Vice President JD Vance had a pointed response to Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed, who last weekend appeared to imply Vance would have never introduced his wife, second lady Usha Vance, to his grandfather because of her Indian heritage.
During a rally for President Donald Trump’s super PAC MAGA Inc. in Michigan on Monday, Vance told a crowd at Universal Contracting and Urban Tree Trimming that he would never come to the state and “disrespect somebody’s family by talking about another person’s wife, a person who isn’t on the ballot.”
Vance described el Sayed’s conduct as “weird,” using a word that Democrats deployed to derogatorily describe him and Trump during the 2024 campaign.
“Abdul el Sayed, every time they put a microphone in front of his face, he wants to talk about my wife or my grandfather,” Vance said at the rally. “I actually think that the people of Michigan think it’s kind of weird when you talk about another guy’s wife.”
Vance said that Michigan voters would rather have el Sayed to discuss the issues impacting them, including “how you’re going to protect auto workers.”
“Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth because she’s way out of your league,” he said.
During the rally to support Michigan Republicans, Vance also underscored el Sayed’s controversial relationship with socialist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, a dynamic that has underpinned his Senate race against former Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.
“My message to Abdul el Sayed is: You can pal around with terrorist sympathizers, and you can say that America deserved 9/11, or you could empathize, not with the children who were targeted at Temple Israel, but with the attacker,” he said. “These are all despicable things, but they’re all things that the people of Michigan will judge you on based on your record.”
The comments come as Vance and el Sayed have increasingly taken shots at each other. Last week, el Sayed took a swipe at Vance for invoking his grandfather, a union welder, during a factory tour in Ohio. El Sayed responded to the comments by asking whether Vance would have introduced the second lady to his grandfather if he had the chance.
The elder Vance, known as “Papaw,” died in 1997, years before the vice president and second lady met at Yale Law School.
Despite the swipe, Usha Vance told Fox News that she “kind of laughed” when first advised of el Sayed’s post.
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“I never met JD’s Mamaw and Papaw,” Usha Vance said. “But, I do know and love the children that they raised — his mom, his aunt, and uncle. And they have never been anything but incredibly loving. His aunt is like a second mother to me. So, I have to think that if they raised children like that, they would’ve been loving as well. And I would’ve really, really loved to have met them.”