US President Donald Trump urges Republican rally to look at rap star Nicky Minaj’s “beautiful arse”

Donald Trump has punctuated his latest campaign rally by labelling a Muslim Senate candidate a “jihadist’ and directing the crowd to look at rap star Nicki Minaj’s “beautiful arse”.

Speaking at Port Huron in Michigan, Trump looked at Minaj - who appeared on stage with the the US President - and commented on her backside saying it was “hard to miss.”

The comment came of Mr Trump complimented the “arse” of Republican Ohio Senator Jon Husted contesting next month’s midterms polls.

The President then signalled for Minaj to stand for the crowd and she did, after which Trump said, “I hope Nicki wasn’t insulted, but we love Nicki. She’s been with us for a long time.”

Minaj - an avowed backer of the President who immigrated to the US from Trinidad as a child - the urged people to get out and vote for the state’s Republican ticket. She had flown to the rally aboard Air Force One.

Earlier, Mr Trump intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, portraying him as a threat to national security and questioning his loyalty to the United States in remarks that drew a sharp rebuke from a former top Arab American ally.

Mr Trump called Mr El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists” and would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”

He also repeatedly invoked the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drawing a comparison between stopping Mr El-Sayed from entering the Senate chamber and the passengers who fought back against the hijackers aboard United Flight 93.

Mr El-Sayed, who would become the nation’s first Muslim senator if elected, has called attacks on his loyalty to the country “shameful” and repeatedly denied any ties to extremist groups. The Republican President’s remarks were condemned by Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped lead the president’s outreach to Arab American voters in 2024.

“The president’s statements are out of line,” he said. “They are crossing a red line. They are racist.”

“ I mean, no sane individual would say these things.”

Ahead of next month’s midterm polls, the President has been trying to generate turnout by claiming that Mr El-Sayed and other Democrats are existential threats to America, instead of electoral rivals. Michigan’s Senate race between Mr El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers is among a handful of contests that could determine control of the chamber.

Mr Trump made his remarks in Port Huron, a Canadian border city about an hour north of Detroit and near communities where he made significant gains among Arab American voters in 2024. He became the first Republican presidential candidate since 2000 to win Dearborn, a city with one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Arab Americans.

Mr Trump has increasingly leaned into anti-Muslim rhetoric as Election Day approaches. He also attacked Democratic Republican Ilhan Omar of Minnesota at Sunday’s rally, where he declared that he had come to Michigan “to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator.”

Responding to Mr Trump, who also regularly mocks his name, Mr El-Sayed told supporters at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan later Sunday that he doesn’t care how Trump pronounces it.

“I don’t even care that he remembers my whole name because he can just go on and call me ‘senator’ after November,” Mr El-Sayed said, drawing cheers. “I will be Senator Muhammad to you, bro.”

“They think that by pointing at my name and my faith, that somehow you’re going to ignore the fact that you can’t afford your gas or your groceries, can’t see a doctor.”

Mr El-Sayed joked about the president’s comments about men’s bodies. “Eyes up here, Donald,” he told the crowd.

Central to Republicans’ strategy against Mr El-Sayed in the final weeks of the campaign has been an effort to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic movement with branches that the U.S. government has designated as terrorist organizations.

There is no evidence that El-Sayed has any affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, wrote on social media in 2012 that “my family has long been MB” and described a conversation with her mother about her involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1970s.

Mr El-Sayed was born in the United States to Egyptian immigrant parents who divorced when he was young. He was raised by his father, not his biological mother.

Trump on Sunday also targeted El-Sayed’s ties to popular streamer Hasan Piker, who appeared alongside the Democrat multiple times during the primary campaign, including at his election night event.

Piker in the past has said that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, describing some Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and that “America deserved 9/11.”

Mr El-Sayed has faced criticism for his own rhetoric. He has repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether Iran or Israel poses a bigger threat to the country. Earlier this year, he said “hurt people hurt people” after an attack on a synagogue in the Detroit area. The attacker had lost four relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon the week earlier.

“To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry,” he said. “That was not my intention.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking at the Grand Rapids rally, said Trump and his allies were using Islamophobia because they have “nothing to say” about the issues most important to working people, such as health care, housing and income inequality.

“All they can do is foment hatred and divisiveness,” Mr Sanders said.