US Vice President J.D. Vance issued a personal warning to Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed not to mention his wife Usha in the election campaign. The backlash stemmed from the Democrat's joke about whether Vance would take his Indian-American wife back in time to meet his grandfather. The skirmish was preceded by criticism from the vice president of El-Sayed's previous statements about Islam and Sharia.
El-Sayed is a Muslim and a Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan. As RTVI reported, he won the party primaries and in November will meet with Republican Mike Rogers, whom Vance supports.
The skirmish began with the vice president's speech in Ohio. Vance criticized El-Sayed's previous statements about Islam and Sharia law. In October 2022, the Democrat spoke at the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, where he spoke about the division of American society along racial and religious lines and the misunderstanding between different groups of the population.
“You cannot understand the ban on Sharia law without understanding the Trail of Tears.” [историческое название насильственного переселения американских индейцев с их исконных земель]. It's impossible to understand the problems we have [мусульмане] we face today without understanding the problem of white supremacy,” El-Sayed said at the time.
Recalling that and other remarks from the Democrat, Vance said he “wished I could go back in time” and tell his grandfather about the man who, as the vice president claimed, believed Americans should live under Sharia law and denounced criticism of that position as white supremacy.
In response, El-Sayed wondered if Vance would “take back” his wife Usha. The Democrat's critics took his remarks as a hint at the second lady's Indian heritage and that Vance's grandfather might not approve of such a marriage. El-Sayed himself later explained his remark differently: according to him, Vance creates the impression that Americans whose families have lived in the country longer can be considered “more American.”
The Vice President reacted sharply to this statement. Speaking at a rally in Michigan for Rogers, he said El-Sayed has a “weird habit” of talking about his family.
“I think Michiganders find it weird when you talk about another guy's wife. Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name out of your mouth because she's not on your level at all,” Vance said.
Usha Vance herself, apparently, was rather amused by this story. Commenting on El-Sayed's words on Fox News, she said that she never met her husband's grandfather or grandmother – they both died. At the same time, the second lady noted that she “knows and loves the children” they raised – Vance’s mother, aunt and uncle.
Usha Vance
ushacvance/X
The vice president himself did not limit himself to jokes. In the same speech, he said there was something “very, very evil” about El-Sayed and called a similar phenomenon spreading in the United States.
The Democrat decided to return the attack to the sender. After Vance's speech, he said it was evil to “take away health care from working people in exchange for tax breaks for billionaires” and to “force people to pay more for groceries and gas by starting trade and conventional wars.”
“If JD wants to talk about evil, I’ll be happy to do it,” El-Sayed concluded.
