Facts
- President Donald Trump criticized Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, at a rally in Port Huron on Sunday, October 25, 2026.
- At the rally, Trump called El-Sayed a jihadist and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and said he sided with terrorists, the Associated Press reported.
- Trump made similar remarks on October 15 at the White House, where he called El-Sayed a fraud and said he was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Fox News.
- The link Trump cites traces to 2012 posts on X by El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, who wrote about their mother’s activism in the group in the early 1970s and said the family had long been part of it, Fox News reported.
- El-Sayed has denied having any ties to the group. The Associated Press reported there is no evidence he is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
- El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, was born in the United States to Egyptian immigrant parents. If elected, he would be the first Muslim U.S. senator.
- He faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, one of several races that could decide control of the Senate.
- During their final debate, Rogers asked El-Sayed whether he stood with America or with terrorist groups overseas.
- El-Sayed’s campaign spokesperson, Cole Wozniak, accused his opponents of making false and bad-faith attacks. El-Sayed has said Republicans are focusing on his name and religion instead of his policy positions.
- Bishara Bahbah, founder of Arab Americans for Trump, called Trump’s remarks racist and said they crossed a red line.
- More than 1.3 million Michigan voters had already cast early ballots as of October 27, according to University of Florida Election Lab figures reported by Gray News.
Quotes
Donald Trump, at the October 25 rally in Port Huron, said that if El-Sayed were elected he would “have to go through a metal detector” to enter the Senate, the Associated Press reported.
Abdul El-Sayed, asked on NBC’s Meet the Press about claims that he or his family are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood: “I have no ties; we have no ties.”
Source Read the Associated Press report here.
Image Dome, Michigan State Capitol, Capitol Avenue, Lansing, MI by w_lemay, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
