El-Sayed to Trump: ‘I will be Senator Mohamed to you bro’

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) on Sunday fired back at President Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric toward him, telling supporters that the president will be referring to him as “Senator Mohamed” if he wins in November.

“I get that the president of the United States takes personal offense to my first name,” El-Sayed said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. “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. He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it’s my name.”

“But y’all, I don’t care how he pronounces my name,” he continued. “I don’t even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me ‘senator’ after November. I will be Senator Mohamed to you, bro.”

If elected, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim American to serve in the Senate.

Trump has frequently attacked El-Sayed’s faith on the campaign trail, mocking his name and alleging the candidate has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group founded in Egypt that has influenced and supported fundamentalist movements across the region.

The president has accused the Detroit-area physician of being a “terrorist sympathizer” and a “jihadist,” calling the Michigan Democrat “Mohamed El-Sayed.”

While rallying in Michigan on Sunday for El-Sayed’s opponent, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), Trump claimed that El-Sayed would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”

Trump then likened El-Sayed to the hijackers behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks after introducing speaker David Beamer at the rally. Beamer’s son, Todd Beamer, was among the passengers who died on United Flight 93, Reuters reported .

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

El-Sayed, whose full name is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, is Muslim and was born in Michigan to Egyptian immigrant parents.

Rogers has also made claims tying El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood, saying at Sunday’s rally that the group “celebrated exactly one victory in the United States in the primary this year. Abdul El-Sayed’s.”

“Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker pressed Rogers on NBC News about Trump’s past remarks calling El-Sayed a “violent terrorist” and whether he agreed with the president.

“No, I don’t,” Rogers said. “I’ve never called him a terrorist. I’ve never called him a terrorist. This election is about me versus Abdul. I mean, he’s a Democrat Socialist of America-aligned candidate who has these pretty radical support groups that don’t like America. I think those are issues people ought to decide their election on.”

Rogers said El-Sayed “just won’t answer the question” about any alleged connection with the Muslim Brotherhood and told Welker that his opponent “is getting money from groups that support the Muslim Brotherhood. Money from groups that support Hamas and Hezbollah.”

El-Sayed has vigorously denied any personal ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, though Republicans have dug up past statements by El-Sayed they say are sympathetic to the Islamist movement that briefly took over Egypt in 2012 and 2013.