Independent fact-checking organization PolitiFact issued its most severe falsehood rating, “Pants on Fire,” to claims made by Donald Trump at a Michigan political rally accusing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed of being a jihadist affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The review found zero credible evidence linking the candidate to any foreign extremist organization, describing the allegation as a baseless political smear intended to inflame anti-Muslim prejudice among voters.
El-Sayed, an American-born physician, Rhodes Scholar, epidemiologist, and former director of the Detroit Health Department, has spent his career in domestic public health administration and progressive electoral politics. PolitiFact noted that neither federal law enforcement nor intelligence agencies have ever connected El-Sayed to terrorist activity or extremist networks. Political fact-checkers concluded that fabricating affiliations between Muslim-American political candidates and overseas militant organizations represents an egregious falsehood unsupported by any verifiable factual record.
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Pants on Fire! Trump calls Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed a ‘jihadist,’ escalating anti-Muslim attacks