Vice President JD Vance launched broadsides at ‘democratic socialist’ Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed during a campaign speech for GOP nominee Mike Rogers on Thursday.
At one point during his speech, Vance ripped El-Sayed for comments he made following a deadly attack by a gunman at a Jewish synagogue earlier this year.
Vance was referencing the March 12 attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit by 41-year-old Ayman Mohamed Ghazali, who died by suicide after striking one security guard with his vehicle.
“This foreign-born jihadist, a literal terrorist, rammed his truck into a temple and opened fire, hoping to kill hundreds of innocent Jewish schoolchildren — our fellow Americans — inside,” Vance said.
“And you know what Abdul El-Sayed said when confronted with that? He said, and I quote, ‘Hurt people…hurt people,’” the vice president noted further.
“In a moment when he should have shown leadership, he decided to attack the people who were victimized by that crime, and he decided to show empathy for the people who committed that crime,” he added.
The rally was designed to promote Republican candidates across Michigan’s November 3 ballot, but Vance focused heavily on the Senate contest and portrayed Rogers as a more conventional alternative to El-Sayed’s progressive agenda.
“I’m not here primarily to talk about William Lawrence, I’m here to talk about the person who would become your next United States Senator,” Vance told the crowd before turning directly to Rogers and El-Sayed.
Rogers, a former congressman and House Intelligence Committee chairman, is making his second consecutive bid for the Senate after narrowly losing Michigan’s 2024 race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin.
This year’s contest became an open-seat battle after Democratic Senator Gary Peters announced that he would not seek another term, creating one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races.
El-Sayed, a physician who never got board certified and has not treated patients since med school, is a former Detroit health director who won the Democratic nomination after campaigning on left-wing proposals including Medicare for All.
He has attracted support from other left-wing figures including former President Barack Obama Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Vance repeatedly targeted those positions Thursday and argued that El-Sayed represents a Democratic Party that has moved substantially leftward from earlier generations.
“The far left, the radicals of the Democratic Party, they’re on the ascent,” Vance said, adding that the modern party is “not my papaw’s Democratic Party” and comparing it unfavorably with the parties led by John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton.
Vance went considerably further in his criticism of El-Sayed personally, calling the Democrat a “weasel” and spending roughly half his speech attacking his record, political philosophy and background.
“You’re not going to always agree with him on every issue,” Vance said of Rogers, “but he’s a person who knows his job is to fight for you every single day.”
Vance then described El-Sayed as “one of the worst people running in the history of the United States of America,” reflecting the increasingly personal tone surrounding the race.
Republicans have also intensified scrutiny of El-Sayed over reported family connections involving the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt and is a designated terrorist organization in that country and several others, including the U.S.
El-Sayed has rejected the accusation as “unserious” and “ridiculous.”
El-Sayed, who was born and raised in Michigan and is the son of Egyptian immigrants, responded Thursday during his own campaign stop in Marquette, playing the bigotry card.
“When you’ve got a name like mine you see the best of us, and too often sometimes you see the worst of us,” El-Sayed said, arguing that some political opponents were attempting to divide voters.
