Abdul El-Sayed Attacks JD Vance’s Marriage Amid Sharia Law Feud

Vice President JD Vance criticized Michigan Democrats over Sharia law. Abdul El-Sayed answered by dragging Vance’s wife into it.

Vance told a workers’ audience that El-Sayed had treated criticism of Sharia as “rooted in white supremacy.” Vance said he would like to tell his grandfather, “Papaw,” that this is what the Democratic Party now sounds like. “That’s not my Papaw’s Democrat Party, my friends,” he said.

El-Sayed posted in response: “So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…”

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

Usha Vance is Hindu. The line was a jab at an interracial, interfaith marriage, implying Vance’s family would fail his own standard. El-Sayed has previously refused to apologize for earlier remarks about Vance’s wife and children, saying he did it “out of love.”

On camera, El-Sayed tried to flip the attack. He said Trump and Vance point at him to suggest he is “less of an American,” whether over “the color of my skin” or “how I pray.” He then asked how Vance could “look your parents-in-law in the eye and say that somehow they’re less American than you are.”

Vance had not said that. He had said a Democrat defending Sharia from criticism was not the party his grandfather knew.

El-Sayed: Well, I’ll tell you this. Every time J.D. Vance opens his mouth, the first two things I can think are, man, that guy is boring. And second, Peter Thiel had to spend a ton of money to get that man elected, barely in the state of Ohio.

But the confusing thing about it… pic.twitter.com/nfpbPRgoN2

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 23, 2026

El-Sayed’s campaign has separately confirmed he follows Sharia in his personal life, citing older comments that described it as a lifelong obligation. That is a religious practice. It is also fair game once he made other people’s marriages the punchline.

The Michigan Senate race is tight. El-Sayed keeps choosing cultural fights that put his own record in the headline.