A rising Democratic star has provoked a wild crowd reaction after making a joke about President Trump and his younger aide Natalie Harp.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, took part in a town hall in Farmington Hills on Wednesday.
During his speech in the Michigan suburb, the 41-year-old made a string of remarks about Trump, 80, who has called him a “communist,” a “man of hate” and said he is “full of sh–.”
But it was at one point in El-Sayed’s speech that got the assembled crowd laughing and cheering after referencing Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant Harp.
The woman known as the “human printer” is paid $150,000 annually and is regularly by Trump’s side and often oversees his Truth Social account. Personal letters she wrote to Trump, which were published in full by the Daily Beast, captured the depth of her obsession with her boss.
The joke started as El-Sayed blasted Trump’s pronouncement of his name.
“Donald Trump, because he cannot resist the red meat, cannot seem to keep my name out of his mouth,” El-Sayed said, before using the Arabic word that translates to “my dear” when addressing a male.
“Habibi, if you can’t say the name, don’t say the name!,” he said, before attempting to imitate Trump’s curious pronunciation of his name, where he draws out the last letter.
“Why you gotta say it like that man? It’s creepy,” El-Sayed joked, noting that Trump “holds onto the ‘l’ a little too long.”
After once again imitating the way Trump mangles his name, El-Sayed then joked, “You know, Natalie will show him this clip and he will be so mad.”
The mention of Harp by name caused the crowd to roar with laughter, applause and cheers for 10 seconds.
Harp, 35, has found herself in the spotlight after details of her bizarre, clingy relationship with the president have been revealed.
In the letters, written in 2023, Harp said she is “unworthy” of Trump, and told him, “You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down.” The aide joined Trump to fly in a secret plane to avoid an apparent Iranian plot to target Air Force One.
Last week, El-Sayed clapped back at the pair after Trump referenced his link to “communist fanatic,” popular left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.
El-Sayed shared Trump’s comments on X on Saturday, adding “Natalie, I think he’s had a little too much iPad for the week. He needs his rest.”
During Wednesday’s town hall, El-Sayed also mocked Trump’s trade war with Canada, saying “Donald Trump doesn’t understand economics.”
Referencing a loan from his late father Fred, El-Sayed said of the president, “You get money from daddy, become a nepo baby and all of a sudden you think you’re some kind of master businessman.”
“These tariffs are simply about his ego, and he wants us to have to pay for them,” El-Sayed said. “And Mike Rogers will do nothing but rubber-stamp it.” Rogers, a Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, has flipped from his previous criticism of Trump to become a 2020 election skeptic as he returns to the campaign trail, El-Sayed noted.
He said it was frustrating because Rogers “knows better.”
“It is one thing to be an idiot,” he said. “It is another entirely to be so small as a human being as to know the other person is an idiot and do what they want anyway, because all you want is power.”
He continued, “There is being dumb, and then there is being cowardly. I can’t blame someone for being dumb.”
El-Sayed then said, “Donald Trump was born with what he had,” prompting more laughter from the audience.
“But cowardice, cowardice is unforgivable,” he added, stating he had challenged Rogers to take part in five debates, and he only agreed to one.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
