Vice President JD Vance\u00a0put Abdul El-Sayed at the center of his attack on the modern Democratic Party, pointing to the Michigan Senate nominee\u2019s past remarks linking criticism of Sharia law to White supremacy as evidence that the party has abandoned its working-class roots.<\/p>\n
Vance delivered the remarks Friday at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in his Ohio hometown<\/a> as neighboring Michigan gears up for one of the midterms\u2019\u00a0most competitive Senate races.\u00a0<\/p>\n El-Sayed is facing Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in a contest that could help determine control of the Senate<\/a>.<\/p>\n Vance spoke about his late grandfather, who worked as a welder for 40 years and voted Democrat because he believed it was \u201cthe party of union men.\u201d<\/p>\n But Vance argued the Democratic Party has strayed from its working-class identity.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the party, the Democrat party of graduate students, rather than the union and nonunion workers who make this facility run,\u201d Vance said.\u00a0<\/p>\n VP JD Vance ripped Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed for linking Sharia law criticism to White supremacy. AP Photo\/Jon Cherry<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sometimes actually hard to understand what these modern Democrats actually stand for. But look what they say. Pay close attention, and they\u2019ll leave these little hints of what they actually care about.\u201d<\/p>\n Vance then turned his attention to El-Sayed, the son of Muslim Egyptian immigrants<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe once argued, not too long ago, that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in White supremacy,\u201d Vance said.\u00a0<\/p>\n El-Sayed criticized a 2010 ballot measure that sought to bar courts from considering Sharia law. Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to go back in time and tell my papa 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\u2019re a White supremacist. That\u2019s not my grandpa\u2019s Democratic Party, my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n Vance was referring to a speech El-Sayed gave at the Council on American-Islamic Relations\u2019 (CAIR) 2022 annual banquet in Oklahoma, where he was the keynote speaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n