Obama endorses midterm candidate who's under the spotlight | ABC NEWS

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called Democratic senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a jihadist.

El-Sayed's Republican opponent Mike Rogers has also tried to link him to terrorist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood — claims he rejects.

A week ago, his response to a question about the issue from a heckler, who turned out to be a former Republican staffer called "Tommy", went viral.

After asking whether El-Sayed would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, the Senate candidate answered, "Sure. Yeah, absolutely," before asking whether the man assumed he would not and comparing the question to doubts once raised about John F Kennedy's Catholicism.

Despite El-Sayed's previous criticisms of Barack Obama in an opinion piece, the former US president has come out in support of him at a rally stage in Detroit.

Video by Lauren Day.

Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.

#ABCNEWS #ABCNEWSAustralia