Mike Rogers Sidesteps Kristen Welker on His 2012 Muslim Brotherhood Remarks

Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan, did not answer on Sunday when NBC News's Meet the Press host Kristen Welker asked whether he had been willing to work with moderate members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2012. Rogers has spent the final weeks of the campaign tying his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, to the group.

Kristen Welker Plays Mike Rogers's 2012 Remarks

Welker started with the 2012 letter Rogers has cited against El-Sayed. Addressing Rogers, she said: "As you said, he joined that letter, which supported the protesters against Egypt's dictator, not the Muslim Brotherhood as a group."

She then put up a statement she said Rogers made in 2012, when he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee: "Do I think there are moderate Muslim Brotherhood individuals we are going to have to reach out to and talk to? Yes, but we are going to have to watch it carefully."

"Do you acknowledge that at the time in 2012, you were willing to work with some moderate members, as you said, of the Muslim Brotherhood?" Welker asked.

Rogers did not deny making the remark, and he did not say yes or no.

"I wish you would have done this for Abdul El-Sayed. That would have been a great interview," he said. "But what you're doing now is trying to twist this thing to defend your position for letting him lie to you in the American public and the citizens of Michigan."

"I don't have a position," Welker replied.

Rogers then said his 2012 comments were about protecting intelligence ties between Israel and Egypt. "So what happened was we had relationships where Israel and Egypt had relationships in their intelligence services that the Muslim Brotherhood was trying to undo," he said. "So as chairman of the intelligence committee, I said we're gonna have to find a way to try to not sever that relationship, which they did, by the way."

Earlier this month, El-Sayed denied any family ties to the Brotherhood on Meet the Press. Rogers called the denial "an outright lie" in a social media post, Mediaite reported. He pointed to social media posts by El-Sayed's half-sister.

What the 2012 Letter Says

The letter was a statement signed by 46 Egyptian American community leaders and published by an Egyptian news portal in November 2012. The Washington Free Beacon published a translation. According to that translation, the signers wrote that they "support the revolutionary decisions taken by the president, and we call on him to purge the media and the police as quickly as possible." The quoted passage does not name the Brotherhood.

Welker introduced the letter by saying "Egyptians were rising up against a brutal dictatorship," and she characterized it as supporting protesters against Egypt's dictator. By the time it was published in November 2012, the letter was backing Mohamed Morsi, then Egypt's president, and Bridge Michigan describes it as defending him. In the debate Rogers said "defund" the police; the translated letter says "purge."

A Bridge Michigan fact check found that El-Sayed "did not pledge support for the Muslim Brotherhood, as detractors claim," in the letter or anywhere else.

How Rogers Has Used the Brotherhood Attack

In a debate with El-Sayed, Rogers said El-Sayed asked Morsi "to defund the police there, too," Fox News reported. El-Sayed replied: "To bring into question my commitment to the Constitution is really beneath you."

Rogers's campaign has pushed the same theme. In a CNN interview the campaign posted, Rogers said El-Sayed "didn't disavow it" and argued, "This is about the way you think, not the way you pray."

Where the Michigan Senate Race Stands

El-Sayed, a progressive former Detroit health director, narrowly beat Representative Haley Stevens in the August primary to win the Democratic nomination.

El-Sayed leads by 2.7 points, 48 percent to 45.3 percent, in PolitiKool's polling average. A Marist poll conducted October 15-18 had him ahead 50 percent to 48 percent among likely voters, within the margin of error. Among registered voters, he led by seven points.

Control of the Senate is a toss-up in PolitiKool's Senate forecast. Neither side can afford to lose Michigan, a seat Democrats are defending.