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Fact check

Trump launches racist diatribe against Abdul El-Sayed at Iowa rally

The Guardian Read the original

9.2 / 10 Well supported

The score shows how well the checked facts are backed by independent sources at the time of the check. It is not a verdict of absolute truth, and not a rating of the publisher.

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11 facts found in the article, 8 checked

Article published

Checked with claude-haiku-5-5 · Method 2026-10-10.

Contradicted by other sources

  1. Contradicted Haley Stevens declined to campaign with Abdul El-Sayed and demanded that he publicly disavow an outside group's political ad linking rising prices to US military support for Israel's war on Gaza.

    AI Results confirm that Stevens demanded El-Sayed disavow the outside group's ad, but they say El-Sayed refused and made clear Stevens was not welcome at a Sunday event, which is the reverse of Stevens declining to campaign with him.

Verified facts

  1. Confirmed Donald Trump criticized Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a campaign event in Iowa on a Sunday before the midterm elections.

    AI Reuters reports that at the Iowa rally on Sunday, Trump repeated his claim that El-Sayed is a "jihadist," which matches the core of the claim. The results do not confirm the exact venue city, since the rally was reportedly moved from Dubuque to Cedar Rapids, but the state and event match. [10] describes a separate Michigan rally and does not contradict the Iowa event.

  2. Confirmed At the Iowa campaign event, Trump repeatedly referred to Abdul El-Sayed as a "jihadist".

    AI Several results report that Trump repeatedly called El-Sayed a "jihadist" at the Dubuque, Iowa event, with Reuters and Yahoo both describing the Iowa remarks; the Guardian report (via UA.NEWS) is the original source for the rally account and the Reuters and Yahoo items are separate reports. The Port Huron, Michigan references concern a different event and do not contradict the Iowa claim.

  3. Confirmed Trump said that Congress would have to "get a special metal detector for Abdul" if El-Sayed were elected.

    AI Several results report that Trump said El-Sayed would have to go through a metal detector before entering the Senate, and that he wanted him to have one. None of the results contain the exact quoted phrase "get a special metal detector for Abdul" or attribute it to Congress, so that wording could not be checked, but the core claim matches.

  4. Confirmed Abdul El-Sayed is a practicing Muslim.

    AI Multiple results state that El-Sayed is Muslim: Wikipedia says "He is Muslim," he says in the CBS report that he is "running for U.S. Senate and happen to be Muslim," and the Yahoo report describes him as a practicing Muslim. The word "practicing" comes only from news descriptions, not from a direct statement about his religious observance, so that detail is not independently checked, but the core claim about his being Muslim is supported.

  5. Confirmed Haley Stevens lost to Abdul El-Sayed in the August Michigan Democratic Senate primary election.

    AI Multiple results state that Abdul El-Sayed defeated Haley Stevens in the August 2026 Michigan Democratic Senate primary, with the CBS and Washington Post reports describing it as a narrow win. The Al Jazeera piece, which cites Reuters and AP, and the US News report say the same. PBS notes that Stevens won Wayne and Oakland counties, which concerns only those counties and does not contradict the statewide result.

  6. Confirmed Abdul El-Sayed told Haley Stevens to stay away from a campaign event on Sunday where they were supposed to appear together.

    AI The NYT reports that El-Sayed said on Saturday he did not want Stevens to join him at a Sunday party unity event in Detroit, and CBS says Stevens was expected to appear with him at that Sunday event. The results do not show whether El-Sayed contacted Stevens directly; the request to stay away is otherwise reported through anonymous sources, so that detail is only partly checked.

  7. Confirmed Haley Stevens endorsed Mike Rogers, the Republican opponent of Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.

    AI Multiple results from different outlets (Politico, NPR, ABC News, NBC News, PBS/AP) explicitly report that Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race over Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed. The PBS/AP and other reports appear to share the same underlying news reporting, but the core claim is directly and consistently supported.

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