El-Sayed To Vance: My Name Isn't The Problem, Trump's Policies Are

Abdul El-Sayed whacked JD Vance for his blatant racism during a campaign stop at an Ohio steel plant last week.
By Heather — August 24, 2026

Abdul El-Sayed whacked JD Vance for his racism on display during a campaign stop at an Ohio steel plant last week.

Vance was doing his best to "other" El-Sayed, while repeating the right-wing lie that El-Sayed "openly calls for Sharia law in America," which he does not, and which was debunked by PolitiFact earlier this month.

MS NOW host Al Sharpton asked El-Sayed to respond to Vance's attack, and El-Sayed proceeded to dismantle Vance along with his boss Trump.

SHARPTON: Now, we've mentioned President Trump was in South Carolina last night campaigning for Darline Graham, but he seemed more interested in talking about you, pushing unsubstantiated claims, trying to paint you and your family as terrorist sympathizers.

But I want to ask you about comments from Trump's vice president, JD Vance, from earlier this week, questioning your commitment to working-class people. Take a listen to this.

VANCE: El-Sayed, this guy running for Senate in Michigan, he once argued, not too long ago, that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in white supremacy.

I'd love to go back in time and tell my Papaw that there's a man who claims to stand for working people who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticize it, you're a white supremacist. That's not my Papaw's Democrat Party, my friends.

SHARPTON: It sounds to me like JD Vance is feeling some nostalgia for the segregationist Democrats of the old solid South. But I wonder what you heard in these comments.

EL-SAYED: Well, I'll tell you this. Every time JD Vance opens his mouth, the first two things I can think is, 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.

Now, you know I'm from Michigan, and we got issues with people from Ohio. But this one in particular I took somewhat confusedly, because here's the thing about it.

He's painting this picture of going back in time to talk to his Papaw about me. Now, why is he pointing to me? Why is Donald Trump pointing to me? He's pointing to me to try and say that somehow I'm less American than they are.

Now, what does that have to do with? I don't know the color of my skin, how I pray. But the confusing thing about it is that he thinks that there are some people who are more American than others because they can point to their Papaw who was here earlier.

And my question to him is simply, why is it then? How do you look your parents-in-law in the eye and say that somehow they're less American than you are? Because that's what he's implying there.

But bigger picture, this is about trying to change the channel. They're trying to dissuade us from actually paying attention to the issues that we see laid bare when we talk about our kitchen table budget every single month.

Because the question Michiganders are asking is not about my parents. It's not about Sharia law, because there's like less than 1 percent of the entire country that's even Muslim.

It's about whether or not you can afford your groceries, whether or not you can afford your gas, whether or not you can see a doctor if you get sick.

And my name and my background aren't raising your gas prices. That's what the Trump administration is doing. My name and my background aren't picking trade wars to increase your costs. That's what the Trump administration is doing. My name and my background aren't the reason you can't see a doctor. That's because of the Medicaid cuts and the ACA cuts that are about to come down the pike next year because of what the Trump administration is doing.

So if you don't want to talk about what you're doing, that's fine. But I encourage you to leave my name and my background out of it.

This is an America that's big enough for all of us, even if JD Vance doesn't agree, except for the fact that he actually understands and benefits from the nature of immigration and the fact that we are a bigger country because we are inclusive of people who don't have Papaws who were here 50 years ago.

Apparently El-Sayed is wandering into the Fox snake pit for an interview with Jesse Watters Monday evening. Why is beyond me. We'll see if he's given an opportunity to say the same thing there.

h/t Acyn

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