Trump in Michigan makes play for Arab American and Muslim voters angry over war in Gaza

By Kate Sullivan and Gregory Krieg, CNN

Novi, Michigan (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday invited several Muslim leaders onstage with him at a campaign rally in Michigan as he courts Arab American and Muslim voters disillusioned or angry over US policy on Israel and Gaza in the critical battleground state.

“They could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said in the Detroit suburb of Novi, located about a half hour from Dearborn, which last year became the first Arab-majority city in the US.

Trump said in his speech that he had held a meeting earlier in the day with Muslim leaders. He was joined onstage by what his campaign described as “prominent leaders of Michigan’s Muslim community,” including Imam Belal Alzuhairi, who described Trump as the “peace” candidate.

“We, as Muslims, stand with President Trump because he promises peace – he promises peace, not war,” Alzuhairi said. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine.”

Trump has criticized Israel’s war in Gaza on public relations grounds, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military need to “get it over with fast.” He has also slammed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for not adequately supporting Israel, though the current administration – and Harris’ campaign – has largely refused to criticize Israel or consider halting weapons shipments to the country.

In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on the first anniversary of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks inside Israel, Trump mused about real estate prospects in beleaguered Gaza, home to roughly 2 million Palestinians.

“You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place – the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate,” Trump said. “It could be so beautiful.”

During his first month as president, in 2017, Trump issued an executive order banning entry for 90 days by citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The order indefinitely banned Syrian refugees and blocked all refugees from entering the US for four months. (After a lengthy court battle, the “travel ban” survived in part. Biden revoked the orders in 2021 immediately after being sworn in.)

The Trump campaign and its allies, though, have sought to seize on Arab American and Muslim anger over continued US support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and, more recently, Lebanon, by criticizing Harris and Biden from both sides – telling anti-war voters that Trump would secure peace and claiming to pro-Israel voters that the Democrats don’t have their back.

Trump has frequently questioned why Jewish Americans would consider voting for Harris, repeatedly saying that Jewish Democrats “should have their head examined.” At an event in September billed as opposing antisemitism, he even warned that “the Jewish people would have a lot to do” with his potential loss in November.

Harris, who has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and has said she supports a two-state solution in the region, has taken more heat from pro-Palestinian and anti-war activists, who have pleaded with her to break from Biden and say she supports conditioning military aid to Israel.

During a brief meeting three weeks ago in Flint, Michigan, a group of Arab American advocates and leaders pressed Harris “to show distance between how she would govern on this matter with the current administration policies, which we don’t agree with,” as Wa’el Alzayat, the CEO of Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action, told CNN afterward.

Trump at his rally on Saturday claimed that “Jews, Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, Muslims are joining our cause in larger numbers than ever before and now the most wonderful thing is happening.”

“The Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and across the country want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want,” Trump said.

Trump also, again, used Harris’s recent round of campaigning alongside former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, whose father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, was one of the leading architects of the US invasion of Iraq and the yearslong war that followed. Both Cheneys have endorsed Harris.

Hours later, Harris, while campaigning in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was interrupted early in her speech by a protester, who shouted, “No more Gaza war.”

“On the topic of Gaza, we must end that war. And we must end the war and bring the hostages home,” Harris said, as the audience tried to drown out the demonstrator.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Alison Main contributed to this report.

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