Vice President JD Vance accuses Abdul El-Sayed over his comments about Sharia law and uses them to criticize the modern Democratic Party.

  • Why it matters: El-Sayed is facing Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan in a race that could help determine which party controls the Senate.

Vance launched the attack Friday during a speech at Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works, a steel plant located in his home state of Ohio.

JD Vance Accuses El-Sayed Over Sharia and Takes Aim at Democrats

The vice president recalled that his grandfather worked as a welder for 40 years and voted Democratic because he viewed the party as representing union workers.

Vance argued that this identity has changed, describing today’s Democrats as the party of “graduate students” rather than workers.

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  • The accusation: Vance said El-Sayed had argued that criticism of Islamic law had “its origins in white supremacy.”

He then went further in describing what he said the Democratic candidate’s position represented, according to Fox News.

“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,” Vance said.

“That’s not my grandpa’s Democratic Party, my friend,” Vance added.

What El-Sayed Actually Said About Sharia Law

Vance was referring to a speech El-Sayed delivered during the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Oklahoma chapter’s annual banquet in 2022.

El-Sayed spoke at the time about State Question 755, a ballot initiative approved by 70% of Oklahoma voters in 2010.

The measure sought to amend the state constitution to prevent courts from considering Islamic law in their decisions. It was ultimately blocked by federal courts.

  • The difference: The cited remarks from El-Sayed link the Sharia ban to white supremacy, but they do not show him calling for Sharia law to be imposed.

“You cannot understand the Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears,” El-Sayed said during the speech.

He also connected the debate to the Tulsa Race Massacre and argued that current issues could not be understood “without understanding white supremacy.”

Therefore, Vance’s characterization that El-Sayed said “we should have Sharia law” goes beyond the 2022 statements included in the cited material.

Michigan Turns the Controversy Into an Election Battle

El-Sayed’s positions on race, religion and Israel have also drawn strong criticism from conservatives and Republicans.

The candidate has accused Israel of committing “genocide” and described the country as an “apartheid” state, statements that have caused concern among members of the Jewish community.

After winning the primary, however, El-Sayed said he considers the safety of Jewish people as important as the safety of his own children.

  • His position: El-Sayed said there is a responsibility to fight “antisemitism in all its forms, wherever we see it.”

Those controversies are now part of a broader political battle.

El-Sayed and Rogers are competing for a Michigan Senate seat that could prove important in determining control of the chamber, while Vance seeks to turn the Democrat’s comments about Sharia into an argument about how much his party has changed.