Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has carefully curated a family narrative for the campaign trail that erases his terror group-linked birth mother for his white stepmom — even though he remains close to his “ummi,” The Post can reveal.
asserted
Post → curate → ummi
Biological mom Fatten Elkomy, 66, a psychiatric nurse at New Horizons Community Support Services in Columbia, MO, was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency — a designated terrorist organization — according to 2010 federal court documents naming her.
uncertain
Elkomy → bear → her
While in Egypt in the 1970s, she was an activist with the Muslim Brotherhood — a terror-designated Islamist political movement seeking to establish sharia rule in Muslim-majority countries — according to a social media post from her own daughter, Eman Abdelhadi, El-Sayed’s half-sister.
uncertain
she → designate → daughter
His white stepmother, the former Jacqueline Johnson, 63, a Lansing-born mechanical engineer, is apparently far more palatable to Michigan voters.
asserted
stepmother → bear → voters
She and her parents, El-Sayed’s step-grandparents, were trotted out in two key videos the campaign has heavily promoted and even used for fundraising appeals.
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campaign → trot → appeals
“I wasn’t raised by my mother,” El-Sayed insisted this week when he was grilled by NBC Nightly News, as he campaigns to become the first Muslim senator in US history.
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he → raise → history
Yet when he’s not on the campaign trail, El-Sayed speaks affectionately of his birth mother, even praising her “uncompromising . . . way of doing things.”
asserted
Sayed → ’ → things
The Michigan candidate was 3 when his parents separated, but Elkomy has remained closely involved in her son’s adult life — including attending his 2014 graduation from Columbia University’s Medical School, where the two are pictured sharing a beaming smile as they stand next to each other, along with Abdelhadi.
asserted
they → separate → Abdelhadi
El-Sayed described his birth mother as “loving” and “devoted” in his 2020 book, “Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic.”
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Sayed → describe → Epidemic
“Both are strong-willed, charismatic, charming — and both are uncompromising, not only in their beliefs, but also in their approaches to life and their way of doing things,” he wrote of his mom and dad.
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he → do → mom
That year, he sent Abdelhadi money on Venmo for “Mama’s bday gift.”
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he → send → gift
And this past Mother’s Day, he revealed he had called her to wish her well, deliberately referring to her only by her first name in a post on X.
“Without you, I would not have been a mother,” Elkomy tells him emotionally in the call.
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Elkomy → reveal → call
“Enjoy the day, and we’ll see you soon, ok?” El-Sayed responded.
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Sayed → enjoy → you
Elkomy could not be reached for comment.
uncertain
Elkomy → reach → comment
She made no public appearances on the campaign trail.
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She → make → trail
Besides the Mother’s Day post that didn’t show her face or her last name, the only passing reference came at a September 2025 Lansing stop promoting “Medicare for All,” where El-Sayed said, “my mother is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and my wife is a psychiatrist,” without identifying her.
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wife → show → her
Meanwhile, in a June campaign video he captioned, “I proudly endorse this message from my grandparents,” with a heart emoji, his white step-grandparents give him a ringing endorsement, with the clip noting their US “roots trace back to the early 1800s.”
“Where did Abdul El-Sayed come from?” asks his step-grandmother Judy Johnson in the ad.
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grandmother → caption → ad
“Here!” she exclaims, referring to the Great Lakes State.
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she → exclaim → State
“We’re his grandparents!” she goes on.
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she → ’re → ?
“He buys us groceries every week.
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He → buy → groceries
We love him and so will you.”
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you → love → him
Another video he shared in July featured his stepmother, who took El-Sayed for her married name and converted to Islam when she married El-Sayed’s father.
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she → share → father
In the clip, Johnson’s hijab is carefully hidden underneath a large straw hat, as the two chat on a porch about what El-Sayed brings to the table.
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Sayed → hide → table
you care about people,” she says, noting El-Sayed’s medical background.
asserted
she → care → background
“If we could see each other as people, that’s very important.
uncertain
that → see → people
“Even if you didn’t always know what it was like to be a darkly-complexion kid with a funny name, you brought that empathy of knowing what it was like to be different,” El-Sayed tells her, before the two share an awkward hug.
asserted
two → know → hug
His family ties are not the only facet of his campaign consistently evolving, according to critics — El-Sayed has also bent over backwards to shed the socialist label, stridently insisting he’s a “capitalist” despite endorsements from socialist powerhouses like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), “Squad” Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), who pledged $1 million to his campaign and joined him at three Michigan stops this week.
“Abdul El-Sayed has taken pains to hide his own terrorist-connected mother from public view because he knows her ties to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Hamas are indefensible,” said RNC Spokesman Hunter Lovell.
uncertain
Lovell → evolve → Laden
“If El-Sayed can’t be honest about his family’s troubling ties to terrorism, how can Michiganders trust him to have their best interests at heart?”
asserted
Michiganders → trust → heart
In addition to his family connections, El-Sayed signed a 2012 open letter calling on the Muslim Brotherhood to “purge” the press and police after the radical group seized control of Egypt, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
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Beacon → sign → Egypt
“Looking at his organizational connections, his family connections, his background is consistent with what one would expect from somebody with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Kyle Shideler, director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy.
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Shideler → look → Policy
Shideler noted both El-Sayed and his wife, Sarah Jukaku, were high-ranking officers during their undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan’s Muslim Students Association chapter, which was identified in a Muslim Brotherhood strategy memo among “organizations and friends” in North America.
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which → note → America
“Muslim Brotherhood members typically keep things within the family.
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members → keep → family
Membership will be something that passes on from father to son, mother to daughter.
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that → pass → daughter
It’s very often common for them to intermarry.
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them → ’ → ?
It often becomes their whole social circle.”
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It → become → ?
“He’s a Muslim Brotherhood guy, 100%,” President Trump said Thursday during a lunch in the White House Rose Garden.
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Trump → ’ → Garden
“How about having him be on the Senate Intelligence Committee?
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him → have → Committee
The guy’s 100% Muslim Brotherhood.
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guy → ’ → ?
He’s a fraud.
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He → ’ → ?
He’s a con man.”
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He → ’ → ?
…and 26 more, not listed.
The Aporia
