Abdul El-Sayed hits back after Trump compares himself and Melania to Michigan Democrat and his wife
U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed had a sharp-elbowed response on Sunday after President Donald Trump posted an image on social media comparing his family to that of the Michigan Democrat.
On Saturday, Trump shared an image featuring himself and First Lady Melania Trump on one side and El-Sayed with his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist, on the other. The image included the caption “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s [sic].”
Asked about the post on Sunday on CNN, El-Sayed leaned into Trump drawing a contrast between his family and the president’s.
“Yeah, he’s right,” the former public health official said about Trump’s idea of two “very different” Americas.
“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,” he said.
“So yes, you’ve got two different visions of America,” he added. “Donald Trump’s vision is the one you’re living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries?”
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
El-Sayed has faced repeated attacks from the president and his allies, which have veered into profanity, false claims and outright Islamophobia.
The president’s post on Saturday used El-Sayed’s full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, echoing a common rhetorical tactic the Republican has used in attacks against his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, whom he makes a point to call Barack Hussein Obama, often writing his middle name in all caps on social media.
Trump rose to prominence in national politics in the 2010s in part by fueling the racist birther conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the U.S. and by calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” during his first campaign. The first and second Trump administrations later attempted to restrict travelers from numerous Muslim-majority countries.
After El-Sayed’s narrow primary win this week, the president has attacked the Michigan Democrat repeatedly along similar lines.
In a speech in Las Vegas, the president accused El-Sayed of being part of a wave of “communists” who would bring “squalor” and “death” to America.
“When I watch Abdul, he’s full of s***,” Trump told a crowd at the Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa.
El-Sayed is not a communist, but rather a progressive who is campaigning on issues including Medicare for all and removing corporate money from politics.
