Obama Pitched Michigan a 'Muslim Man, Jewish Woman' Senate Duo. Flint-Born NBA Star Kyle Kuzma Called It Desperate

Barack Obama came to Detroit on Saturday to sell Michigan on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running for the state's open U.S. Senate seat. His big closing pitch wasn't a plan for gas prices or auto jobs. It was a religious lineup card.

"Imagine the power duo of Abdul and Elissa," the former president told the crowd at Cass Technical High School, pairing El-Sayed with Michigan's sitting Democratic senator, Elissa Slotkin. "You've got a Muslim man. You got a Jewish woman fighting for you in the United States Senate. That's something, Michigan, you can be proud of."

Within hours, two very different Michiganders answered him. One was a Flint-born NBA champion. The other was the president of the United States.

The Flint kid who wasn't buying it

Kyle Kuzma grew up in Flint, won an NBA title with the Lakers in 2020 and now plays forward for the Milwaukee Bucks. Late Saturday night he quoted the Obama clip and let it rip to his 1.3 million followers:

He called the pitch "desperate" and said he was "so tired of listening to it." By Sunday morning the post had passed 270,000 views and 4,000 likes, with hundreds of replies.

It wasn't a one-off. A day earlier Kuzma, who says he has lived in both Miami and Los Angeles, waved off a race-baiting comparison of the two cities: "Has nothing to do with race. who governs these places is the real question." That's the same point he made about Obama's line. Voters want results, not a census of the candidates' faiths.

Obama's own warning, flipped

Here's the part most write-ups skipped. Minutes before the "power duo" line, Obama warned the same crowd against making faith a campaign weapon.

"They will use lies, and they will use fear, and they will use division," he said. "And they may even use your name or your faith to somehow suggest that you are dangerous and less than trustworthy and less patriotic and less American than they are." Then he brought up the birther fight: "We have seen this movie before... I've got a long-form birth certificate to prove it."

So in one speech, Obama told Michigan that bringing up a candidate's faith is a dirty trick, and then made the candidate's faith his selling point. If religion is off-limits when Republicans ask about El-Sayed's record, it can't be the headline when Democrats want votes.

And the questions about El-Sayed aren't about his faith. They're about his record, starting with the 2012 statement he signed with other Egyptian-American leaders backing Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi and urging him to "purge the media and the police," which we laid out in full after the final debate. His campaign still hasn't explained it.

Trump: 'He is going to lose, also'

Trump answered overnight on Truth Social. "Obama was a grossly incompetent President! He paid off Iran with $Billions, and gave them a road to a Nuclear Weapon," he wrote. "He said that Crooked Hillary Clinton was going to WIN, he campaigned hard for her, and she lost in all directions and ways. He then campaigned full out for Kamala, and likewise, she lost."

Then he turned to El-Sayed, calling him a "Fake Doctor" and a "Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist" who is "going to lose, also." "I won Michigan, BIG, have brought back the Car Industry, the Air Force Base, and everything else," Trump wrote, in the post. "VOTE FOR MIKE ROGERS! He will never let you down!"

Trump has the Michigan scoreboard on his side. Obama stumped for both of the Democrats Trump named, and Michigan's certified results went Trump both times.

Why it matters

This seat belongs to retiring Democrat Gary Peters, and it could decide which party runs the Senate next year. Republican Mike Rogers is a former FBI agent and Army officer who chaired the House Intelligence Committee. Early in-person voting opened statewide on Saturday, the same day Obama spoke, and Election Day is Nov. 3.

Trump rallies for Rogers in Port Huron on Sunday afternoon at McMorran Place Arena, according to the Republican Party's event listing. Expect him to bring up Obama's lineup card.

Obama asked Michigan to vote on who the candidates are. A kid from Flint asked the better question: what are they going to do for the one in four?