What the U.S. Gets Wrong About the Muslim Brotherhood

CONFLICTED

Message Heard

History, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with Lorenzo Vidino, Director of the Programme on Extremism at The George Washington University. What happens when an ideological movement is neither a terrorist organisation nor an ordinary religious group — but something in between? One of the world’s leading experts on the Muslim Brotherhood explains… The early history of Islam in America The first Brotherhood-linked students arriving in the U.S. in the 50s and 60s The formation of the first American Brotherhood cells The Brotherhood’s gradual institutional influence across the 80s and 90s Why CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) is so controversial Germany’s three-fold classification system and what the U.S. can learn from it Follow Lorenzo on: X, BlueSky, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Check out his books: The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2010) The Closed Circle: Joining and Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2020). Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How can you tell the difference between a terrorist and an extremist?
0:10.0	Both seek to subvert and even overthrow the established constitutional order.
0:18.0	To achieve this aim, a terrorist uses violence.
0:23.6	And an extremist?
0:26.6	Well, he may never detonate a bomb or fire a shot.
0:32.6	But the story he tells about history and politics, taken to its logical conclusion,
0:39.5	certainly justifies political violence.
0:44.4	And all the while, he builds his network of fellow travelers, often hiding in plain sight.
0:53.8	Lorenzo Vidino is the director of the program on extremism at the George Washington University
1:00.0	in Washington, D.C.
1:02.0	His focus, the Muslim Brotherhood.
1:05.0	He is a top expert on this shadowy, secretive, and revolutionary movement.
1:11.6	For years, Lorenzo has warned, though not necessarily a terrorist organization,
1:16.6	the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, is an extremist movement.
1:21.6	And he believes that when it comes to the Brotherhood, the U.S. government has been far too naive.
1:28.6	I'm Thomas Small.
1:30.3	This is my conflicted conversation with Lorenzo Bedino.
1:39.3	Lorenzo, thank you so much for coming on Conflicted.
1:42.3	It's great to meet you.
1:43.4	I'm so pleased to discuss this very important topic with you. Thank you. Ple for coming on conflicted. It's great to meet you. I'm so pleased to discuss
1:44.9	this very important topic with you. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. So the reason we're talking
1:49.8	is because last month, the Trump administration signaled that they were planning to declare the
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