Vice President JD Vance spoke Friday at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in his Ohio hometown, talking about the importance of standing for working people.
Among the topics he touched on was how off the rails the Democrats have become. As an example, he pointed to the Democratic nominee for Senate in neighboring Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. He related how El-Sayed had previously said criticism of Sharia law was rooted in white supremacy.
Vance on El-Sayed: I would love to go back in time and tell my papaw, 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 are a white supremacist. pic.twitter.com/t7RqCCJt5Y
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 21, 2026
"I would love to go back in time and tell my papaw, 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 are a white supremacist. That's not my papaw's Democratic Party, my friends."
El-Sayed's team previously released a statement that he believed in the "separation of church and state" and that while he personally tried to live by the rules of his faith, he opposed any effort to write any "faith laws into the laws of this country."
However, he's also made previous remarks that Vance is pointing to.
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.
Now El-Sayed has responded to Vance's remarks with a bizarre take that many on the Right are calling racist.
So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no… https://t.co/JApcsCW4kU
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) August 22, 2026
"So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no," El-Sayed posted.
I think that's supposed to mean if he did, Papaw would have an issue with Usha being of Indian descent.
So while Vance is saying it's not white supremacy to have criticisms of Sharia law, El-Sayed seems to be going right back to the white supremacy claim, assuming that as a white person, "Papaw" would be racist toward Usha. And what does that have to do with Sharia law?
El-Sayed's post was inundated with this, a common reply.
Gross, dude. Wow. https://t.co/cmHdTv267e
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) August 22, 2026
Meanwhile, as we previously reported, El-Sayed had also tried to compare his agenda with that of Jesus. There are a lot of reasons that even Democrats are fleeing El-Sayed for his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers; this is just the latest.
READ MORE: Abdul El-Sayed Compares His ‘Radical’ Agenda to Jesus
'Impressive Flex': Mike Rogers Trolls El-Sayed After Debate Challenge, and This Is Getting Good
None of this is going to go over well in purple Michigan.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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