This executive order carries the most negative average sentiment score across all 244 executive orders analyzed. The three next-most-negative orders share a common rhetorical strategy: explicit, named threat framing concentrated in opening sections. All are closely related in subject matter:
The concentration of these orders at the top of the negativity ranking reflects a deliberate rhetorical pattern: establishing an urgent, named threat as the basis for sweeping executive action. This annotated analysis examines how that pattern operates at the sentence level in the highest-scoring example.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.) (INA), and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), it is hereby ordered:
This order sets in motion a process by which certain chapters or other subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, consistent with section 219 of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1189) and specially designated global terrorists, consistent with IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702), and Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001 (Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism), as amended.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond. Relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests. For example, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel. A senior leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas. Such activities threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East, as well as the safety and stability of our regional partners.
This section does two things simultaneously: it initiates a formal review process and strongly points toward its expected outcome. By stating that named chapters actively "engage in violence and destabilization" rather than "may engage" or "are suspected of," the order reads more like a designation decision than an order initiating one. The review in Section 3 is positioned as process confirmation rather than genuine inquiry.
The specific allegations (October 7 rocket attacks, calls for violence, material support to Hamas) are presented as established facts, with no citations, intelligence assessments, or sourced evidence referenced within the order. That absence is worth noting: it is the kind of detail that shapes how the order should be read, but that most readers would not pause to look for.
Sentence-level scores for S3 through S5 (−0.898, −0.778, −0.785) are the most negative in the order and among the most negative recorded across all 244 executive orders analyzed, reflecting the unusual density of explicit threat language in this section.
It is the policy of the United States to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the capabilities and operations of Muslim Brotherhood chapters designated as foreign terrorist organizations pursuant to section 3 of this order, deprive those chapters of resources, and thereby end any threat such chapters pose to United States nationals or the national security of the United States.
The order's single policy sentence carries its entire affirmative case: the United States will act cooperatively, protectively, and in defense of its partners. This is the only moment in the analyzed text where constructive intent appears. Yet even here, the diction remains threat-centered. "Eliminate," "deprive," and "threat" do the grammatical work of the sentence, pulling its tone in the same direction as the allegations in Section 1. The order's cooperative purpose and its threatening vocabulary point in opposite directions, and the vocabulary wins.
That gap between what the sentence means and how it reads illustrates a core limitation of automated sentiment tools when applied to policy language: they measure words, not intent.
Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit a joint report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, concerning the designation of any Muslim Brotherhood chapters or other subdivisions, including those in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, as foreign terrorist organizations consistent with 8 U.S.C. 1189, and specially designated global terrorists consistent with 50 U.S.C. 1702 and Executive Order 13224.
Within 45 days of submitting the report required by subsection (a) of this section, the Secretary of State or the Secretary of the Treasury, as applicable, shall take all appropriate action consistent with 8 U.S.C. 1189 or 50 U.S.C. 1702 and Executive Order 13224, as applicable, with regard to the designation of any Muslim Brotherhood chapters or other subdivisions described in section 1 of this order as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
The 30- and 45-day deadlines signal that this order is a political priority, not a routine administrative action. Compressed timelines in executive orders typically communicate urgency to both implementing agencies and external audiences.
The phrase "as applicable" in Section 3(b) introduces an important qualification: it preserves the flexibility built into the governing laws, meaning designation is not actually commanded regardless of what the review finds. Section 1 states the threat as settled fact; Section 3 retains the legal option to reach a different conclusion. That tension between certainty in the preamble and flexibility in the procedural text is easy to miss but worth understanding.
Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of State.
This order does three things simultaneously: it initiates a formal legal process, signals where that process should land, and communicates a policy position to domestic and international audiences. That combination helps explain choices that might otherwise seem unusual: the specific October 7 allegations, the declarative certainty, the absence of sourcing. These are not incidental features of the drafting. They are consistent with an order designed to be read and quoted, not just implemented.
By presenting specific allegations as established facts before any review has occurred, Section 1 functions less as a predicate for inquiry and more as a predicate for action. Section 3 preserves the legal flexibility to reach a different outcome, but the rhetorical weight of the document points firmly in one direction.
The order also places Jordan and Egypt in an unusual position. Both governments are named as locations of threatening Brotherhood chapters and, in the same document, as partners whose safety and stability the United States seeks to protect. That tension is not resolved anywhere in the order.
Each sentence in Sections 1–3 was scored using the VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner) sentiment framework, developed in 2014 and widely used in computational linguistics research. VADER assigns each sentence a compound score ranging from −1.0 (most negative) to +1.0 (most positive), based on a dictionary of words and phrases rated for emotional tone. Scores above +0.05 are generally considered positive; below −0.05, negative.
Rather than using the VADER software library directly, scores were generated by an AI model prompted to apply VADER's scoring framework. To maximize consistency, the model was run at its most deterministic setting (temperature = 0.0), meaning the same input would produce the same output on repeated runs. While results should closely align with library-computed scores in direction and relative magnitude, minor variations are possible. Each sentence's scores and explanatory commentary were produced in a single AI call, with the commentary identifying the specific words most likely driving the score and noting where a word's dictionary meaning may not reflect its intended meaning in context. The bolded words and phrases in each sentence reflect that review.
VADER was designed primarily for social media and informal text, and it has known limitations with legal and policy language. Section 4 (General Provisions) follows standard executive order boilerplate and was not included in the sentence-level scoring.