Handful of US lawmakers demand Trump ban the Muslim Brotherhood

Middle East Eye

04-06-2025

Calls on Capitol Hill are mounting to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation after a suspect accused of attacking a pro-Israel rally in Colorado is alleged to have expressed support for a former Egyptian president who was a member of the group.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday said he planned to re-introduce 'a modernized version of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, which I have been pushing for my entire Senate career', in a post on X on Tuesday.
Cruz accused the Muslim Brotherhood movement of using the Biden administration 'to consolidate and deepen their influence. But the Trump administration and Republican Congress can no longer afford to avoid the threat they pose to Americans and American national security'.
Meanwhile, US Congressman Jared Moskowitz wrote a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to carry out an 'investigation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization.'
He accused the organisation of having a 'documented history of promoting extremist ideologies and supporting terrorist activities through various affiliates'.
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He accused Hamas of being one such affiliate.
Other politicians, such as self-proclaimed Zionist Congressman Randy Fine, took the opportunity to take a swipe at US organisations such as Muslim civil rights and advocacy group Council on American–Islamic Relations (Cair) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), who he accused of being funded by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Jewish Insider published an article on Wednesday saying that Fine accused the Muslim Brotherhood of funding Cair, SJP and other pro-Palestine groups. He also described Cair as the US 'mouthpiece' of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Jewish Insider also reported that Fine had reached out to Cruz 'to offer to lead the Muslim Brotherhood legislation in the House'.
Cair had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Colorado attack
The calls coincide with an incident on 1 June, where an Egyptian national, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was accused of attacking protesters rallying in support of Israeli captives in Gaza.
Eight people were injured during the attack.
A profile by CNN said that Soliman had posted pictures on Facebook of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, who served as the democratically elected leader of Egypt from 2012 to 2013 before he was ousted in a military coup that the US is said to have tacitly supported. Morsi died in 2019 after collapsing during a court hearing on espionage charges. Egyptian state TV reported he died from a heart attack. The Muslim Brotherhood called the death a "murder".
CNN said Soliman's Facebook was last updated 10 years ago.
The attack has fuelled calls for mass deportations of Muslims and another Muslim travel ban by leading MAGA figures such as Laura Loomer. Loomer, who has been calling Soliman a 'Muslim Brotherhood terrorist' for days, has also been calling for Muslim immigrants to be deported.
In a post on X, she said, 'We are being killed and maimed by Muslim immigrants because Republicans were too afraid of being called 'Islamophobes'.
She added that elderly Jews and young Christian Zionists were being 'murdered by these Muslim imports who hate our country and who hate everything non Islamic. They need to be removed from our country if they hate us.'
In another post, she wrote, 'We need mass deportations and an Islamic travel ban ASAP!'
Loomer has spent days calling for Soliman and his family to be deported.
The Trump administration has been swift in its response. The White House announced on X on Tuesday that the wife and five children of Soliman had been 'captured' and were in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and 'COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT'.
Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem called Soliman a 'terrorist' and 'illegal alien' in a video on Tuesday and said that they were 'investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it'.
Muslim Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Egypt, and in the 1940s formed a secret, armed wing to fight against British colonial rule. It renounced violence in the 1960s and later embraced electoral democracy instead.
It is one of the largest and most well-known Islamic movements. It has long maintained that it is a peaceful organisation that wishes to participate in politics democratically, but many autocratic governments in the Middle East and North Africa consider it a major threat.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have all banned the Muslim Brotherhood. Jordan banned the organisation in April, allegedly after pressure from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel.
Jordan said they had arrested 16 members of the Muslim Brotherhood who had purportedly plotted attacks on targets inside the kingdom involving rockets and drones in April.
In his first term, Trump toyed with the idea of banning the Brotherhood in the US, and could come under pressure to do so during his second term.
The Trump administration considered designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation following Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's visit to the White House in 2019. The Muslim Brotherhood remains Sisi's main source of opposition in Egypt, and the Egyptian president reportedly asked Washington to crack down on the group.
However, the Defence Department, career national security staff, government lawyers, and diplomatic officials raised legal and policy objections.
Sisi led the Egyptian army's overthrow of Morsi in 2013.
Egypt has jailed thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, sentencing many to death.
International rights groups have estimated that tens of thousands of political prisoners have been detained in Egyptian jails since 2014.
Earlier this year, Jordan told Trump they would ban the Muslim Brotherhood. King Abdullah's move firmly places Jordan in the western camp's push against political Islam.
The US is not the only western power looking to ban the Muslim Brotherhood. A new report by France's interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, revives the spectre of the Muslim Brotherhood as an underground Islamist threat poised to capture local and national institutions.