Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed isn’t letting himself be bothered by President Donald Trump’s relentless name-calling, especially if he ends up in Washington, D.C., next year.
Addressing the president’s anti-Muslim rhetoric during a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Sunday, the progressive Democrat pointed out the irony in trying to insult him by dubbing him “Mohamed” when Trump doesn’t seem to have a problem with Islamic leaders who help him line his pockets.
“I get that the president of the United States takes personal offense to my first name,” El-Sayed said. “He doesn’t mind as much when it’s a shared name from the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law’s private equity. Doesn’t seem to mind as much when it’s the Qataris who are giving him a $400 million private jet. He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it’s my name.”
“But y’all, I don’t care how he pronounces my name,” he continued. “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 Sen. Mohamed to you, bro.”
Trump has derided the Michigan-born Egyptian American as a “terrorist sympathizer” and “jihadist,” calling him “Mohamed El-Sayed” and accusing him of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood while on the campaign trail for Republican Mike Rogers.
During a Rogers rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday, the president taunted El-Sayed by saying he’d “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”
“Anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane,” he said. “They certainly should not give him a seat in the United States Senate.”
El-Sayed is polling just hairs ahead of Rogers in their race for Michigan’s junior Senate seat, with numbers still well within the margin of error. If elected, he would become the first Muslim to serve in Congress’ upper chamber.