Vance Calls El-Sayed a 'Weasel' as Michigan Senate Race Turns Ugly
Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed fired back at a crowd of 1,300 in the Upper Peninsula, saying the vice president should take his Buckeye and shove it, as Republicans press unproven claims about his faith.
MARQUETTE, Mich. — Vice President JD Vance called Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed a "weasel" who should "shut his mouth." El-Sayed answered with a profane rejoinder in front of more than 1,300 people in the state's Upper Peninsula, in a Senate race that has turned bitter with less than three weeks until Election Day.
"No, no, no. What you're talking about is a f****** Wolverine," El-Sayed, a University of Michigan alumnus, told the crowd. "You could take your Buckeye and go shove it somewhere else." Vance was previously Ohio's senator and is an Ohio State University graduate. El-Sayed added: "Don't you dare come from Ohio to lecture me about America. You don't know a damn thing about America."
The exchange followed a rally Vance held in Monroe on Thursday, where he attacked El-Sayed's past critical comments about American history. "It's clear, Abdul doesn't love this community, Democrat or Republican," Vance told the crowd. "He wants to litigate ancient grievances with your tax dollars, and he wants to use the grievances of faraway lands to punish you. Well, I say, on November the third, send a message to Abdul El-Sayed: Punish him, don't send him to Washington D.C." The two men have traded insults before. After an El-Sayed post questioned whether Vance's grandfather would have accepted second lady Usha Vance, who is Indian-American, Vance called him "very, very evil."
Late Thursday night, President Trump posted a video on Truth Social accusing El-Sayed, an epidemiologist who has led city and county health departments in Michigan, of being a "Muslim radical" and a "Muslim Brotherhood Member." CBS News reports there is no evidence for either claim. The allegations in part stem from old social media posts by El-Sayed's half-sister, first reported by the conservative outlet The Washington Free Beacon, in which she wrote about their mother's activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during college in the 1970s. In 2012, after a Muslim Brotherhood candidate won Egypt's presidential race, she wrote that her family "has long been MB."
El-Sayed has denied any ties to the organization and says the attacks are tied to his Muslim faith. He said that after his parents divorced he was raised by his father and stepmother in Michigan, did not see his mother for years and never discussed her 1970s activism with her. "My mom and my sister are not running for office. I'm running for office," he said. "Judge me by my actions and my work, but please do not assume that because I might pray differently than anybody who's ever held this office, that somehow I am not deeply committed to this Constitution." At a stop in Iron Mountain on Thursday he said the race could go down "as one of the ugliest campaigns in modern history."
Islamophobic rhetoric on the trail has increased in recent weeks. Far-right instigator Jake Lang and others held signs reading "Abdul = Terrorist In A Suit" at a protest of an El-Sayed event last weekend. The campaign of his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, condemned Lang's appearance and said it has no affiliation with him. Republican protesters also appeared outside the first two stops of El-Sayed's tour on Thursday with signs attacking his "Medicare for All" platform and one declaring "The United States Will Always Be A Christian Nation." On the trail with Rogers last weekend, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana quipped that El-Sayed "sleeps in a Bin Laden jersey."
Asked by CBS News on Thursday whether he thinks El-Sayed is a terrorist, Rogers replied, "Look at the data. It's pretty clear." Speaking to reporters in Detroit on Friday, Rogers struck a different note, saying the race "has never been about how you pray." He said, "You get to pray any way you want, and I passionately believe that. It is about your ideology and how you think." He added that the campaign cannot let the race become one where a candidate hunkers down because critics call the attacks Islamophobic or racist.
Holding the Michigan seat is critical to Democrats' efforts to flip the Senate in November. El-Sayed won his primary in August by a single point over Rep. Haley Stevens, after $65 million was spent trying to stop him. With the general election set for November 3, the personal attacks from the vice president and the president have made Michigan one of the most heated Senate contests in the country.
