President Donald Trump escalated his attacks against progressive Democratic candidates on Monday, casting his opponents as anti-American and echoing anti-Muslim rhetoric used by Republicans on the campaign trail.
During an event in the Oval Office, Trump was asked by a reporter what recommendations he would give GOP candidates running in November’s midterm elections.
“A friend of mine called up. He said, ‘You know, really, you should use the word jihadist because that’s what’s happening,’” he recalled. “We have jihadists being elected all over the place. We have this whether it’s communism, jihadism.”
Trump did not specify which candidates he was referring to. However, the remarks came as Trump increasingly has characterized far-left Democratic primary winners as anti-American, turning his ire particularly in recent weeks to Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive victor of Michigan’s contentious Democratic Senate primary.
Following his win last Wednesday, Trump attacked El-Sayed as a “communist loser who hates Jews and Israel,” embracing a baseless characterization that El-Sayed has vigorously denied despite his Republican opponent’s investment in advertisements seeking to further that narrative.
After a series of wins by democratic socialists, the president has labeled them communists, warning that they represent “the greatest threat to our country.” And while El-Sayed supports some policies embraced by self-proclaimed democratic socialists, like Medicare for All, he isn’t a member of the Democratic Socialists of America party.
In the aftermath of Michigan’s primary, Trump’s attacks toward El-Sayed, the state’s first Muslim Senate nominee, have veered toward Islamophobia. On Saturday, Trump posted a photo of El-Sayed and his wife, who wears a hijab, alongside a caption that the Muslim pair represent a “very different America.”
Hours earlier, the White House’s official social media pages echoed that message while characterizing El-Sayed as “a direct threat to America and the very values that define our nation.”
El-Sayed has also framed the use of his full name — Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed — by Trump, former Rep. Mike Rogers and the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a recent advertisement as more subtle Islamophobia, characterizing it as an effort to paint him as less American because of his Arabic name.
Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about his response to those attacks, El-Sayed said, “We always knew they were going to go here. Notice how they chose to use my full name in echoes to exactly what they did against President Obama.”
Former President Barack Obama, whose middle name is Hussien, faced similar attacks. Trump frequently has referred to the former president by his full name on Truth Social in the same way he has referred to El-Sayed.
“God forbid you’re going to have President El-Sayed in three years,” Vice President Vance, who is likely to launch his own 2028 White House bid, said recently.
Alabama Sen. Katie Britt described El-Sayed as a “jihadist sympathizer” after he appeared with Hasan Piker, an online streamer who said the United States “deserved” the 9/11 attacks, at a campaign event. Piker later disavowed those comments, but he made other controversial remarks about Iranian-backed militia groups.
“It was a dumb statement,” El-Sayed said Sunday. “I want to be held accountable for what I say and what I do rather than this idea that we’re so stuck in cancel culture that all of us agreed was a bad idea back in 2020, but we seem to want to bring back.”
El-Sayed has also drawn criticism for opposing military aid to Israel.
“Our money should be spent here rather than sent in the form of bombs or tanks to foreign governments, particularly when they’re doing the most heinous things with them, as is the case with the government of Israel,” he told MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” earlier this month.
Last year, while meeting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Trump dismissed New York Rep. Elise Stefanik calling Mamdani a “jihadist” during her short-lived gubernatorial campaign in New York. He said the mayor was not a jihadist.
“I met with a man who’s a very rational person,” Trump said of Mamdani in November. “She’s out there campaigning, and you know, you say things sometimes in a campaign.”
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