President Donald Trump briefly trained his criticism on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, during a speech in Dallas on Sept. 9 but his comments were, for the most part, erroneous, misleading or failed to provide context.
In a speech that went on for nearly two hours at the Republican's midterm convention called by Trump, the president characterized El-Sayed, as he did other Democratic candidates, as an office-seeker who "hates family households (and) wants to destroy the American way of life."
El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan and is married and has children, has made no remarks about either to back up those claims.
Speaking specifically about El-Sayed, who narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in the
Aug. 4 Democratic primary, Trump also said he:
- Brags about the fact he wants "to pack the (U.S.) Supreme Court with 23 far-left lunatic justices," even though El-Sayed has never made any such remark. El-Sayed has talked about reforming the court by proposing limited terms instead of the lifetime terms justices currently receive and abolishing the 60-vote threshold used to end debate in the U.S. Senate, which could, theoretically, make Supreme Court reform more likely. But best we can tell, no Democratic candidate or officeholder has suggested expanding the nine member court to 23 members.
- Has a sister who "celebrated the terrorist slaughter of babies" in Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7. Fox News reported in August that El-Sayed's half-sister,University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, posted a message on Instagram sympathetic to Palestinians a year after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel by Hamas that killed some 1,200 people. But Abdelhadi's post did not mention the brutal attacks by Hamas, nor specifically celebrate it, according to the Fox report. And there is no evidence that Abdelhadi's post was in any way connected to El-Sayed. El-Sayed's campaign has said he and his half-sister disagree on some political positions and rhetoric, though El-Sayed has been critical of Israel's counteroffensive against Hamas in Gaza.
- Has a mother who "worked for an organization that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to people that follow Osama bin Laden." There has been reporting, including that by the website the Midwesterner, that El-Sayed's birth mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, or IARA,which the U.S. Treasury designated as an organization supporting terrorism in 2004 and pleaded guilty to conspiring to funnel more than $1 million to Iraq. But reports have also noted that El-Sayed's birth mother was not named in any charges. And, again, there is no evidence that El-Sayed's birth mother's work was in any way tied to El-Sayed. El-Sayed's parents divorced when he was young and he was primarily raised by his father and stepmother in Michigan. His birth mother, who like his father is Egyptian, returned to the Middle East some years ago.
- Campaigns with a "Marxist agitator... who says America deserved 9/11." This refers to remarks to that effect made some years ago by Internet influencer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with El-Sayed. Piker, who has been deeply critical of American foreign policy, especially as it involves support for Israel, has disavowed those comments himself, however, and El-Sayed has called them "dumb."“Of course it was a dumb statement and of course I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement,” El-Sayed has said.
As he concluded his brief remarks on El-Sayed, Trump said voters should back the Republican nominee, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, calling him "great." Rogers is expected to speak at the midterm convention on Sept. 10.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump makes false, misleading claims about El-Sayed in convention speech
