We Put Abdul El-Sayed In a Room With Trump Voters. Can He Get Their Vote?
Source: More Perfect Union
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, faces a huge test. Can a Bernie Sanders-backed candidate that supports Medicare For All, abolish ICE and ending aid to Israel win in a purple state?
The media claims Abdul El-Sayed can’t win in November. But is that narrative borne out on the ground? We put El-Sayed’s ideas to the test with real voters.
Host & Producer: Josh Miller-Lewis
Producer: Mae Ryan Video Editor: David McCaw
Motion Designers: Addison Post Sydney Guthrie
Videographers: Demetrio Nasol Myron Watkins II Martez Brooks
Sound: Cody Wansedel Supervising Producer: Meg Herschlein
Video Production Manager: Isabel Atalaya
Video Production Coordinator: Jodi Clemens
Video Production Fellow: Astrid Dong
Video Editing Fellow: Daria Nastasia
Production Assistant Rodney Williams
This article was originally published by More Perfect Union; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.
‘Racist and Bigoted’: Trump Rebuked for Grotesque Attack on Abdul El-Sayed and Wife
President’s smear of Michigan Democrat described as “not just an attack on American Muslims, but on the idea of America itself.”
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump arrive on New Year's Eve at his Mar-A-Lago Club on December 31, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida.
(Photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
Jon Queally
Aug 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
President Donald Trump, a notorious racist and serial liar, is being denounced once again for his hateful contributions to public discourse and American politics for an Islamophobic social media post over the weekend targeting Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku—both of whom are practicing Muslims.
On Saturday evening, Trump posted side-by-side images with he and his wife, Melania Trump, wearing formal dinner attire, on the left and El-Sayed and his wife, who wears a Islamic hijab, both dressed casually in what appears to be a diner, on the right.
The heading above the photo posted by Trump declared, “Two VERY DIFFERENT Americas.”
The overtly anti-Muslim message, now pervasive within the Republican Party, stirred immediate anger and harsh rebuke.
“America does not belong to any one race or religion, and President Trump does not get to decide who counts as an American,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
“An American man of Egyptian descent is just as American as an American man of German descent, and an American woman wearing a hijab is just as American an American woman without one,” Awad continued. “President Trump’s racist and bigoted social media post was not just an attack on American Muslims, but on the idea of America itself.”
As Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan wrote on Friday, El-Sayed’s recent victory in the Michigan primary last week has unleashed a fresh wave of GOP-led attacks on Muslims, a strategy that is well-worn, that is only likely to intensify.
“We are about to witness an explosion of Islamophobia in America of the kind we have not seen for decades,” warned Hasan. “Expect them to throw the whole bigoted kitchen sink at El-Sayed. This will be the anti-Zohran Mamdani campaign on anti-Muslim steroids.”
Asked about Trump’s racist attack by CNN on Sunday, El-Sayed turned the Islamophobic smear into an opportunity to explain what does distinguish people like the president and the First Lady from the kind of lawmaker the Michigan Democrat said he wants to be and the kind of relationship he and his wife have.
“Yeah, he’s right,” El-Sayed told CNN, when asked about the post on Sunday.
“One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you—or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things.”
“Yes, you’ve got two different visions of America,” said El-Sayed. “Donald Trump’s vision is the one you’re living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe, when you look in your children’s eyes, that they’re going to have a better future than you did?”
“Sarah and I are running,” he continued, “because when we look our daughters in the eye, we want them to believe that they are every bit as able to have a better future than the one they could have had under the Trump administration—that they can live together with their sisters and brothers in America in a way that they lock arms to build the good things that they deserve together. Where they’ll know they have the good healthcare that they need and good jobs, and know that there are kids who live 15 minutes away whose lives are very, very different from theirs because we’ve been okay for far too long with a level of inequality in this country.”
For his daughters, El-Sayed added, “I want them to live in a country where they breath clean air and drink clean water. And actually, Sarah and I like each other. I don’t know about about the First Lady and the president, but from what I’ve heard it’s a bit of a rocky road.”
CAIR’s Awad called on Trump to “immediately remove this hateful post and to uphold his responsibility to represent all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or background.” He also said that all members of Congress must “reject ongoing efforts to fuel anti-Muslim hatred and division” that has become so commonplace in recent decades, only intensifying under Trump’s leadership.
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