Trump says El-Sayed would be ‘the only senator’ who has to go through a metal detector

Donald Trump came to Port Huron to sell Mike Rogers and spent the opening stretch on the other guy. His plan for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, who is Muslim: “He would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.” Then: “I want him to have a metal detector.”

The “record” is Trump’s version of El-Sayed. He claimed El-Sayed “signed a letter supporting the Muslim Brotherhood” and was sad about the death of Iran’s supreme leader. Then he said anyone “with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane,” and “they certainly should not give him a seat in the United States Senate.” El-Sayed has denied any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and disavowed the group at a town hall in Caro, telling the attendee who raised it that the question assumed he’d have “dual loyalties.”

About a minute later came a courtroom fantasy. El-Sayed, Trump claims, “wants our country to go to Sharia law. And if he ever pulls that one off, he should be the first one that’s tried... I’ll be a witness.” He’d posted a version on Truth Social before he took the stage (“he should be the first that’s tried!”), so the bit was rehearsed.

The latest Marist poll has El-Sayed up 50 to 48 among likely voters. That may explain the metal detector.