DETROIT — President Donald Trump turned to Islamophobic stereotypes to motivate Michigan Republicans on Sunday, comparing Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim candidate for the US Senate, to the Sept. 11 attackers while saying the Democratic nominee, if elected, would bring a wave of violent anti-American terrorists into the United States.“If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadis to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas,” Trump told more than 4,000 supporters gathered in Port Huron, a working-class, waterfront city in an overwhelmingly Republican congressional district 60 miles northeast of Detroit.Trump called El-Sayed, whose family immigrated from Egypt, a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member,” a baseless claim. He then contrasted El-Sayed, a Muslim who was born in the United States, with his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, who is white and also born in the United States.“I’m here to keep a jihadist, Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” the president told a receptive audience in Port Huron, where 66 percent of the vote went to Trump in the 2024 presidential election.If El-Sayed wins, he would be the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. Trump has sought to paint him as an anti-American Muslim radical, and on Sunday he took the rhetoric to a new level, likening El-Sayed to the attackers who took over United Flight 93 during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.El-Sayed has dismissed the accusations against him and, in a recent advertisement, defended his religion, saying, “Faith is a thing there’s just too little of in Washington.”Michigan has one of the nation’s most competitive US Senate contests going into the November 3 midterm elections.The president on Sunday compared voting against El-Sayed to the actions of Michigan native Todd Beamer and others who fought back against the Flight 93 hijackers.“Twenty-five years later, Michigan needs to stand up and fight, just like Todd did, to stop a jihadist from walking into the Capitol,” Trump said.The mostly White crowd at Sunday’s rally cheered Trump’s comments on El-Sayed. Some attendees yelled “traitor” and others yelled “deport,” although El-Sayed was born in Michigan.Trump also disparaged Jewish voters who were considering voting for El-Sayed.“Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said, adding that he “cannot understand how anybody who’s Jewish can even think about voting for this guy.”Hundreds of Jewish voters in Michigan publicly announced they were backing El-Sayed, while others have said they are voting for Rogers or threatened to withhold their support.Terrance Camburn, a 52-year-old disabled Army veteran from Sandusky, Michigan, said he supported Trump’s criticism because of El-Sayed’s “political beliefs.”“I’ve been down to Dearborn and I’ve seen many of the things he agrees with,” Camburn said when asked about Trump’s 9/11 comments.Dearborn, Michigan, has the highest per capita concentration of Muslims of any US city.As he left the venue after the rally, Rogers did not respond to Reuters’ questions about Trump’s invocation of 9/11. But earlier on Sunday, he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he did not agree with the notion that El-Sayed is a violent terrorist.“I’ve never called him a terrorist,” Rogers told NBC.Rogers has alleged without evidence that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist groups.El-Sayed has denied affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, saying it is “shameful” for Rogers to question his allegiance to the United States.Rogers told “Meet the Press” that El-Sayed had not sufficiently responded to questions about the allegations.“He’s a Democrat Socialist of America-aligned candidate who has these pretty radical support groups that don’t like America,” he said.Trump’s speech in eastern Michigan on Sunday came a day after former President Barack Obama campaigned for Democrats in the state, underscoring its importance in next week’s elections.At a Saturday rally in Detroit, Obama framed the attacks by El-Sayed’s opponents as an attempt to make him look “less American than they are.”The former president compared them to his experience as the target of false claims that he was born in Kenya.“We have seen this movie before,” Obama said. “I starred in it … This stuff didn’t work on me. Not in Michigan. It’s not going to work on Abdul.”
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