Trump called El-Sayed a “jihadist” and said people like him should never be allowed in the Senate.
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Republicans’ Islamophobia reached new lows this weekend at a Michigan rally hosted by Donald Trump, where the president repeatedly labelled Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as a “jihadist” and one speaker condemned El-Sayed’s “blood.”
Trump, invoking post-9/11 airport security guidelines, said that El-Sayed would be “unable to get a seat on an airplane” for his supposed “record of support for jihadists” and that “they certainly should not give him a seat in the United States Senate.”
“He would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate. I want him to have a metal detector!” Trump went on. Metal detectors are not currently in use in the Senate, but were temporarily put in place for the House after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Nearly all of Trump’s remarks on El-Sayed at the rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday focused on the latter’s Muslim identity — with many Islamophobic remarks being met with cheers from the crowd.
Trump said that El-Sayed is “on the side of the terrorists,” wants to implement “Sharia law,” and is a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member,” a complete fabrication. He also invoked anti-immigrant sentiment, saying that El-Sayed will “invite hordes of jihadists to our shores” who will make it so that “you cannot even have a Christmas,” and likening El-Sayed to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), who the administration is reportedly trying to deport.
By contrast, Trump spoke very little of the GOP’s Senate candidate, Mike Rogers, who he simply said is “apple pie.” Trump said that Rogers, who is white, is “what your state is all about.”
The president introduced another speaker at the rally, the father of a Flight 93 victim, who spewed white supremacist rhetoric about El-Sayed’s blood.
“Mike Rogers is an American. Abdul has a birth certificate. The birth certificate says he’s a citizen of America. You know what? A birth certificate doesn’t make you an American,” said the speaker, David Beamer.
“[El-Sayed] had the choice to be an American or not. He has chosen otherwise,” Beamer went on. “He has blood that’s red. However, he has chosen to remove any strain of the white and blue part in his blood. We cannot, cannot allow this man to invade and occupy our country.”
The remarks were an escalation of Trump and the GOP’s Islamophobic rhetoric against El-Sayed and were condemned by critics. They come as far right Islamophobic agitator Jake Lang has been protesting El-Sayed and Muslims in Michigan across the state.
El-Sayed hit back at Trump and his Islamophobic rhetoric at his own rally on Sunday, addressing Trump for calling him “Mohamed” as an attempt to highlight and attack his Muslim background.
“I don’t care how he pronounces my name. I don’t even care that he remembers my whole name,” said El-Sayed in a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Sunday. “Because he can just go on and call me ‘senator’ after November. I will be Senator Mohamed to you, bro.”
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