Two metro Detroit religious leaders are slated to speak at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week, according to a report published Monday.
Matthew Foldi, the editor-in-chief of the Washington Reporter, an online news site, posted on social media platform X a photo of the draft program for Trump’s inauguration at the west front of the U.S. Capitol next Monday.
It indicated that Imam Husham Al-Husainy, who heads the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, and the Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, senior pastor of the 180 Church in Detroit, will be among those faith leaders delivering the benediction following Trump’s inaugural address.
Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University in New York, and the Rev. Father Frank Mann, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, were also slated to take part in the benediction.
The program draft also indicated that singer-songwriter Carrie Underwood will perform “America the Beautiful” and Christopher Macchio will sing the National Anthem.
Al-Husainy was among some Arab-American leaders in metro Detroit who took part in a Republican media call in late October, during which several voiced support for Trump in the Nov. 5 general election. Sewell, who runs a nondenominational church in Detroit, hosted a roundtable with Trump in the city in June and had a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last summer.
During the campaign, Trump made a strong pitch to leaders in Michigan’s large Arab-American and Muslim communities, where many residents protested against Democratic President Joe Biden’s refusal to demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. Trump had been staunchly supportive of Israel as well, however, though he has maintained the conflict wouldn’t have happened if he were president.
Trump also worked to make inroads with Michigan’s Black community and exit polls showed he did better with Black voters in the state against Harris in 2024 than he did with that same voting bloc against Biden four years earlier, when he lost Michigan.
Trump won Michigan last year, defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris by about 1.4 percentage points, or 80,103 ballots out of more than 5.6 million cast in the state.
Trump, who also won Michigan en route to taking the presidency in 2016, will be inaugurated at noon next Monday.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.
