President Donald Trump held a rally in Detroit on Sunday, joined by rapper Nicki Minaj, as he made a final push for voters in Michigan to back Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers over Democrat Abdul El Sayed.
Minaj, who has appeared alongside Trump multiple times this year, released a statement to the Washington Examiner ahead of the rally. “This midterm election is the most important of our lifetimes,” she said. “We need to make sure President Trump has a strong, effective team in Congress for his final two years in office so he can continue delivering transformative programs like Trump Accounts, which I am proud to support.”
Trump Accounts are the president’s $1,000 tax-advantaged savings program for children, which Minaj has publicly promoted alongside the administration, including at a Trump Accounts summit earlier in the year.
At that summit, Minaj said she considers herself the president’s biggest supporter. “I am probably the president’s number one fan, and that’s not going to change,” she said. She added that criticism from people opposed to her support for Trump does not bother her. “The hate, or what people have to say, it does not affect me at all,” she said. “It actually motivates me to support him more.”
She continued: “And it’s going to motivate all of us to support him more. We’re not going to let them get away with bullying him, and the smear campaigns, it’s not going to work.”
Trump has praised Minaj in return, calling her the “greatest female rapper in history” earlier this year. At Sunday’s rally, he told the crowd, “We love Nicki,” as Minaj helped energize attendees. Minaj also shared video of herself aboard Air Force One.
The rally comes as Trump has sharpened his rhetoric against El Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate, who is Muslim. In a recent post on Truth Social, Trump said he was traveling to Michigan to “fight a Jihadist Member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” a characterization he has leveled at El Sayed as part of his campaign push for Rogers.
The Detroit rally marks one of the final major campaign stops before Michigan voters decide the closely watched Senate race between Rogers and El Sayed.
