PORT HURON, MI – U.S. President Donald Trump has stepped up his anti-Muslim attacks against Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, going so far as to suggest that Christmas will be canceled if the progressive doctor wins.
President Trump visited Michigan on Sunday to shore up support for Republican candidates in the Midwest state ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
However, from the stage he made baseless claims, including calling El-Sayed a “jihadist.”
President Trump said El-Sayed “will be the only senator to have to go through a metal detector before being allowed into the Senate.”
“I want him to have a metal detector.”
The president, whose popularity has waned in part due to the US-Israel war against Iran, spoke for nearly two hours to hundreds of supporters.
His remarks focused primarily on Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, one of only about seven U.S. Senate races.
El-Sayed is running against Republican candidate Mike Rogers for the state’s open Senate seat, a race seen as crucial for Republicans to maintain a majority in the 100-member Senate.
If Rogers wins, he would flip the seat currently held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, leaving Democrats with the difficult task of flipping the remaining five seats to regain control of the chamber.
Republicans currently hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate. There are only 35 senatorial positions up for election in 2026.
Here are five key takeaways from the Republican event.
President Trump steps up anti-Muslim attacks
President Trump has repeatedly targeted El-Sayed’s Muslim identity in recent weeks, including misrepresenting the Democrat’s name as “Muhammad,” but he took that rhetoric to new heights on Sunday.
Throughout his speech, Trump returned to themes related to El-Sayed’s Islamic faith, falsely accusing the candidate of trying to impose Islamic law on the United States.
“So Mr. Abdul… also wants to introduce Islamic law into our country. If he does that, he should be tried first. I will be a witness,” Trump said, apparently imagining Mr. El-Sayed being tried in a religious court.
Several times during the rally, some participants blurted out the word “traitor” when El-Sayed’s name was mentioned.
“I’m here to stop a member of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood from becoming a member of the United States Senate,” Trump said.
Mr. El-Sayed is a U.S.-born citizen, former public health official, and sworn to uphold the Constitution. There is no evidence that he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or any foreign organization.
Trump has weaponized anti-Muslim bigotry for political gain since he first ran for president during the 2016 campaign.
For example, in 2015, near the start of his first successful campaign, Trump said he supported a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Less than two years later, President Trump used his presidency to sign a short-term executive order, the so-called “Muslim Ban,” banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries.
In a speech on Sunday, President Trump reiterated his concerns about Muslim immigrants.
“If Mr. Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until we can’t even get through Christmas,” Trump said.
El-Sayed has largely dismissed the anti-Muslim rhetoric against him as a “distraction” and said he is more focused on domestic issues such as lowering the cost of living and expanding access to health care.
Mr. Rogers hugs Mr. Trump.
As President Trump’s approval ratings plummet, some Republican candidates in close races are distancing themselves from the president.
Mr. Rogers has previously called for an end to the Iran war, balked at President Trump’s tariff campaign, and called for an end to the trade war with Canada, which shares a border with Michigan.
But Mr. Rogers attended Sunday’s rally and took to the stage alongside Mr. Trump in a show of mutual support.
A poll from research firm Marketing Resource Group earlier this month suggested that only 35% of Michigan voters view Mr. Trump positively.
Mr. Rogers set the tone for an anti-Muslim attack against El-Sayed early in the rally, also claiming that the Democratic Party had ties to the Egyptian political movement Muslim Brotherhood, which was designated a “terrorist” group by the United States this year.
But as a lawmaker, Mr. Rogers voted in 2012 to continue U.S. aid to Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi.
In Sunday’s speech, Mr. Rogers tried to portray El-Sayed as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), but unlike other progressives, El-Sayed is not a member of left-wing groups.
“This DSA candidate also receives significant funding from organizations that support the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah,” Rogers said, without providing evidence.
All three groups are designated as “terrorist” organizations in the United States, making it illegal to provide material support to them.
President Trump is unapologetic about Iran
The average price of gasoline in Michigan on Sunday was $4.83 a gallon, up from $2.91 before the war with Iran began.
The Iranian government has restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response to the war, causing energy prices to soar.
President Trump initially promised the conflict would last only four to six weeks.
However, nearly eight months after the United States and Israel went to war on February 28, the conflict shows no signs of ending.
On Sunday, President Trump said he had no regrets about the war.
“I made that decision. I can’t second-guess it,” Trump told the audience.
He added that gas prices would have been much higher than they were then. He also defended his decision by citing the threat of nuclear war.
President Trump said, “Iran is by far the number one state sponsor of terrorism, and we needed to make sure that Iran did not possess nuclear weapons.”
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons. The country has long maintained that its uranium enrichment program is for private energy production.
Before the war, President Trump also claimed that the U.S. attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in June 2025 had completely “annihilated” the country’s nuclear program.
“We are building tremendous wealth.”
Despite economic concerns related to rising costs of living and gasoline prices, President Trump boasted about the size of the profits that U.S. oil companies are making from the war.
Demand for energy products has increased globally in recent months as supply chains tighten.
“Our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars because of what happened in the Middle East because they’re coming to Texas, they’re coming to Oklahoma, they’re coming to Louisiana, they’re taking oil,” Trump said. “They make hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Trump added that his advisers asked him not to bring up the issue because “people are paying a little bit more” for gas and fuel.
“I saw a fake headline that said, “While people are suffering at the pump, President Trump is talking about all the money they’re making.” That becomes a headline. I said, “I don’t care.” I’ll say it. We have great wealth,” the US president said.
President Trump can still mobilize the Republican base
On Sunday, the line of Trump supporters stretched several blocks outside the rally.
The hockey stadium where President Trump spoke was packed with attendees wearing “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) gear.
The audience cheered and laughed at Trump, and attendees frequently expressed admiration for the president or insults toward his opponents, particularly El-Sayed.
Amid declining popularity and growing anger over inflation and the Iran war, Mr. Trump may appear to be on the political trail.
But the president has emphasized his continued ability to mobilize his core MAGA base, often pointing to crowd size as an indicator of his success as an activist.
The audience remained engaged throughout Sunday’s speech.
At one point, the speech took a strange turn when the president talked about the face of Republican incumbent Jon Husted from Ohio, who is running in another close Senate race.
“I saw his dick, and I’ve never done that with a man before. With a woman? Yes. With a man? No,” Trump said.
The US president also praised the derriere of rapper Nicki Minaj, one of the prominent supporters in attendance.
“By the way, I once saw someone who was incredibly beautiful, Nicki Minaj. It would be hard to miss that,” Trump said.
The crowd cheered.
