Donald Trump Increases Islamophobic Attacks on Abdul El-Sayed Ahead of the Midterms

13 Oct 2026, 18:39 · Thought Catalog

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Updated 50 seconds ago, October 13, 2026

President Donald Trump has taken to calling Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed “Mohammed,” and at an October 10 rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, he defended the move by declaring, “I’m the president. I can call him whatever the hell I want.” He called El-Sayed a jihadist and pointed to unspecified “statements from two years ago.”

El-Sayed, who was born Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed in Rochester Hills, Michigan, to Egyptian immigrant parents, is a Rhodes Scholar with a Columbia MD who would be the first Muslim member of the U.S. Senate if he wins. He answered the renaming directly: “He knows my name is Abdul. He says it everyday. But he’s not just attacking me. He’s attacking all of us.”

Abdul El-Sayed addresses reporters outside the Ionia Theater in Ionia, Michigan, on October 11, 2026, following a campaign stop on his Senate run. Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.

The attacks haven’t stayed with Trump. Kid Rock, introducing him in Tennessee, said America would never be “one nation under Muhammad” because it is “one nation under God.”

Abdul El-Sayed addresses supporters at a town hall inside Cadillac High School on October 10, 2026, as his Michigan Senate campaign heads into the final stretch. Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.

On Truth Social, Trump has called El-Sayed a “RADICAL Extremist, Terrorist Sympathizer” and a “Jihadist lunatic.” A Bridge Michigan fact-check found no evidence tying El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abdul El-Sayed speaks at a campaign town hall at Cadillac High School in Cadillac, Michigan, on October 10, 2026. Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.

Jon Lovett, on Pod Save America, framed the closing message as a tell. Republican-aligned groups have poured about $59.3 million into post-primary outside spending against roughly $23 million for groups backing El-Sayed, and Trump is deeply underwater in the state: a Senate Majority PAC poll found 61 percent of Michigan likely voters disapproved of his job, with 37 percent approving. A late-September Fox News survey put El-Sayed at 50 percent and Rogers at 49.

At the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, Donald Trump takes the stage before supporters during a campaign rally on October 12, 2026. Photo by Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images.

El-Sayed’s own closing ad skips the religion fight entirely. It hits Trump’s “billion dollars a day” war spending and says Mike Rogers “has been advocating for war after war my entire adult life.” Barack Obama is set to campaign with El-Sayed in Detroit on October 24, 10 days before Election Day.

Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally for Ohio Republican candidates at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown on October 12, 2026. Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images.

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