Key Takeaways
- Donald Trump told a Georgia rally crowd that if they forget a Middle Eastern person’s name, they should "just say Mohammad," claiming the guess works "about 65 percent" of the time.
- Trump also repeatedly called Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed "Muhammad," his middle name, and said: "I’m the president. I can call you whatever the hell I want."
- The remarks came during a Dalton rally supporting Republican candidates ahead of the November 3 midterm elections and added to Trump's long record of inflammatory comments about immigrants and people of color.
Donald Trump has shared what he believes is a solid shortcut for anyone who cannot recall a Middle Eastern person's name.
On Friday (October 16), the U.S. president spoke at a rally at Dalton Municipal Airport in Dalton, Georgia, which was one of a run of appearances meant to lift Republican candidates before the November 3 midterm elections.
"You know, if you're in doubt about somebody's name from the Middle East, just say Mohammad," Trump told the crowd. "You have about a 65 percent chance. 'Hello, Mohammad.' I've done it for years now. I've never been wrong."
Trump had been riffing on Iran's leadership, telling the crowd: "Iran is the only country where nobody wants to be president." He then pivoting to the name bit and pretending to poll attendees he called Mohammad on whether any of them wanted the job.
Trump spent another stretch of the address on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, whom he repeatedly called "Muhammad," El-Sayed's middle name. "I'm the president. I can call you whatever the hell I want, Muhammad," Trump said.
The Dalton comments land in a long record of statements Trump has been accused of making about immigrants and people of color. In 1989, he took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the five Black and Hispanic teenagers accused in the Central Park jogger case, a group exonerated in 2019.
At his 2015 campaign launch, he labelled Mexican immigrants as "rapists," before adding that some "are good people." Then during his first term, President Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" following the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, while specifying that he was not referring to neo-Nazis or white nationalists.
In 2018, he reportedly called El Salvador, Haiti, and African nations "shithole countries" during an Oval Office meeting. The following year, he told four Democratic congresswomen of color to "go back" to the countries they came from, even though all four were American citizens and three were born in the United States.
The President has repeatedly rejected accusations of racism, describing himself to reporters in 2019 as "the least racist person."
