U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally in support of Republican Senate candidate former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers ahead of the midterm elections at an entertainment complex in Port Huron, Michigan, October 25, 2026.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Donald Trump, at a campaign rally Sunday, stepped up efforts to link U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to Muslim extremists, comparing him to the 9/11 attackers, while claiming Democrats would let violent anti-American terrorists into the United States.
“I’m here to stop a jihadist member of the Muslim Brotherhood from becoming a United States senator,” Trump told a receptive audience in Port Huron, Michigan.
If he wins, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. Trump has sought to portray him as an anti-American Muslim radical, and on Sunday he took his rhetoric to a new level, comparing El-Sayed to the attackers who took control of United Flight 93 during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Michigan is seeing one of the most competitive U.S. Senate races in the country heading into the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, and El-Sayed vying for an open seat that will help decide control of the chamber.
The president on Sunday compared the vote against El-Sayed to the actions of Michigan native Todd Beamer and others who retaliated against the Flight 93 hijackers.
“Twenty-five years later, Michigan must stand up and fight, just like Todd, to stop a jihadist from entering the Capitol,” Trump said.
If El-Sayed wins, “he will be the only senator who will have to pass a metal detector before being allowed into the Senate,” Trump said.
El-Sayed said questioning his loyalty was ‘shameful’
El-Sayed has rejected the accusations against him and, in a recent ad, defended his religion, saying, “Faith is something there is simply too little of in Washington.”
Rogers claimed without evidence that El-Sayed had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest and most influential Islamist groups in the Arab world.
El-Sayed has denied any affiliation with the group, calling it “shameful” for Rogers to question his allegiance to the United States.
Rogers said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, before the Port Huron rally, that El-Sayed did not adequately answer questions about the allegations.
“He’s a candidate aligned with the Democrats and Socialists of America who benefits from some pretty radical support groups who don’t love America,” he said.
Trump’s speech Sunday in eastern Michigan came a day after former President Barack Obama campaigned for Democrats in the state, emphasizing its importance for next week’s election.
At Saturday’s rally in Detroit, Obama framed the attacks by El-Sayed’s opponents as an attempt to make him seem “less patriotic and less American than them.”
The former president compared them to his experience of being the target of false claims that he was born in Kenya.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” Obama said. “I played it… That stuff didn’t work on me. Not in Michigan. It won’t work on Abdul.”
Manufacturing investments
Port Huron is part of an area of Michigan that Trump won in the 2024 presidential election with more than 66% of the vote.
One of the issues that dominated the state’s campaign was the U.S.-Canada tariff standoff, which affected the Detroit-based U.S. auto industry and prompted Rogers to distance himself from the president’s policies.
Rogers on Sunday welcomed tariffs imposed by Trump to secure Chevrolet and Detroit Diesel’s manufacturing investments in Michigan, but said, “The auto part of these Canadian tariffs worries me a little bit.”
“There is some good and there are things we need to work on,” he told “Meet the Press.”
In an interview with Fox News before Sunday’s rally, Trump praised Rogers as someone who shares the beliefs of Michigan voters.
“He’s going to be an extraordinary senator,” Trump said on Sunday Briefing. “Solid as a rock. Apple pie.”
Democrats need only a handful of seats each in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to overturn narrow Republican majorities of 53-47 and 218-214.
Gn headline
