Vice President J.D. Vance on Thursday pushed back against Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan, who suggested that Mr. Vance’s grandfather was a racist who would not have approved of Usha Vance because she is of Indian descent.
“This is what he thinks of my grandfather, a man I loved and who loved his family unconditionally,” Mr. Vance said at the GOP convention in Dallas. “Abdul looks at him, sees the color of his skin, seeks his background and decides that he could never have loved my wife.”
Mr. Vance called the comments “shocking,” adding that Mr. El-Sayed, a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent, was raised by his White stepgrandparents.
“He knows the kind of bond and what it looks like in a family, and he chose anyway to say that a man like my grandfather couldn’t have loved from the bottom of his heart someone who looks like Usha,” Mr. Vance said. “Well, thanks be to God that my Pappaw was a better man than Abdul El-Sayed.”
The vice president said Mr. El-Sayed’s remarks show how the Democratic Party has changed over the last few years.
“They’re not the party of FDR or JFK. Hell, they are not even the party of Bill Clinton anymore. The Democrats are the party of hatred. They’re the party that can find sympathy for the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11, but they say that people with names like James Vance are incapable of loving people with names like Usha,” Mr. Vance said.
He called the Democratic Party “a nightmare.”
The spat began last week when Mr. Vance said during a speech in Ohio that he would struggle to go back in time and explain the modern Democratic Party to his late grandfather, whom he called “Pawpaw.”
After Mr. Vance’s comments, Mr. El-Sayed wrote on X: “So do we think J.D. is taking Usha with him back to me Pawpa or no?”
The remark was widely condemned by conservatives, who called it racist and said it was out of bounds to attack spouses and deceased relatives.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.