Chants of “expulsion” rang out Monday night as President Donald Trump criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan, at a rally for Republican candidates in Youngstown, Ohio.
“I don’t know what they’re doing with it, but I can tell you this: It’s a disaster,” Trump said of Omar, whose Washington, D.C., home was raided hours earlier by federal agents, two people familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement that Homeland Security Investigations “executed a judicially authorized search warrant” as part of “an ongoing federal criminal investigation.” The statement did not specify that the investigation was related to Omar, nor did it provide further information about the search.
“She comes from a country with no laws, no police, no army, where all they do is shoot each other, and she comes to our country and she says, ‘I have a constitutional right,'” Trump said. “She talks to us about the Constitution and she comes from one of the worst countries on the planet.”
Trump then spoke about Somali gang activity in Minnesota and what the FBI described as a recently foiled shooting at the state’s Mall of America that was allegedly plotted by a U.S.-born U.S. citizen of Somali descent, the Associated Press reported. That’s when the first wave of cries of “expulsion” began.
Omar, born in war-torn Somalia, immigrated to the United States as a child decades ago. El-Sayed was born in Michigan to Egyptian immigrants.
“For 10 years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” Omar wrote Monday on X. “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”
Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon, Trump said he had “nothing to do” with the search of Omar’s home.
At the rally, he shifted from attacking Omar and people of Somali descent in Minnesota to attacking El-Sayed.
“These people are crazy,” Trump said. “You look at the guy running in Michigan. He’s a jihadist.”
Trump then praised El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, before again calling El-Sayed a “jihadist” and proclaiming that “Somali bandits, third world gangsters and jihadist sympathizers have no place in Ohio.”
He added: “They have no place in America. Better get them out of here.”
More chants of “deportation” then broke out in the audience at the Covelli Center in Youngstown.
A spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening. Last week, after Trump referred to him on social media by his middle name, Mohamed, El-Sayed condemned it as a tactic intended to incite fears about his religion.
“They are showing my name and my faith, trying to distract us from the challenges we face,” El-Sayed, who is Muslim, told supporters at an event Thursday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “My name didn’t raise the price of your gas. My faith isn’t the reason you can’t afford to shop.”
Trump’s remarks Monday confirmed his leading role in intensifying the narrative about Muslims and immigrants. Days after El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, Trump warned that the United States could become a “country run by jihadists.” And Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Los Angeles, accused El-Sayed of sympathizing with Osama bin Laden while campaigning with Rogers last week in Michigan.
Trump was in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley — an area once reliably Democratic that has become increasingly Republican since his political rise — to campaign for Sen. Jon Husted and Vivek Ramaswamy, the state’s Republican nominee for governor.
It was his second visit to Ohio in less than 10 days. His final trip, to the Dayton area, included remarks about nearby Springfield. During a 2024 presidential debate, Trump reiterated the unfounded and racist claim that the city’s Haitian immigrants ate pets.
Trump mentioned Springfield again on Monday in Youngstown, immediately after his attacks on Omar and El-Sayed.
“All of a sudden they brought in 35,000 people from Haiti, and it didn’t work very well,” he said before defiantly repeating his past lies. “Remember during the debate I said some of the things they were doing? I was right.”
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