Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Thursday again denied that he or his family has any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Washington Post reported. Later that day, President Donald Trump repeated the claim at the White House, Fox News reported.

In an NBC News interview that aired Thursday, anchor Tom Llamas asked El-Sayed about 2012 posts by his half sister that mention their biological mother's "activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college," the Post reported.

"I have no ties. We have no ties," El-Sayed said, according to the Post. "I have never had these conversations with my mother. I wasn't raised by my mother ... You're using hearsay evidence from a tweet. It's just not serious."

El-Sayed's Egyptian immigrant parents divorced when he was 3, and he was raised by his father and stepmother in a Detroit suburb, the Post reported. The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist movement founded in Egypt in 1928, and some of its offshoots are political parties while others are extremist groups, the Post said.

Later Thursday, Trump spoke at a lunch in the White House Rose Garden. "He's a Muslim Brotherhood guy, 100%," Trump said, according to Fox News. "How about having him be on the Senate Intelligence Committee?" Trump also called El-Sayed "a fraud" and "a con man" and said he planned to visit Michigan, Fox News reported. Fox said it had asked El-Sayed's campaign for comment.

El-Sayed has called attempts to tie him to the group Islamophobic, the Post said. He has said his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, is pointing to "my name and my faith" to make voters suspicious of him. El-Sayed would be the first Muslim senator if elected, the Post reported.

What we know: El-Sayed denied any ties again Thursday, and Trump repeated the claim the same day.
What we don't: Whether the dispute will move voters in the Michigan Senate race.