Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is moving to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group over its longstanding ties to radical Islamic extremist organizations.
Rubio made the announcement during an appearance on the Sid Rosenberg radio show. During the conversation, Rubio and Rosenberg discussed the Trump administration’s decision to label drug cartels as a terrorist organization.
This conversation prompted Rosenberg to ask, “Why wouldn’t you guys designate the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)?
“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 replied. “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?
The state secretary noted that “Any group can say, ‘well I’m not really a terrorist — that organization is not a terrorist organization,’ so you have to show … the paperwork.”
Muslim brotherhood is a designated terrorist organization in Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia.
— Mosab Hassan Yousef (@MosabHasanYOSEF) July 8, 2025
Not in America pic.twitter.com/KdGs2ZCp7C
Rubio further explained that the administration has to go through the proper process to designate the organization as a terrorist group and noted that such a move might be challenged in court. “All you need is one federal judge – and there are plenty – that are willing to do these nationwide injunctions and basically try to run the country from the bench. So we’ve got to be so careful,” he said.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt. It is an international Sunni Islamist organization whose objective is to establish societies governed by Islamic principles. The organization currently operates in over 70 countries and has deep historical and ideological ties to violent terrorist activities.
Several other countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Russia, Libya, and Austria, have already categorized the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity.
The organization formed a covert paramilitary group called the “Special Apparatus” in the 1940s that carried out bombings and assassinations against British, Jewish, and Egyptian interests. It was suspected of orchestrating an assassination attempt against Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954.
🧵 THREAD: The CAIR–Muslim Brotherhood–Hamas Pipeline They Don't Want You to See
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) August 12, 2025
This thread has been a long time coming.
Let's start with a simple fact:
In its 1988 charter, Hamas openly declares itself the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So here's the… pic.twitter.com/3yegFJurHM
Several notorious terrorist groups are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas spun off from the organization in the 1980s. It took over control of the Gaza Strip after being elected in 2006. The group has committed several deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and sparked the current war in Gaza after a surprise attack that killed over 1,000 Israelis on October 7, 2023.
A report from the Counter Extremism Project detailed how the Muslim Brotherhood became an ideological breeding ground for terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. The group casts itself as a political movement that eschews violence. However, its radical teachings have created the foundation for radical Islamist groups. Extremist leaders like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi originated in the Muslim Brotherhood before going on to become terrorists.
“The Brotherhood has also served as a bridge for young Islamists—including bin Laden, Baghdadi, and Zawahiri—to more violent jihadist groups,” the report noted.