Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed clapped back at Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, calling him a politician with “negative charisma” after Vance singled him out during a rally in Kansas.
The exchange happened on MS NOW’s “The Weeknight,” where co-host Luke Russert played a clip of Vance’s Monday rally remarks for El-Sayed to respond to.
In that clip, Vance told the Kansas crowd, “Just listen to them in their own words. We’re going to get to Kansas in a second. But you know this guy, Abdul El-Sayed, the clown running for Senate in Michigan? This guy is a content machine for the Republican party. He has said that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in white supremacy.”
El-Sayed pushed back on both the substance and the setting of Vance’s comments. “Look, I think if you’re actively trying to go after Sharia law, it’s because you’re trying to change the conversation,” he said. “Now, I know JD Vance went to Ohio State. It’s a subpar university and they didn’t teach geography. He was in Kansas to talk about a candidate in Michigan, seems a little bit confused, but that’s JD Vance.”
El-Sayed then turned the conversation to kitchen-table issues, arguing that attacks on his name and faith don’t touch the economic pressures voters actually feel.
“At the end of the day, me, my name, my faith, they’re not raising the price of your gas. They’re not raising the price of your groceries. They’re not the reason that you can’t afford a new home. They’re not the reason you can’t see a doctor in the United States. That’s Donald Trump, that’s JD Vance, that’s people like Mike Rogers. And every day we remind them is a day that we are winning these races. So go ahead, JD keep doing it.”
He added that voters back home aren’t focused on the national sparring match Vance is trying to stir up. “In Michigan, people aren’t talking about all these national stories,” El-Sayed said. “They’re not trying to talk about the ridiculous things that JD Vance, with his negative charisma, wants to talk about.”
The Michigan Senate race, where El-Sayed is running as a Democrat against Republican Mike Rogers, has drawn national attention, with Vance now weighing in from as far away as Kansas.
Add comment