Sen.-elect Abdul el Sayed (D-MI) on Wednesday joked about meeting Vice President JD Vance in January, after defeating the White House’s favored Michigan Senate candidate in a resounding rebuke to Republicans.
El Sayed, the socialist-leaning Democrat who on Tuesday clinched the victory over Mike Rogers in the battleground state’s bitter Senate race, has long warred with Vance, with the two men particularly splitting over Israel and Jews. After clinching victory in the tight race, el Sayed goaded on Vance, calling his win a moment of “delicious irony.”
“JD, habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you’re constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January,” el Sayed told supporters in Detroit, using the Arabic word for “my love.”
“Wolverines 1, Buckeyes 0,” he added, referencing the rivalry between the University of Michigan and Ohio State University, Vance’s alma mater, before sending a message to President Donald Trump.
“Donald, I know you struggle with my name, so when JD swears me in, you can call me ‘senator.’ May we never have to see the likes of you in Michigan again,” he said.
Vance is set to swear in el Sayed, along with other incoming members of the 120th Congress, on Jan. 3, in line with his duties as vice president.
The two men have often sparred. In late August, Vance ripped into el Sayed for implying Israel was responsible for the attack on a Michigan synagogue this year, linking it to the Middle Eastern democracy’s military campaign against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, where the accused gunman was from.
At the time, El Sayed said the antisemitic attack on Temple Israel was without justification, but said “hurt people hurt people” and that “violence is a cycle” after the suspect, allegedly upset at Israel over the war, rammed the synagogue with his car.
“There’s something about Abdul el Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today, and it’s people who see themselves not as citizens of a nation, fighting for every single person, whether they’re Jewish or Christian, whether they’re white or black or brown, but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others,” Vance told attendees at a rally for Rogers in Sterling Heights, prompting a blistering comeback from el Sayed. “That is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America.”
El Sayed won the Senate race 52% to 45%, according to the Associated Press, with final results still trickling in Wednesday.
His victory came despite repeated attacks from the GOP and more centrist Democrats over his refusal to affirm Israel’s right to exist, declining to say Iran poses a greater threat to the U.S. than Israel, and his moves to repeatedly campaign with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, due to concerns that Piker holds openly antisemitic views. Piker has expressed support for Hamas, framing the terrorist group that controls Gaza and supports the elimination of Israel as a critical part of the “Palestinian resistance.”
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Just days before Election Day, the controversy blew up further when a super PAC run by Piker’s uncle, Cenk Uygur, ran an ad backing el Sayed that blamed Israel’s war in Gaza for economic issues in Michigan.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a moderate Democrat who lost to el Sayed in the primary, and others condemned the Rebellion PAC’s ad as antisemitic and asked el Sayed to disavow it. El Sayed declined to do so, instead accusing Stevens of seeking to “relitigate a primary that ended three months ago.”
