Trump invokes 9/11 in urging Michigan voters to oppose Muslim Senate candidate El-Sayed

US President Donald Trump at a Sunday campaign rally ratcheted up ​his push to link US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to Muslim extremists, comparing him to the 9/11 attackers while saying Democrats would let violent anti-American ‌terrorists into the United States.

"I'm here to keep a jihadist, Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator," the president told a receptive audience in Port Huron, which is in a Michigan area where 66% of the vote went to Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

If El-Sayed wins, he would be the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. Trump has sought to paint him as an anti-American Muslim radical, and ​on Sunday he took the rhetoric to a new level, likening El-Sayed to the attackers who took over United Flight 93 during the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Michigan has ​one of the nation's most competitive US Senate contests going into the November 3 midterm elections, with former US Representative Mike Rogers, a ⁠Republican, and El-Sayed vying for an open seat that will help to decide control of the chamber.

The president on Sunday compared voting against El-Sayed to the actions of Michigan native ​Todd Beamer and others who fought back against the Flight 93 hijackers.

"Twenty-five years later, Michigan needs to stand up and fight, just like Todd did, to stop a jihadist from walking into ​the Capitol," said Trump.

If El-Sayed wins, "he would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go in the Senate," Trump said.

El-Sayed has dismissed the accusations against him, and at a Sunday night event, he suggested that Trump's frequent emphasis of El-Sayed's name contains a measure of hypocrisy.

"I get that the president of the United States takes personal offense to my first name," El-Sayed ​told an audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "He doesn’t mind as much when it’s a shared name from the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law’s private equity, doesn’t seem to mind ​as much when it’s the Qataris who are giving him a $400 million private jet."

Affinity Partners, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's investment fund, has reportedly received billions from a Saudi Government entity. Qatar gifted Trump a Boeing 747 jet.

The mostly White crowd at Sunday's rally cheered Trump’s comments on El-Sayed. Some attendees yelled “traitor” and others yelled “deport,” although El-Sayed was born in Michigan.

Terrance Camburn, a 52-year-old disabled Army veteran from Sandusky, Michigan, said he supported Trump’s criticism because of El-Sayed’s “political beliefs.”

“I’ve been down to Dearborn and I’ve seen many of the things he agrees with,” Camburn said when asked about Trump’s 9/11 comments.

Dearborn, Michigan, has the highest per-capita concentration of Muslims of any US city.

As he left the venue after the rally, Rogers did not respond to Reuters' questions about Trump's invocation ​of 9/11. But earlier on Sunday, he said ​on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he did ⁠not agree with the notion that El-Sayed is a violent terrorist.

"I've never called him a terrorist," Rogers told NBC.

Rogers has alleged without evidence that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world's oldest and most influential Islamist groups.

El-Sayed has denied affiliation with the Muslim ​Brotherhood, saying it is "shameful" for Rogers to question his allegiance to the United States.

Rogers told "Meet the Press" that El-Sayed had not sufficiently ​responded to questions about ⁠the allegations.

"He's a Democrat Socialist of America-aligned candidate who has these pretty radical support groups that don't like America," he said.

Trump's speech in eastern Michigan on Sunday came a day after former President Barack Obama campaigned for Democrats in the state, underscoring its importance in next week's elections.

At a Saturday rally in Detroit, Obama framed the attacks by El-Sayed's opponents as an attempt to make him look "less American ⁠than they ​are."

The former president compared them to his own experience as the target of false claims that he was born in Kenya. "This ​stuff didn't work on me," Obama said. "Not in Michigan. It's not going to work on Abdul."

Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats each in the US Senate and House of Representatives to overturn Republicans' narrow 53-47 ​and 218-214 majorities.