The Trump campaign has a secret weapon in its war to win a bloc of middle eastern voters in the key swing state of Michigan — and her name is Tiffany.
That's according to a new report from the Associated Press about former President Donald Trump's struggle to overcome lingering outrage over the controversial Muslim ban he enacted as president.
At the heart of Trump's campaign strategy is Trump-ex wife Marla Maples' daughter with the former president and her connection, through marriage, to Lebanese-born businessman Massad Boulos' son Michael, according to the report.
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"Boulos has taken on the challenge of trying to convince a politically influential community angry at President Joe Biden that Trump is a better option," the Associated Press reports.
"But many Arab Americans also note Trump has positioned himself as more pro-Israel than Biden and has made a series of comments and policy announcements that critics blast as Islamophobic."
The Associated Press interviewed several people Boulos has tried to win to Trump's side with less than stellar results.
Those sources told the Associated Press they still remember Trump's controversial 2016 campaign comments, his immigration ban on multiple majority-Muslim nations and the raging rhetoric he hurled at one of the first Muslim women members of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who faced death threats as a result.
“I told Massad, ‘This isn’t about you being Lebanese and me being Lebanese,’” said Osama Siblani, a publisher of the Arab American News, told the Associated Press.
“You can’t just buy votes. You have to give something substantial to the community. And Trump hasn’t done that yet.”
Hostilities were hardly lessoned when Boulos, his son and Trump foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell held a meeting in Michigan in May with 40 Arab American activists from across the U.S., according to the report.
“Grenell didn’t say what they would do," Arab American political activist Khaled Saffuri told the Associated Press. "But he kept reminding us that when Trump was president, there was no war whatsoever and that he launched the biggest peace effort in the Middle East. But most Arabs and Muslims don’t consider the Abraham Accords a peace agreement."
Another faux pas:
"Grenell tried to call Trump to have him address attendees by phone," the Associated Press reports. "The former president did not answer."
