Trump sharpens anti-Muslim attacks on El-Sayed in Michigan, prompting rebuke from Arab American ally

President Donald Trump stepped up his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a rally on Sunday, casting the Democrat as a national security threat and questioning his loyalty to the country. The comments drew a sharp response from Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped lead the president's outreach to Arab American voters in 2024.

Speaking in Port Huron, Trump called El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, a "jihadist" who was "on the side of the terrorists." He said El-Sayed would "have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate." Trump also repeatedly referred to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, likening the effort to keep El-Sayed out of the Senate chamber to the passengers who fought the hijackers aboard United Flight 93. He further said he had come to Michigan "to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator," and he attacked Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

Bahbah, in a phone interview, said the statements were "out of line" and "crossing a red line." "They are racist," he said. His organization has since renamed itself Arab Americans for Peace. He said the remarks were unacceptable to Arab and Muslim communities, including Christian Arabs, and warned that "people are going to remember that on Nov. 3."

El-Sayed would be the first Muslim senator in the nation's history if elected. He has called attacks on his loyalty "shameful" and has repeatedly denied ties to extremist groups. At a Grand Rapids rally later Sunday, he responded to Trump's habit of mocking his name. "I don't even care that he remembers my whole name because he can just go on and call me 'senator' after November," he said, to cheers. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who also spoke there, said Trump and his allies resort to Islamophobia because they have "nothing to say" on health care, housing and income inequality.

Republicans are on the defensive over inflation, soaring fuel prices and the Iran war, and Trump has sought to boost turnout by portraying El-Sayed and other Democrats as existential threats rather than electoral rivals. The race between El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers, to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, is among a few that could decide control of the Senate. Port Huron sits about an hour north of Detroit and near communities where Trump made big gains among Arab American voters in 2024. He became the first Republican presidential candidate since 2000 to win Dearborn, which has one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the country.

A central Republican tactic has been to tie El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic movement whose branches the U.S. government has designated as terrorist organizations. There is no evidence he is affiliated with it. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, wrote on social media in 2012 that "my family has long been MB," and described talking with her mother about her involvement in the group in the early 1970s. El-Sayed was born in the United States to Egyptian immigrant parents who divorced when he was young, and his father raised him.

Trump also went after El-Sayed's ties to streamer Hasan Piker, who appeared with the candidate several times during the primary, including on election night. Piker has said "Hamas is a thousand times better" than Israel and that "America deserved 9/11." El-Sayed has faced criticism of his own, including for refusing to say whether Iran or Israel poses the bigger threat. After an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this year, he said "hurt people hurt people." The attacker had lost four relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon the week before. El-Sayed later apologized, saying he did not intend to justify the attack.

In their second and final debate, Rogers asked El-Sayed, "Are you for America, or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?" Before Trump spoke Sunday, Rogers repeated his Muslim Brotherhood allegations, saying the group "celebrated exactly one victory in the United States in the primary this year."

Unlike at past rallies, Trump announced no new factory investments in Michigan, a state shaped by the auto industry. He instead repeated investments already being made by domestic automakers, whose finances could suffer if he widens his trade war with Canada. Rapper Nicki Minaj appeared on stage and urged people to vote for the Republican ticket. Before she spoke, Trump commented on her body, then said, "I hope Nicki wasn't insulted, but we love Nicki."