The president of the Arab American Institute, James Zogby, issued a statement to CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Wednesday that several Muslim voters are regretting the decisions they made in the presidential election of 2024.
As Brianna Keilar noted during the interview with James Zogby, Donald Trump received a huge boost from Muslim voters in 2024 because of the anger against Joe Biden’s administration for their role in the Israeli government’s war in Gaza. The war has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and James Zogby describes it to CNN as a “genocide.”
“Trump won because of us, but we’re not happy with his Secretary of State pick,” says Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor and co-founder of Muslims for Trump. Strategists believe Muslim support was crucial in Trump’s wins in Michigan and other swing states.
I have no… pic.twitter.com/DRDeYUfEtC
— Karly Kingsley (@karlykingsley) November 15, 2024
In fact, in 2024, Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate in more than two decades to win in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn also has the largest Muslim American population compared to any city in the United States.
When asked by Brianna Keilar if he had spoken with any of the voters since the election, Zogby replied that he had and the voters were firmly against Donald Trump. They were also against Trump’s stated desire to ethnically cleanse Gaza by eradicating all Palestinians from their land.
“Many of [the voters] stayed home, and some of them voted for Donald Trump,” Zogby said. “But they are now feeling very clearly that they made a big mistake. And, you know, sort of like the kid who gets in trouble and his parents send him to his room and he goes out there and starts throwing stuff around… in a pique of anger. All he’s got is a mess and that’s what we’ve got here.
“People didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. They voted for Donald Trump. They had their tantrum. And now look at what we got. We got a crazy man in the White House who’s doing and projecting things that are really, really problematic.”
Trump-backing Muslim voters finally realize they ‘made a big mistake’: expert https://t.co/U1VYMvUSkx
— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) February 5, 2025
The 78-year-old president has also proposed to “take over” Gaza, which has stunned the entire world and even departed from the long-standing US policy of supporting a Palestinian state. The president is not new for his provocative statements, but on Tuesday he spoke about permanently displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which is devastated by war. He also expressed his will to transform the Palestinian territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Trump’s comments sparked a worldwide outcry on Wednesday, especially in the Arab World. They also appeared to challenge the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Critics have commented this to be a potential “ethnic cleansing.” The Republican billionaire, portraying himself as a pragmatist, is said to have a transactional approach to foreign policy, and has not ruled out sending troops to the region.
