President Donald Trump accused Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of being a “jihadist” and a “Muslim Brotherhood member” during a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, while campaigning for former Rep. Mike Rogers. Trump alleged that El-Sayed’s record would disqualify him from air travel and render him unfit for the Senate, drawing a comparison between the candidate and the September 11, 2001, attacks. Speaker David Beamer, whose son died on United Flight 93, echoed Trump’s comparison, framing the Senate race as a current battle against “local terrorists” seeking to “demolish our country.” Both Rogers and El-Sayed were born in Michigan.
Trump offered no evidence to support his claims about El-Sayed, stating that anyone with such alleged ties would be unable to pass airport security. Beamer asserted that El-Sayed, despite being a US citizen by birth, is not truly “American” because he has “removed any strain of the white and blue part in his life.” El-Sayed recently responded to a town hall attendee’s request to condemn an organization by stating that the question implied an expectation of disloyalty based solely on his Muslim faith. The Trump administration previously designated certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon and Jordan.
Left-leaning outlets focused on Trump and Beamer’s rhetoric as Islamophobic, highlighting the lack of evidence supporting the allegations against El-Sayed. No right-leaning outlet reported this story.
Our reading is that Trump is employing highly charged rhetoric, directly linking his political opponent to terrorism and questioning his allegiance to the United States. The invocation of 9/11 and the framing of the race as a battle against “local terrorists” suggest an attempt to leverage fear and associate El-Sayed with extremist ideologies without presenting any supporting evidence. The echo from Beamer reinforces this tactic, further amplifying the emotional weight of the accusations.
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