Abdul El-Sayed eviscerated Donald Trump for the 80-year-old’s unhinged smears against him during a CNN appearance on Wednesday.
El-Sayed, a Michigan-born epidemiologist who would be the Senate’s first Muslim, was on the receiving end of baseless criticism Wednesday from the president.
During a speech to a Las Vegas crowd that was billed as one about tax legislation, Trump digressed into a profane rant about the 41-year-old, at one point sarcastically calling him a “lovely gentleman.”
El-Sayed wasn’t phased. The president, he said, can’t stay on topic, and is fixated on his White House ballroom rather than Americans’ affordability concerns.
“I’m glad he thinks I’m a lovely gentleman. A lot of people think so,” he began on CNN’s The Source.
“This is the response that they have. You notice what he talked about. First, look at the background. It says, ‘No tax on tips.’ The man can’t stay on focus. That’s like the one thing that he did to offer any economic relief. But instead of that, he’s more focused on me and what I’m going to do while we’re living through an affordability crisis that is generational.”
“People are paying nearly $5 in gas because of a war he started,” El-Sayed told anchor Kaitlan Collins. “And half the time, if he‘s not talking about me, he‘s talking about the drapes in his ballroom.”
“I invite the president to focus on what I‘m saying: I want to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket and pass Medicare for All. I think a lot of Michiganders want that right now,” he said, before linking his opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, to Trump on the Iran war and tariffs.
The White House ballroom has been under construction since last October, when Trump had the 123-year-old East Wing leveled to make room for it.
In a revealing admission, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that month that the project was Trump’s “main priority.” The president, who once randomly got up from an important meeting to stare out at the space where the structure did not yet exist, will reportedly be naming the 90,000-square-foot space after himself.
Until then, Trump has been known to show off renderings of the ballroom to anyone who will listen.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast asking about El-Sayed’s comments, as well as how important the ballroom is to Trump now that it’s competing with the Iran war for his attention.
Trump began the war in late February, at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump initially said the unpopular conflict, which has claimed the lives of 18 U.S. troops, would last a matter of weeks.
