US President Donald Trump has intensified his efforts to link Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to Islamist extremists, comparing him to the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks and claiming that Democrats would allow violent, anti-American terrorists to enter the United States.
Speaking to a crowd at a campaign rally on Sunday in Port Huron, Michigan, where Trump won 66% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election, the president said: “I’m here to stop a jihadist, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, from becoming a US senator.”
If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.
Trump has sought to portray him as an anti-American Muslim extremist. On Sunday, he escalated his rhetoric, comparing El-Sayed to the hijackers who seized United Airlines Flight 93 during the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Michigan is witnessing one of the country's most competitive Senate races ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for November 3. Former Republican congressman Mike Rogers is competing against El-Sayed for an open seat that, alongside other races, will help determine control of the Senate.
Trump compared the prospect of El-Sayed's election to the actions of Todd Beamer, a Michigan native, and others who confronted the hijackers aboard Flight 93.
“Twenty-five years later, Michigan needs to rise up and fight, just as Todd did, to keep a jihadist out of the Capitol,” Trump said.
He added: “If El-Sayed wins, he will be the only senator who will have to go through a metal detector before being allowed into the Senate.”
El-Sayed rejected the allegations. Speaking at an event on Sunday evening, he suggested that Trump's repeated focus on his name reflected a degree of hypocrisy.
“I understand that the president of the United States considers my first name a personal affront,” he told a crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “But he doesn't seem to mind so much when that name is shared by Saudis who fund his son-in-law's private equity firm, and he doesn't seem to mind so much when Qataris are the ones giving him a $400 million private jet.”
At Trump's rally, a predominantly white crowd cheered the president's remarks about El-Sayed. Some attendees chanted “Traitor,” while others shouted “Deport,” despite the fact that El-Sayed was born in Michigan.
Earlier on Sunday, Rogers said on NBC's Meet the Press that he disagreed with the characterization of El-Sayed as a violent terrorist.
“I've never called him a terrorist,” Rogers said.
El-Sayed has denied any affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, while describing as “shameful” Rogers's questioning of his loyalty to the United States.
