President Donald Trump doubled down on his Islamophobic attacks on the Democratic Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Saturday during a rally speech in Clarksville, Tennessee.
Trump, as he did in a Truth Social post on Thursday, refused to use El-Sayed’s correct first name, instead calling him “Muhammad El-Sayed.”
“Someone said his name is not Mohammed. It’s Abdul. I’m the president. I can call him whatever the hell I want,” Trump said. “To me, he’s Mohammed, and he is a radical jihadist. Look at his statements from two years ago. He is a jihadist. i don’t want a jihadist as a senator for Michigan.”
Rapper Kid Rock, a Michigan native who spoke at the rally before Trump, expressed similar rhetoric.
“We are not, and we will never be one nation under Muhammad, because we are and we always will be one nation under God,” Kid Rock said.
Trump has also aligned himself with unabashed Islamophobes, such as far-right media personality Laura Loomer.
“Would be a good time for President Trump to give us that Muslim ban we were promised,” Loomer said in a social media post on Friday.
Republican lawmakers have also launched similar Islamophobic attacks on El-Sayed.
While appearing with Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Friday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) wouldn’t donate so much to his opponent if El-Sayed didn’t “sleep in a [Osama] Bin Laden jersey.”
Sen. John Kennedy says that AIPAC is only spending on Mike Rogers behalf in Michigan because Abdul El-Sayed “sleeps in a Bin Laden jersey.”
Abdul El-Sayed has never said anything in support of Osama Bin Laden. He’s just Muslim. pic.twitter.com/9HomPUi91h
— Julian Andreone (@JulianAndreone) October 10, 2026
El-Sayed fired back at Kennedy on Saturday.
“That’s rich coming from someone who wears his bed sheets out at night,” El-Sayed wrote on X.