WARREN, Mich. — UFC fighters Justin Gaethje, Beneil Darish and Henry Cejudo took to the political stage last week to urge crowds of Arab American voters in battleground state Michigan to vote for Republican heavyweight Donald Trump. .
What are their selling points to solidify support for Trump? He will fight for peace in the Middle East.
The newly formed Conservative Middle East Political Action Committee, which seeks to register those voters as Republicans, is led by the former Director of National Intelligence, who has been deeply involved in Trump World's efforts to capture Michigan's sizable Arab-American population. Sponsored this event in conjunction with Rick Grenell. .
The UFC trio became involved in the campaign through their manager Ali Abdelaziz, a close friend of Trump and Grenell.
The venue was a dazzling Arab banquet hall in the greater Detroit area, the epicenter of the battle for Arab American and Muslim votes this election cycle.
One by one, the star warriors took to the stage and made their case against the former president in front of about 50 people in attendance.
“I get hit in the head sometimes for a living, so I wrote some words,” joked Gaethje, a lightweight fighter known for his bloody five-round fights.
“I think we're definitely in the championship game. We're three weeks into this fight for America,” he said before urging attendees to vote for Trump.
Cejudo, an Olympic gold medalist and former UFC champion, then addressed the mostly Arab-American crowd, referencing their experiences as the son of Mexican immigrants and a new first-generation American. Ta.
Cejudo, wearing a Trump for Peace T-shirt, told the crowd: “As I stand here as a Latina, or more specifically, as an American, I hope that I can join with others of similar backgrounds and people of similar backgrounds to make a difference. They come from the same situation. ”
The most enthusiastic speaker was Dariush, an Iranian-born lightweight fighter and Christian of Assyrian descent.
He forged strong ties with a crowd that included many Chaldeans, another Christian minority in the Middle East that has suffered from the rise of Islamic State and other conflicts in the region.
“Assyrians and Chaldeans are brothers,” he said before making Trump's claim.
“I saw what he did in the Middle East, where he stopped ISIS, where he stopped just bombing random people. [former President Barack] Obama did it,” Darish said.
He also argued that Trump broke the mold of the hawkish, conservative Republican Party and championed a new kind of foreign policy.
“He made me realize something about the government: There are extremists on our side as well as on the other side. And they love war. It's a benefit.”
Those words resonated with Lana Salem, 36, a Chaldean American from Sterling Heights and president of Nineveh Rising, a charity that provides aid to Christian Iraqis.
“Most of my community can't stand [former President George W.] Bush. So he destroyed our country, another country. America is our country. But Trump ended ISIS just like Beneil said,” she told the Post.
After the speech, Dariush told the Post that protecting people back home was his top political priority, second only to fighting for his family in the United States.
“For me, peace abroad is probably second only to my own family at home. I want peace for my family. I want prosperity for my family at home. But how can I forget about them?”
Abdelaziz, the Egyptian-born mixed martial arts manager who brought this group of fighters, was similarly outspoken about foreign policy.
To the audience, he apologized for his accent and nervousness before speaking about the genocide in the Middle East.
“I don't care if you're a Jew, a Muslim, a Christian. People are dying,” he said. “Now do you really miss President Trump? Because in four years he created the Abraham Accords. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but nobody died.”
“I think Donald Trump brought us four years of peace,” Abdelaziz said in an exclusive interview with the Post after his remarks.
“You see wars going on all over the world, in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and now Iran. The whole world is going crazy right now because I don't think the people respect the leadership of the United States. There is.”
Ali Aljami, 19, a Yemeni-American who helps run his family's restaurant in Dearborn, also attended. he even tweeted approvalbelieves Trump will end the Israel-Hamas war.
Aljami, interviewed by The Post at a banquet hall, had few kind words for the Biden-Harris administration.
“Kamala Harris, she's been vice president for four years. She knows what's going on in Palestine. She knows what's going on in Iraq. She's been the vice president for four years. She knows what's going on in Iraq. I know what's going on. And I believe the Dearborn community and the Michigan Arab community are not supporting Biden,” he said before offering his thoughts on the situation in Gaza.
“I see children with no brains supporting that genocide. This is genocide, the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea,” he continued. “Let me tell you something: Donald Trump is a pacifist.”
Oubay Shahbandar, an Arab-American activist who moderated the event, told the Post that such outreach to Michigan's Middle Eastern communities has helped boost Trump's approval ratings in the state. He said he believed that.
“You can draw a direct correlation to the feedback that we're getting from all the people that are participating in terms of impact on polls.Obviously, Kamala has done a lot of work for us. “We're taking advantage of that,” he said.
Trump and Harris are tied in the Wolverine State, according to a just-released Trafalgar Group poll.
