Unwelcome, Biden team told
Arab leaders cancel meeting with campaign in Michigan
The meetings are part of an effort by the White House and Biden reelection campaign to meet with core constituency groups around the country, and the campaign said it “will continue to have thoughtful conversations with groups.”
The organizer of a planned meeting between President Joe Biden’s campaign manager and a group of Arab and Muslim American leaders in Dearborn, Mich., said it was canceled after some in the wider community objected to the gathering amid anger over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
Assad Turfe, who was coordinating the sit-down of Arab leaders and officials with Biden’s campaign in Dearborn, said he made the decision to cancel Friday afternoon’s group meeting “in the best interest of the community.”
“As the community got to learn about the meeting, there was definitely a lot of outrage and, ultimately, the decision was made to cancel the meeting,” said Turfe, the deputy county executive of Wayne County whose family is from Lebanon.
The meeting was to be between Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and 10-15 Arab American elected officials, office holders and representatives from the larger community organizations, Turfe said.
The Biden campaign did not comment on the cancellation of Friday’s group meeting. Other meetings between Rodriguez and individual leaders of the Arab community in Michigan were still happening Friday, according to two sources.
The group meeting was among several that Rodriguez was convening with leaders from Michigan, including local elected officials and leaders from the Arab and Palestinian-American, Hispanic and Black communities.
The meetings are part of an effort by the White House and Biden reelection campaign to meet with core constituency groups around the country, and the campaign said it “will continue to have thoughtful conversations with groups.”
Turfe said the Biden campaign had requested the meeting with Arab leaders and officials in recent weeks as part of the listening tour.
Arab leaders from the Muslim and Christian communities had intended to share firsthand the “sentiments” of the community and estimated that many who supported Biden in 2020 likely won’t do so in November, citing 26,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and thousands of others displaced or facing famine, Turfe said.
“Unless something drastic happens, you have lost the Arab American and Muslim community. At this point, from what I can see, there’s no winning them over. That was the idea of the meeting,” Turfe said.
“Until there’s a ceasefire, the overall consensus in the community is they’re not welcome here, essentially.”
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, Wayne County Commissioner Sam Beydoun and Democratic state Reps. Alabas Farhat and Abraham Aiyash were among those invited to the meeting with Biden’s campaign manager. Multiple people confirmed Friday that the group meeting had been canceled.
Farhat said he agreed with the decision to cancel the meeting.
“This pushback is not just about failed policy — it’s about humanity,” said Farhat of Dearborn. “It’s unrealistic to expect that political conversations will re-secure our support for the president when only a ceasefire can truly reopen that door.”
Some in the community questioned why Biden would send a campaign official and not someone from the White House. Rodriguez previously was director of Biden’s White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Lexis Zeidan, a 31-year-old Christian Palestinian American and activist in the community, said she was invited to the meeting but felt it was important to understand the community’s disposition toward it first. She said the resounding feedback she received was, “Biden and his team are not welcome here.”
Zeidan, a Dearborn native and Detroit resident who voted for Biden in 2020, argued the Biden campaign had taken for granted the Arab American vote in Michigan. He’s lost her vote, she said.
“It is completely tone deaf for his senior campaign official to believe they could set foot in this community and believe we’d like to meet with the campaign team of a murderer,” Zeidan said.