US President Donald Trump’s joke about the popularity of the name Muhammad while ridiculing the Iranian presidency fell flat at a campaign rally in Georgia, where he claimed the name offered a 65 per cent chance of correctly guessing the identity of someone from West Asia.
“I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve never been wrong,” Reuters reported Trump telling supporters in a hangar at Dalton Municipal Airport yesterday.
Trump made the remarks while discussing Iran at the rally, held in support of Republican candidates ahead of the Nov 3 congressional midterm elections.
He claimed Iran was the only country where nobody wanted to be president, before pretending to ask several people named Muhammad whether they were interested in taking the position.
Masoud Pezeshkian has been Iran’s president since 2024.
Muhammad is among the most popular male names in the Muslim world, with many Muslim families naming their sons after the Prophet Muhammad.
The audience’s muted response contrasted with Trump’s attempt to turn the name into a punchline while discussing Iran’s leadership.
Human rights activists and Muslim advocacy groups have repeatedly criticised Trump’s rhetoric, saying it demeans Muslims, immigrants and ethnic minorities.
Such rhetoric has featured prominently during the midterm election campaign, particularly in remarks targeting Somali communities and Muslim Americans, including Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Representative Ilhan Omar, who represents Minnesota and arrived in the United States as a refugee from Somalia.
An annual report published earlier this year by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) linked rising Islamophobia in the United States, in part, to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and its response to pro-Palestinian protests during his second term. - October 17, 2026