Vice President JD Vance singled out Abdul El-Sayed in a broader critique of today’s Democratic Party, citing the Michigan Senate nominee’s past comments tying criticism of Sharia law to White supremacy as proof, Vance argued, that Democrats have drifted away from their working-class base.
Vance made the case Friday at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in his hometown in Ohio, speaking as nearby Michigan prepares for one of the most closely watched Senate races of the midterm cycle.
El-Sayed is running against Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in a race that could play a pivotal role in deciding which party controls the Senate.
During his remarks, Vance invoked his late grandfather, a welder of four decades who, he said, consistently voted for Democrats because he viewed the party as “the party of union men.”
That image, Vance contended, no longer reflects what the Democratic Party has become.
“This is the party, the Democrat party of graduate students, rather than the union and nonunion workers who make this facility run,” Vance said.
“It’s sometimes actually hard to understand what these modern Democrats actually stand for. But look what they say. Pay close attention, and they’ll leave these little hints of what they actually care about.”
Vance then shifted directly to El-Sayed, the son of Muslim Egyptian immigrants.
“He once argued, not too long ago, that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in White supremacy,” Vance said.
“I’d love to go back in time and tell my papa that there is a man who claims to stand for working people who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticize it you’re a White supremacist. That’s not my grandpa’s Democratic Party, my friend.”
Vance was referring to a speech El-Sayed gave at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) 2022 annual banquet in Oklahoma, where he was the keynote speaker.
El-Sayed criticized a 2010 ballot measure known as State Question 755, which sought to amend the state constitution to ban courts from considering Sharia law in their decisions. The measure was approved by 70% of voters but was ultimately blocked by federal courts.
“The same exact forces that drove native peoples from their land two centuries ago, destroyed Black Wall Street a century ago, bombed a building decades ago and tried to ban Sharia law not a decade ago, those forces are alive and well today,” El-Sayed said.
“The reason I wanted to go all the way back to the 1830s is because you can’t understand a Shariah ban without understanding the Trail of Tears,” El-Sayed continued.
“You can’t understand the efforts to uproot Muslim Americans without understanding the Tulsa massacre. You cannot understand the challenges we face today without understanding White supremacy.”
El-Sayed’s remarks at the CAIR banquet are among several statements that have drawn criticism from conservatives and Republicans who accuse the Senate candidate of viewing politics through the lens of race and religion.
Other remarks generating criticism include El-Sayed accusing Israel of committing “genocide” and describing the Jewish state as an “apartheid,” while prompting concerns from members of the Jewish community.
However, after his primary victory, El-Sayed said, “My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own kids. We have a responsibility to take on antisemitism in all of its forms, wherever we see it.”
