US President Donald Trump is facing a backlash after invoking 9/11 as part of a verbal assault on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Michigan.
Speaking at a rally in the state on Sunday, Trump accused El-Sayed of being “a jihadist”. He introduced as a guest speaker the father of a passenger who fought back against the 9/11 hijackers.
Trump also suggested that El-Sayed would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate”.
Critics condemned Trump’s attack as Islamophobic. El-Sayed himself responded to Trump’s decision to refer to him by his middle name, Mohamed, saying during a rally of his own: “I’ll be Senator Mohamed to you, bro.”
He also said: “They think that by pointing at my name and my faith, that somehow you’re going to ignore the fact that you can’t afford your gas or your groceries, can’t see a doctor.”
Appearing alongside him, Senator Bernie Sanders said: “The reason they are using Islamophobia against Abdul is because they have nothing to say about the real issues.”
El-Sayed is taking on Republican candidate Mike Rogers on 3 November. The race is expected to be one of the closest in the midterm elections, and is proving to be particularly bitter.
The seat is considered to be one of just a handful that could decide the balance of power in Congress. It is currently held by the Democrats.
El-Sayed, a former public health official who was born in the US to Egyptian parents, will be the first Muslim elected to the US Senate if he wins the seat.
He has previously dismissed the various attacks made against him by both Trump and Rogers and denied any connection to extremist groups.
During his remarks on Sunday, Trump said: “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 made a variety of allegations against El-Sayed and his family members, including that he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He introduced as a guest speaker the father of Todd Beamer, a man from Michigan who was part of a group of passengers who fought back against the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, before the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
“Michigan needs to stand up and fight, just like Todd did, to stop a jihadist from walking into the Capitol,” Trump said.
Claims centre on proscribed Muslim Brotherhood
El-Sayed’s opponents have sought to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organisation that was founded in Egypt. Trump designated certain chapters of it as Foreign Terrorist Organisations earlier this year.
Some of the scrutiny of the affiliations of El-Sayed and his family members relates to their writings from more than a decade ago.
A social media post in 2012 by El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, appeared to refer to the movement, saying “my family has long been MB”. El-Sayed’s team have previously distanced him from other comments by Abdelhadi.
Critics have also pointed to an opinion piece El-Sayed wrote in Huffington Post in 2011 about pro-democracy protesters in Egypt. In it, he acknowledged concerns that “supporting democracy in Egypt might allow the country to fall to the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood”.
A year later he also allegedly signed an open letter by Egyptian Americans. In it, the group urged Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to “purge the media and police” following the toppling of the authoritarian regime in the Arab Spring. This letter has not been discussed by El-Sayed.
El-Sayed has previously denied any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood and has stressed his loyalty to the United States. Asked recently at a town hall event whether he would disavow the organisation, he responded: “Absolutely.”
Also in 2012, El-Sayed’s current opponent Rogers, who was then a US representative and chairing the House Intelligence Committee, appeared to call for cautious engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood, telling Reuters: “Do I think there are moderate Muslim Brotherhood individuals we are going to have to reach out to and talk to? Yes but we are going to have to watch it carefully.”
HA Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an expert on Egypt, says the row has more to do with Islamophobia on the political right in the US than with the Trump administration’s actual position on the Muslim Brotherhood.
“If the accusation is to be taken sincerely, then [Trump] should surely have a problem with engaging with any government that has engaged positively with the Brotherhood or with groups that are even more to the right of the Brotherhood,” Hellyer told the BBC. “He clearly has not done that.”
‘Crossing a red line’
Among the others who condemned Trump’s attacks were one of his key supporters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“The president’s statements are out of line,” Bishara Bahbah told the Associated Press. “They are crossing a red line. They are racist.”
Bahbah was the founder of Arab Americans for Trump, a group believed to have been important in helping the president connect with a wider range of voters two years ago. The group later changed its name, removing the reference to Trump.
Trump clinched the White House in 2024 after victories in Michigan, which has a prominent population of Arab Americans, and a number of other swing states.
Asked about accusations of Islamophobia, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said: “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed wants to massively raise taxes, advocates for defunding the police, and wants to destroy the Michigan auto industry by banning gasoline powered vehicles.
“President Trump will continue to call out complete and total extremists like El-Sayed without apology.”