Trump Uses Casino Rally to Smear El-Sayed After AIPAC Defeat
President Donald Trump appeared at the Red Rock Casino Resort Spa in Las Vegas on Wednesday for an event touting "Trump accounts" at the property, where he addressed supporters and touched on the Iran war and Democratic primaries. The staged venue — a branded casino — served as backdrop for a presidential smear against Abdul El-Sayed, who had just won the Michigan Democratic Senate primary.
"The polls were wrong again last night when they said it would be a landslide victory for a hater of Jews and a hater of Israel," Trump said, according to The Hill. He then called El-Sayed a "communist" who "hates" Jews and Israel, Bloomberg reports. Trump offered no evidence for the poll claim or the accusations; the smears stood as their own proof.
The attack follows a primary in which El-Sayed defeated Haley Stevens despite tens of millions in spending by AIPAC and affiliated Israel lobby groups. The Intercept notes El-Sayed "faced down AIPAC — and the entire Democratic Party establishment — to beat Haley Stevens." Meanwhile, Trump's own endorsed candidate lost in a Michigan GOP congressional primary to a rival who had suspended his campaign. The president's influence in the state is fracturing even as he targets its rising progressive star.
The mechanism is familiar: a sitting president uses the trappings of office — a staged event at a branded venue, the megaphone of the White House press corps — to launder racist and Islamophobic tropes into the political mainstream. Right-wing media erupted in an "Islamophobic meltdown" over El-Sayed's win; the "communist" label and the false equivalence of criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews are weapons honed by the right to discipline dissent. The casino setting underscores the transactional nature of the performance: access sold, loyalty performed, enemies designated.
This is how power operates in the open. No dog whistle needed when the president himself stands at the podium and calls a duly elected nominee a "hater of Jews" because he won a primary. The cost falls on El-Sayed, on Muslim and Arab-American voters who watch their participation met with presidential vilification, and on a political culture that treats such rhetoric as just another campaign day. After his victory, El-Sayed called for unity: "Always magnanimity in victory." The casino lights dim; the smear remains.