Trump Says He Will Designate Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

‘It will be done in the strongest and most powerful terms,’ the president said in an interview with Just the News on Sunday morning.

President Donald Trump said on Nov. 23 that he is planning to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, a move that he has considered since his first term.

“It will be done in the strongest and most powerful terms,” Trump said in a morning interview with Just the News on Nov. 23. “Final documents are being drawn.”

The first Trump administration started the process of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, but did not join the other nations that have given the Islamic group that title.

On Aug. 12, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the current Trump administration had resumed the process.

Rubio was asked at the time why the Trump administration would not designate the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations.

“All of that is in the works. Obviously, there are different branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, so you’d have to designate each one of them,” Rubio said, adding that the process could spur legal challenges.

“These things are going to be challenged in court,” he said. “Any group can say, ‘Well, I’m not really a terrorist. That organization is not a terrorist organization.’”

Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. The group is the world’s oldest and among the most influential contemporary Islamist movements, viewing Islam as a complete and all-embracing system that supersedes and oversees all corners of private and public life.

The Muslim Brotherhood “advocates a bottom-up, gradual Islamization of society that would eventually lead to the formation of a purely Islamic society and political entity,” according to George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned or labeled a foreign terrorist organization in several countries, including Austria, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan.

Jordan decided to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood earlier this year, with its Ministry of Interior stating, “It has been proven that members of the group operate in the dark and engage in activities that could destabilize the country.”

“Members of the dissolved Muslim Brotherhood have tampered with security and national unity and disrupted security and public order,” the ministry added.

There have been recent bipartisan efforts in the United States to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.

In July, Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fl.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fl.), co-chairs of the Friends of Egypt Caucus, introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025, which would direct the president and Rubio to “use their statutory authority to sanction the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.”

Trump’s announcement on Nov. 23 comes just days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbot designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as “foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.”

“This bans them from buying or acquiring land in Texas and authorizes the Attorney General to sue to shut them down,” Abbott wrote on X.

The governor’s proclamation described CAIR as a “successor organization” to the Muslim Brotherhood.

CAIR has denied that the characterization is accurate and responded by suing Abbot and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Before announcing its lawsuit, CAIR said it was undeterred by the governor’s actions and would “carry on its civil rights work in Texas and vigorously defend its right to do so.” It accused Abbott’s proclamation of “smearing the organization.”

“Mr. Abbott is defaming us and other American Muslims because we are effective advocates for justice here and abroad,” CAIR-Texas said in a statement. “We plan to continue exercising our constitutional rights, defending civil rights, and speaking truth to power, whether in defense of free speech, religious freedom, and racial equality here in Texas or in defense of human rights abroad.”

CAIR describes itself as a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and describes its mission as being to “enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims,” according to its website.

Aldgra Fredly, Jackson Richman, and Adam Morrow contributed to this report.