--- title: "Trump Spends His Dearborn Goodwill Calling Abdul El-Sayed a ‘Jihadist’" description: "The founder of Arab Americans for Trump calls the Port Huron attacks racist, days before a tight Michigan Senate vote" author: "Nate Ledger" published: 2026-10-26T16:32:34.960Z modified: 2026-10-27T00:19:53Z url: https://rews.cc/a/trump-calls-michigan-s-democratic-senate-nominee-a-jihadist--22a1ce language: en tags: ["trump", "politics", "immigration", "elections", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Trump Spends His Dearborn Goodwill Calling Abdul El-Sayed a ‘Jihadist’ *The founder of Arab Americans for Trump calls the Port Huron attacks racist, days before a tight Michigan Senate vote* By Nate Ledger · October 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/trump-calls-michigan-s-democratic-senate-nominee-a-jihadist--22a1ce ## In brief - At a Port Huron rally on Oct. 25, Trump called Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” - Bishara Bahbah, founder of Arab Americans for Trump, called the president’s remarks racist - A Marist poll had El-Sayed at 50% and Rogers at 48% among likely voters, within the margin of error - There is no evidence El-Sayed has any Muslim Brotherhood affiliation; he has repeatedly denied ties and denounced the group - Speaking at the rally, Flight 93 victim’s father David Beamer said a birth certificate “doesn’t make you an American” In 2024 Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate since 2000 to win Dearborn, Michigan, which has one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the country. Many voters there were furious about the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza, and the city helped him carry the state. For a Republican, that was an unusual and valuable asset. On Sunday, at McMorran Place in Port Huron, a Canadian border city about an hour north of Detroit, he seemed to spend a good chunk of it, [as the Associated Press reported](https://npr.org/2026/10/26/nx-s1-6016816/trump-escalates-anti-muslim-attacks). “I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” Trump told the crowd, [according to CBS Detroit](https://cbsnews.com/detroit/news/president-trump-port-huron-rally-republicans/). The member in question is Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official and the Democratic nominee for the seat being vacated by the retiring Sen. Gary Peters. If he wins, he would be the first Muslim senator. As [NBC News noted](https://nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/trump-leans-islamophobic-rhetoric-michigan-rally-rcna605572), Trump offered no evidence for any of his claims. He called the Republican, former Rep. Mike Rogers, “apple pie,” and he said this about El-Sayed: “Anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane. They certainly should not give him a seat in the United States Senate.” Also: “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.” The first bill came due almost at once. Bishara Bahbah founded Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped run the president’s 2024 outreach to Arab American voters and has since renamed itself Arab Americans for Peace. “The president’s statements are out of line,” he told the AP. “They are crossing a red line. They are racist.” He added that the remarks were unacceptable to Arab and Muslim communities, Christian Arabs included, and that “people are going to remember that on Nov. 3.” So why make the trade? The AP’s explanation is that Republicans are on the defensive over inflation, soaring fuel prices and the Iran war, so Trump has been trying to drive turnout by casting El-Sayed and other Democrats as existential threats to America rather than as ordinary opponents. If the subject you’d rather avoid is [the price of petrol](https://rews.cc/a/in-michigan-democrats-price-the-iran-war-at-the-petrol-pump-de9f22), you need a bigger subject. The catch is that this race is close. The [Marist poll taken October 15 to 18](https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/midterm-elections-in-michigan-october-2026/) had El-Sayed at 50% and Rogers at 48% among likely voters, with a margin of error of ±4.3 points, and Michigan is one of a handful of contests that could decide who controls the Senate. In a two-point race, the voters who helped deliver Dearborn are not a rounding error. ## The Brotherhood question The Muslim Brotherhood is an international Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1928, and the Trump administration has designated certain chapters, in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, as terrorist organizations. There is no evidence that El-Sayed has any affiliation with it. The Republican case rests on family. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, wrote on social media in 2012 that “my family has long been MB” and described a conversation with her mother about the mother’s involvement in the early 1970s. El-Sayed was born in the US to Egyptian immigrant parents who divorced when he was young, and he was raised by his father. Rogers has also asked about his mother, Fatten Elkomy, and her work decades ago at a charity the US government later labelled a supporter of terrorist groups; she was not accused of wrongdoing. El-Sayed has repeatedly denied any ties and has denounced the group. When a man at a town hall in Caro asked whether he would disavow it, he said “absolutely,” and also: “You assume ... that because I am Muslim that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution.” There is a neat division of labour here. On NBC’s *Meet the Press* on Sunday, Rogers was asked whether he agreed with Trump’s descriptions of El-Sayed as a “Muslim Brotherhood jihadist” and a “violent terrorist.” He said the race was “me versus Abdul” and that “I’ve never called him a terrorist.” Which is true, as far as it goes. Before Trump spoke in Port Huron, Rogers told the crowd: “The Muslim Brotherhood celebrated exactly one victory in the United States in the primary this year. Abdul El-Sayed’s.” At their final debate he asked El-Sayed, “Are you for America, or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?” The candidate builds the case and keeps his deniability. The president then says the word out loud. Trump also brought September 11 into it. He introduced David Beamer, whose son Todd died aboard United Flight 93, and said: “Twenty-five years later, Michigan needs to stand up and fight just like Todd did to stop a jihadist from walking into the Capitol.” Beamer, who has appeared in Rogers’ campaign ads, said “the enemy is right here among us” and added: “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.” Both candidates were born in Michigan. Trump helped popularize the false claim that Barack Obama was not a US citizen, and has since used birther attacks on other rivals, including Nikki Haley, who was born in South Carolina. El-Sayed does carry baggage that has nothing to do with his religion. He campaigned alongside the streamer Hasan Piker, who has said that “America deserved 9/11” and that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel. El-Sayed has repeatedly refused to say whether Iran or Israel is the bigger threat. After an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this year, by an attacker who had lost four relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon the week before, he said “hurt people hurt people,” and later apologized: “To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry.” Those are ordinary campaign attacks. Sunday’s material was not. El-Sayed answered at a Grand Rapids rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders that evening, brushing off 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. I will be Senator Muhammad to you, bro.” Sanders said Trump and his allies have “nothing to say” about health care, housing and inequality, so “all they can do is foment hatred and divisiveness.” ## The rest of the show Trump usually announces new factory investments at rallies. In Michigan, of all places, he didn’t; he repeated investments the domestic automakers were already making, which could suffer if he widens his trade war with Canada, a country you can see from Port Huron. He commented on the body of Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, then on Nicki Minaj’s posterior, signalled for her to stand, and said, “I hope Nicki wasn’t insulted.” She urged the crowd to vote Republican. He also took a shot at Obama, [who rallied in Detroit the day before](https://rews.cc/a/in-cleveland-and-detroit-obama-calls-trump-s-iran-war-one-no-b75ae3): “My competitor was here yesterday. He didn’t have a crowd like this.” Neither man is running for anything. Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to campaign in Howell on Tuesday. Arab Americans for Trump has already changed its name once. If Bahbah is right about what people will remember on Nov. 3, the asset Trump built in Dearborn will turn out to have been worth about one rally. ## Sources - [Trump dials up Islamophobia against Abdul El-Sayed at Michigan Senate rally](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/26/trump-dials-up-islamophobia-at-michigan-senate-rally-against-abdul-el-sayed) — aljazeera.com - [Trump leans into Islamophobic rhetoric at Michigan rally](https://nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/trump-leans-islamophobic-rhetoric-michigan-rally-rcna605572) — nbcnews.com - [Trump calls El-Sayed a "jihadist" over his faith at Michigan rally](https://cbsnews.com/detroit/news/president-trump-port-huron-rally-republicans/) — cbsnews.com - [Trump escalates anti-Muslim attacks on El-Sayed in Michigan](https://bostonglobe.com/2026/10/26/nation/el-sayed-trump-anti-muslim-attacks-escalate/) — bostonglobe.com - [Trump escalates anti-Muslim attacks against El-Sayed in Michigan](https://npr.org/2026/10/26/nx-s1-6016816/trump-escalates-anti-muslim-attacks) — npr.org