'JD, Habibi, You Will Be the One to Swear Me In': El-Sayed Becomes First Muslim American Senator
Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed has made history by becoming the first Muslim American senator elected to the United States Congress. In Michigan's Senate election, he defeated Republican candidate Mike Rogers.
In his victory speech, El-Sayed took aim at President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. According to the report, he turned the attacks made against him during the election campaign into political satire.
Addressing Vice President Vance as 'habibi', the 42-year-old El-Sayed said: 'JD, habibi! There could be no sweeter irony than that next January, under the Constitution, you will be obliged to administer the oath to me.'
He then turned to Trump, who during the campaign repeatedly struggled to pronounce El-Sayed's name correctly. El-Sayed said: 'I know you have trouble pronouncing my name. So after JD swears me in, you can just call me Senator.'
In the November 3 midterm elections, Democrats defeated the Republicans to take control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In that election, El-Sayed beat Rogers, a former FBI agent and seven-term congressman, to keep the seat of Michigan's outgoing Senator Gary Peters in Democratic hands.
El-Sayed is a former head of Michigan's health department and the son of an Egyptian immigrant.
During the campaign, he faced fierce attacks from Trump and other Republicans over his Muslim identity, his progressive agenda and his foreign policy positions. Trump labelled him a 'jihadi' and, invoking the 9/11 attacks, urged voters not to vote for him.
When Republican Senator Ted Cruz accused him of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed rejected the claim, saying he had never been a member of that organisation and never would be.
Haley Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary, endorsed Republican Rogers just before the vote, but it did not save him in the end, the report noted.
El-Sayed campaigned for healthcare for all, reducing the influence of corporate money in elections, ending discrimination, and ending foreign wars and US military aid to Israel.
