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\n

DEARBORN, MICHIGAN \u2014 \u201cA threat to America.\u201d \u201cRadical ideology.\u201d \u201cA jihadist.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump and Republicans are ratcheting up their efforts to brand Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan-born Muslim whose parents emigrated from Egypt, as an \u201cextremist\u201d<\/u><\/a> in the final days of the state\u2019s critical Senate race.<\/p>\n

It has sparked concern among some El-Sayed supporters, who fear the deluge of attacks could break through to some undecided voters. It has infuriated some of the president\u2019s one-time Muslim and Arab allies in the state with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, who view the comments as Islamophobic and racist. And it has caused some of them to lose hope in Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou turned off a lot of people. Even people that were working to get Trump elected and get people to vote Republican here have flipped. We did all this work for them to turn around and use us as enemies, to be able just to win an election,\u201d said Hassan Nehme, a GOP statehouse candidate and former Michigan Republican Party vice chair who helped lead Arab American outreach for the GOP in 2024. He is undecided in how he\u2019ll vote in this year\u2019s Senate race. \u201cIt’s to the point [where] I’m like, why am I even fighting to be in this party?\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans\u2019 increasingly incendiary rhetoric in the crucial Senate race is overshadowing the close of an already polarizing election.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan is a battleground. That\u2019s the truth. And racism is real,\u201d Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat in an Arab-majority city<\/u><\/a> who is backing El-Sayed<\/u><\/a>, said in an interview at his office Tuesday. \u201cIf you have folks who refuse to vote for somebody because of the direction in which they pray, it most certainly has an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hammoud believes most voters will see past it. But Republicans are bearing down.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has repeatedly mocked and mispronounced<\/u><\/a> El-Sayed\u2019s name, labeled him a \u201cjihadist\u201d<\/u><\/a> during a rally for GOP nominee Mike Rogers in Port Huron this past Sunday and said he would \u201cbe unable to get a seat on an airplane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a campaign event with Rogers in Grand Rapids<\/u><\/a> on Monday, claimed the world\u2019s 500 million Arabs no longer produce award-winning science or literature and instead create \u201cstagnant societies that do two things \u2014 hatred and war and victimization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), while campaigning for Rogers in Michigan on Wednesday, called El-Sayed<\/u><\/a> a \u201cjihadist leprechaun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ads from Rogers\u2019 campaign and allied GOP groups attacking El-Sayed in this vein run in rotation across Michigan television. Senate Leadership Fund<\/a>, the top GOP Senate super PAC, says El-Sayed gets \u201cdirty money\u201d from an \u201cIslamic extremist group\u201d that is \u201ctied to Hamas.\u201d Rogers, in a direct-to-camera clip<\/a>, calls El-Sayed \u201ca threat to America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bishara Bahbah, an Arizona resident who founded Arab Americans for Trump and helped facilitate Trump\u2019s 2024 outreach to Michigan\u2019s Arab community, said Trump\u2019s Sunday comments cross \u201ca red line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only consequence that I can see from these comments is a complete reversal of the support in Michigan and other states where Arabs and Muslims vote, toward the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogers has been more specific in how he\u2019s gone after his opponent. He has attacked El-Sayed<\/u><\/a> for taking campaign donations<\/u><\/a> from donors affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations<\/u><\/a>, a Muslim advocacy group, which Republicans have long attacked as a terrorist group even though the U.S. government has not<\/a> designated it as such. He\u2019s alleged ties between El-Sayed\u2019s family and the Muslim Brotherhood, in part through El-Sayed\u2019s father-in-law\u2019s involvement with CAIR<\/u><\/a> and the Islamic Society of North America<\/u><\/a>, another Muslim group<\/u><\/a>. El-Sayed\u2019s campaign referred to past statements from both CAIR<\/u><\/a> and ISNA<\/u><\/a> denying affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers has also referenced El-Sayed\u2019s mother\u2019s work for a charity<\/u><\/a> that the Bush administration classified as a supporter of terrorist groups<\/a>, as reported by The New York Times.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

El-Sayed has disavowed<\/a> the Muslim Brotherhood and said his family has \u201cno\u201d ties to it<\/u><\/a>. El-Sayed\u2019s parents separated when he was three years old, and he says he was raised by his father and stepmother. His campaign responded to Trump\u2019s rally in a statement<\/u><\/a> saying while Trump and Rogers \u201clie and resort to desperate, bad faith attacks, Abdul remains laser focused on his plans to bring down costs and stand up to the chaos and corruption in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried,\u201d El-Sayed told reporters at a Detroit union hall on Monday, \u201cbecause just like I did 18 months ago when I kicked off this campaign, I am taking a bet on the bigness of Michiganders.\u201d<\/p>\n

And President Barack Obama, in a rally with El-Sayed in Detroit on Saturday, said: \u201cThis stuff didn\u2019t work on me, not in Michigan. It\u2019s not going to work on Abdul.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some of El-Sayed\u2019s allies are concerned.<\/p>\n

James Tate, president of the Detroit City Council noted that El-Sayed \u201ccan\u2019t defend himself in every household.”<\/p>\n

El-Sayed\u2019s campaign and his allies are fighting back by knocking on doors and hitting the airwaves, a sign they\u2019re cognizant the attacks could have an impact. One El-Sayed ad features his white step-grandparents responding to some of Trump\u2019s attacks. \u201cCommunist? We\u2019re Presbyterian!” his grandparents say in the spot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed cut another ad<\/a> featuring images of a menorah and of him praying with Black parishioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis faith \u2014 I think that scares some people,\u201d said Dana Harris, the director of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, who was doorknocking for El-Sayed across northwest Detroit last Saturday. \u201cBut at the end of the day. he\u2019s a human being like the rest of us. And he wants change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogers and his allies say questioning ties to extremist organizations doesn\u2019t equate to Islamophobia. Rogers\u2019 campaign referred Blue Light News to comments he made ahead of Trump and Kennedy\u2019s events<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about Islam. It’s not about how he prays,\u201d Rogers said on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d Sunday morning. \u201cIt is about his adherence to this radical Islamic agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump \u201cwill continue to unapologetically fight for American greatness and call out extremists like Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed without apology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEARBORN, MICHIGAN \u2014 \u201cA threat to America.\u201d \u201cRadical ideology.\u201d \u201cA jihadist.\u201d President Donald Trump and Republicans are ratcheting up their efforts to brand Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan-born Muslim whose parents emigrated from Egypt, as an \u201cextremist\u201d in the final days of the state\u2019s critical Senate race. It has sparked concern among some El-Sayed supporters, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}