Donald Trump is "putting a target on the back of Muslim elected officials", the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) warned on Monday, after the US president claimed that "jihadists" were being elected to public office.
The remarks were the latest in a widening wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric from prominent Republicans following Egyptian-American Abdul El-Sayed's victory in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, a historic win that has drawn increasingly inflammatory attacks from the president and members of his party.
Asked by a reporter what advice he would give Republican candidates running in November's midterm elections, Trump said a friend had encouraged him to make "jihadist" part of his political vocabulary.
"A friend of mine called up. He said, ‘You know, really, you should use the word jihadist because that’s what’s happening,’" Trump said. "We have jihadists being elected all over the place. We have this whether it’s communism, jihadism."
Trump did not identify any elected officials by name. But his comments came only days after El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, defeating an opponent backed and funded by the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
Following El-Sayed's victory, Trump attacked him as a “communist loser who hates Jews and Israel", adding to accusations of Islamophobia that have followed the president's response to the result.
CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights advocacy organisation in the United States, said Trump's rhetoric went beyond political attacks, warning that portraying Muslim public officials as threats could expose them to real-world danger.
“All Americans have the right to engage in public service, regardless of their race or faith. By describing American Muslim public servants as threats to our nation, President Trump is putting a target on the back of Muslim elected officials across our nation," CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.
Mitchell linked the president's language to what CAIR says is a broader surge in anti-Muslim hostility in the United States. The organisation recorded 8,683 complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry in 2025, the highest number it has documented.
“This type of dangerous rhetoric is fueling the surge in complaints of anti-Muslim bigotry that our civil rights organization has documented over the past three years," Mitchell said. "Anti-Muslim hate is out of control in large part because of politicians who hate America’s diversity and cannot stand the sight of American Muslims engaging in the political process."
CAIR said the attacks would only "embolden American Muslims to keep engaging in public service and speaking up for justice here and abroad".
But Trump's intervention has amplified rhetoric that had already intensified among Republicans since El-Sayed's victory last week.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville claimed on X that Democrats had "voted to send a TERRORIST to the Senate", calling El-Sayed a "RADICAL ISLAMIST who will do everything he can to destroy America".
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina went further, casting suspicion not on a single candidate but on Muslims serving in government generally.
"Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic," she said.
The comments have drawn criticism even from within the Republican Party. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana condemned the attacks by his colleagues during an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation.
"I condemn language like that…I condemn those statements, and everybody should be treated as an individual," Cassidy said.