Trump Tells Michigan Rally Jewish Backers of Senate Nominee El-Sayed Should Be Ashamed

President Donald Trump criticized Jewish voters who back Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic nominee for the US Senate, during a rally in Port Huron on Sunday. Speaking to about 4,000 supporters in the city north of Detroit, Trump was campaigning for Republican nominee Mike Rogers.

"Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves," Trump said. "You should never speak to them again."

Polls indicate El-Sayed is narrowly ahead of Rogers in a contest seen as key to determining control of the Senate. Hundreds of Michigan Jews have pledged to vote for him. Another group has pressed him to defend "Jewish safety, including for Zionist Jews" and "Jewish sovereignty in Israel," while others have urged fellow community members to reject him and support Rogers.

El-Sayed is a strong critic of Israel. He opposes US military aid to the country, says it has committed genocide in Gaza and describes it as "not an ally." Those positions split the Democratic Party during his primary race against pro-Israel Rep. Haley Stevens, whom he narrowly defeated in August. A former public health official, he has also focused on affordable healthcare, housing and education. In the final stretch before the Nov. 3 midterm election, he has pushed to reach undecided Jewish voters and hired a Jewish outreach director last week.

Trump has previously accused Jews who vote for Democrats of being "disloyal to Jewish people" and "disloyal to Israel." At the rally he also said he is "polling at 99% in Israel," which holds national elections on Tuesday. He offered no evidence, and no publicly available surveys support the claim. A June poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute found Israeli trust in him declining: 12% reported a great deal of trust, down from 21% in May, while the share who completely distrust him rose from 32% to 37%.

Trump paired his remarks with anti-Muslim rhetoric aimed at El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim in the Senate if elected. He called him a "jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member" who is "on the side of the terrorists" and said he would "have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate." Trump also warned that a Democratic win would "open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores."

The president further claimed that El-Sayed's half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, celebrated the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to The New York Times, on the first anniversary she posted a video saying that "no matter how great the brutality, the oppression, the intensity of what we're going through, the horizon of justice is just around the corner." She did not directly mention or celebrate the violence. The campaign has said El-Sayed "disagrees" with his sister on "a number of political positions and the rhetoric she's chosen to use, including on foreign policy."

Trump also said El-Sayed's mother had worked for an organization that gave money to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. A Times investigation found she worked as a nurse in Missouri for a Muslim aid group later designated by the US government as a supporter of terrorist groups. She was never accused of wrongdoing. El-Sayed was raised by his father and stepmother and has said he had little relationship with his biological mother growing up.

On Saturday, former President Barack Obama campaigned with El-Sayed in Detroit and praised his potential partnership with Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who has endorsed him. "Imagine the power duo of Abdul and Elissa," Obama said. "You got a Muslim man, you got a Jewish woman, fighting for you in the United States Senate."