mr. Abbott has once again shown that his top priority is advancing anti-Muslim bigotry, not serving the people of Texas,” the group added.
Criminal investigations launched
Abbott’s office then announced on Thursday that the governor had directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to “launch criminal investigations” into CAIR and the MB.
“The goal is to identify, disrupt, and eradicate terrorist organizations engaged in criminal activities in Texas," Abbott said. “We will target threats of violence, intimidation, and harassment of our citizens. We will also focus on individuals or groups who unlawfully impose Sharia law—which violates the Texas Constitution and state statutes."
CAIR launched their lawsuit against the State of Texas government in federal court on Thursday as well.
“CAIR-Texas and the Texas Muslim community are standing up for our constitutional rights by directly confronting Greg Abbott’s lawless attack on our civil rights,” CAIR said in publicizing their lawsuit. “We are not and will not be intimidated by smear campaigns launched by 'Israel First' politicians like Mr. Abbott. Mr. Abbott is defaming us and other American Muslims because we are effective advocates for justice here and abroad.”
Congressional push for State Department to label the MB as an FTO
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other Republican Senate co-sponsors introduced a bill in July which would call for the MB to be designated as a foreign terrorist organization, or FTO.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, and it provides support to Muslim Brotherhood branches that are terrorist organizations. One of those branches is Hamas, which on October 7 committed the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, which included the murder and kidnapping of at least 53 Americans,” Cruz said this summer.
“They are committed to the overthrow and destruction of America and other non-Islamist governments across the world, and pose an acute threat to American national security interests. American allies in the Middle East and Europe have already labeled the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and the United States should do the same, and do so expeditiously,” Cruz said.
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., reintroduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025 in July, arguing that it “implements a new modernized strategy for designating the global Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.”
“The global Muslim Brotherhood has numerous regional branches, including terrorist organizations such as Hamas, and spreads violence and instability throughout the Middle East,” Díaz-Balart said. “For this reason, it is crucial to U.S. national security interests that we prohibit U.S. dollars from enabling the Muslim Brotherhood’s dangerous activities, and that we ensure Muslim Brotherhood members are blocked from entering the United States.”
Moskowitz argued that “the Muslim Brotherhood has a documented history of promoting terrorism against the United States, our allies, and our society.”
Trump again weighs labeling the MB as a foreign terrorist organization
Then-Trump White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters in April 2019 that "the president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern, and this designation [of the MB] is working its way through the internal process.” The designation never happened.
Rubio, serving as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor for Trump, was asked this August about whether the State Department would designate CAIR or especially the MB as a foreign terrorist organization.
“Yeah, all of that is in the works, and obviously there are different branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, so you’d have to designate each one of them,” Rubio said. “But let me just tell you that there’s a process which I didn’t fully appreciate till I came into this job, and I know people don’t want to hear about processes, but because these things are going to be challenged in court, right?”
Rubio added: “We are constantly reviewing for groups to designate for what they are: supporters of terrorists, maybe terrorists themselves, whatever it may be. We haven’t done this in a long time, so it’s — we’ve got a lot of catch-up to do. And you’ve mentioned a couple names, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, that are of grave concern.”
A brief history of the Brotherhood
The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1922 in the wake of its defeat alongside in World War One after it allied with Germany. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, and other Turkish nationalists took power and soon abolished the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 upon the nation's founding.
The Brotherhood was founded by Sunni imam Hassan al-Banna in Egypt a few years later in 1928, with the aim of establishing an Islamic state — a caliphate — which would be governed by sharia law. Sayyid Qutb — a major thinker for and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s — was an Egyptian revolutionary whose promotion of jihad is believed to have inspired more modern jihadists such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The MB helped inspire many of the terrorist offshoots which would emerge in the ensuing decades. Egyptian Islamic Jihad — which counted Zawahiri as one of its leaders prior to him merging his faction with al-Qaeda — was active in the 1970s, prior to the Soviet invasion and U.S. intervention, and the group successfully assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Islamic Group was another jihadist group formed in Egypt in the 1970s. Palestinian Islamic Jihad was formed in Gaza in 1979 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has been active in attacking Israel ever since.
Mohamed Morsi — the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — was soon elected president of Egypt after Hosni Mubarak’s February 2011 resignation. Morsi served in the role from June 2012 until July 2013. Following large-scale protests in June 2013, the Egyptian military — led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — removed Morsi from power. Sisi is the current ruler of Egypt.
Hamas is also considered to be a branch of the MB, and other Muslim groups and organizations are closely linked to the brotherhood.
This year in March, on the anniversary of its founding, the Brotherhood released a statement arguing that “throughout its long journey since its founding by the martyred Imam Hassan al-Banna (may God have mercy on him), the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ group has given great importance to the issue of Palestine, which has remained and will remain the central issue of the nation” and that the MB “has defined its approach to dealing with it by mobilizing all possible energies to support its resistance and defend its sanctities.”
Threats posed by the MB, according to experts
The Free Press published a story this summer on “How the Muslim Brotherhood Is Capturing Europe.” The article cited a leaked report by the French Ministry of the Interior which concluded that “the Brotherhood’s strategy is to install a form of ideological hegemony by infiltrating civil society under the guise of religious and educational activities.”
The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy — which says it is “committed to fighting antisemitism on the battlefield of ideas” — has released multiple reports warning about the Brotherhood.
“The Muslim Brotherhood appears to be the intellectual inspiration behind all Islamist groups (and their jihadist offshoots) that operate today, such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Hamas,” the institute assessed in 2023. “Sunni jihadist groups are grounded in the firm ideological roots that key MB ideologues pioneered in the last century.”
The institute released another report in November titled, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Entryism into the United States.”
“This comprehensive study exposes and examines the Muslim Brotherhood’s comprehensive, multigenerational strategic campaign to transform Western society (especially in the United States) from within, through what its own internal documents describe as ‘civilizational struggle’ (jihad),” the report this month contended. “Unlike conventional terrorist threats, this strategy exploits democratic freedoms and institutions to advance fundamentally anti-democratic objectives, representing a sophisticated form of nonviolent extremism targeting Western democracies.”
Think tank: "A gateway to terrorism"
The conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank released an October report on “Patient Extremism: The Many Faces of the Muslim Brotherhood” and argued that “a more systematic approach to the Brotherhood is long overdue.”
“The ideas that animate Hamas are not unique; they are part of the Brotherhood’s common heritage. These ideas have also spread far beyond the Brotherhood, animating al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and many other lethal organizations. The spectacular violence of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State ensures a forceful response from the United States and other victims,” FDD said. “At the same time, their attacks contribute to a certain complacency regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, whose branches in the United States and Europe reject the use of violence within their host countries.”
The think tank added: “Yet globally, the Brotherhood is a gateway to terrorism, infusing members with the religious doctrines and hatred that justify violence. The most determined of these members then form splinter groups or migrate individually to terrorist organizations.”
FDD released a memo this month which “maps out the funding, leadership, and history of the Brotherhood’s activity in six countries in the Middle East and serves as a starting point for determining which branches merit U.S. designation under existing terrorism authorities.” FDD said their research showed why the U.S. “should designate the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
The MB’s unexpected relevance to NYC politics
A Just the News review previously found that Zohran Mamdani embraced a nearly decade-long association with Linda Sarsour, a high-profile anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activist, as he rose from an activist to New York State assemblyman and now the Democratic Party-backed winner to be mayor of America’s largest city. Sarsour’s commentary and views on Israel have stirred years of controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism, an allegation she denies.
She also infamously posted a tweet in 2011 which downplayed the concerns about the radical MB taking over Egypt, saying, “Yo' the Muslim Brotherhood knows how to parrrttaaay! So much for radical islamists taking over!”
Sarsour said in a 2017 speech that it was important to wage “jihad” against the Trump White House. She soon backpedaled on the meaning of the word "jihad" by claiming that critics were taking her words out of context as she emphasized her commitment to nonviolence.
Mamdani himself spent a summer in college in Egypt, where the self-described democratic socialist — who was not yet an American citizen — learned about the “addiction of revolution” and witnessed the overthrow of the Brotherhood by the Egyptian military firsthand.
Mamdani having it both ways
Mamdani wrote an article in August 2013 for the Bowdoin College student newspaper about his time in Egypt that summer, and while he seemed critical of the MB’s rule during his time in Egypt, he seemed even more critical of the Egyptian military — particularly the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). He was also critical of the “fulool” — described as remnant supporters of the former Mubarak regime — and urged people not to be fooled by their efforts.
The mayor-elect also questioned the wisdom of the decision by the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists to join in protests against the Brotherhood, asking if a socialist revolution would really be easier with the Egyptian military back in charge.
Mamdani and Trump met in the White House on Friday, as the president weighs whether to designate the MB as a foreign terrorist organization. Although there was no readout of the private meeting, the BBC reported the tête-à-tête was "surprisingly conciliatory."
Jerry Dunleavy
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/momentum-grows-trump-admin-designate-muslim-brotherhood-foreign-terrorist-org
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