US President Donald Trump accused Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of hating Israel and Jewish people during a speech in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
"He doesn't love Israel. He doesn't love Jewish people. He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart, and there's not a fricking thing he can do about it," Trump said.
“This guy hates Jews,” he added. “Somebody said, ‘Oh that’s a little strong.’ No, he hates Jews and hates Israel.”
"Abdul El-Sayed, can you believe this?” he said. “He’s a man of hate, and now he’s going around saying, ‘Oh I love everybody.’ He doesn’t love everybody. Put him in office, and you’re going to find out what he loves.”
The 41-year-old candidate was said to have condemned antisemitism and claimed that criticism of Israel's activity in Gaza and its presence in the West Bank should not be equated with antisemitism, though he's repeatedly spoken out against Israel.
"I don't want to fund a foreign military that does genocide, apartheid, or has taken us to a war we don't need to fight," El-Sayed said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. He attempted to center the conversation on Michigan policy, though he did not shy from answering the Israel questions head-on.
"I believe our responsibility, though, more than anything else, is to use our tax money here in Michigan to provide healthcare in Michigan, in schools in Michigan, and roads in Michigan rather than to send it to a foreign government that might use it in the form of bombs and tanks to destroy infrastructure in schools and hospitals there," he added.
He went on to confirm that he's against the Iron Dome, claiming he doesn't see a difference between offensive and defensive weapons.
"I am against it, in large part because I just don't understand why anybody thinks it's the right thing to do to send our tax dollars abroad, to fund foreign militaries when our own kids barely get to go to schools that are functional," El-Sayed said.
US voters unhappy with Iran war, economy
Trump's comments against El-Sayed came one day after the candidate won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, which means he'll face off against Trump-backed Republican Mike Rogers in November.
The president appeared in Las Vegas after the White House pushed him to highlight the success of progressive candidates as voters indicate frustration with Trump's economy and military action in the war with Iran.
A Reuters poll found that only one in three Americans support the US military's strikes against Iran, though Trump supporters at the Las Vegas event were open to giving the president more time to resolve the war.
“We want to wrap it up as soon as possible, not just to save American lives and get our gas prices down, but we have the midterms coming up," said Francine Moshkovsky, a retired Veterans Affairs physician from Las Vegas.
El-Sayed echoed these anti-war sentiments as he called for an end to US military assistance to Israel during his campaign, along with pushes for universal healthcare and abolishing ICE.
Trump's initial reaction to Sayed's victory
On Wednesday, Trump called El-Sayed's victory “great news for the Republican Party” in a Truth Social post following Stevens’ defeat.
“El-Sayed, a Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in his race with the Socialist [Stevens],” Trump wrote. “As usual, the polls were way off on this one. She was not expected to do nearly as well as she did. Now, the Democrats’ crazy policies will only get worse!”
However, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised El-Sayed and predicted that he can win in swing-state Michigan.
“To win this race … is a testament to what he ran on and also how he ran the campaign,” Mamdani told reporters at a City Hall press conference. “That’s the kind of work it’s going to take to ensure we are winning in November. So kudos to him.”
Mamdani noted that El-Sayed overcame a flood of $60 million in spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that backed rival Rep. Haley Stevens. He wound up winning by a narrower-than-expected margin of about 1%.
The 34-year-old mayor said there’s no reason El-Sayed cannot win a general election in a purple Rust Belt state with the same message of affordability that resonated in the Big Apple.
“He was able to prevail with a focus on a cost-of-living crisis,” Mamdani said.
“The message of money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for All is something even New Yorkers can relate to.”
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.