Vice President JD Vance called Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed a psychopath peddling anti-white hatred who would gut the state’s auto industry.

Speaking in Michigan one week from Election Day, Vance tore into the Democratic Senate hopeful before boarding Air Force Two and again at a rally outside Detroit, where several hundred people turned out. The New York Post reported the vice president’s blunt case against El-Sayed and his push for Republican Mike Rogers.

Vance framed the race as a choice between a decent public servant and a radical who, in his telling, traffics in racial grievance, misleads voters about his own roots, and would wreck the industry that still defines much of Michigan’s economy.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. RealClearPolitics’ average of recent polls showed the Democrat ahead of Rogers by 2.5 points in a tight contest.

Vance draws a hard line on El-Sayed’s record and allies

Before the flight and later with the crowd, Vance did not soften the attack. He cast El-Sayed as unfit for the Senate and made the personal charge central to the pitch.

Vice President JD Vance said:

"Abdul El-Sayed is a little bit of a psychopath, and we’re going to just try to make the argument as well as we can and help Mike out a little bit,"

He went further on race. Vance said El-Sayed has “engaged in the kind of explicitly anti-white racial hatred” perhaps “more than any Democrat running in the nation,” and called him “a guy who seems to love to traffic in racial hatred.” He offered no detailed examples in the remarks as reported.

The vice president also tied El-Sayed to online leftist Hassan Piker, describing Piker as the candidate’s “best friend” and “a man who said that we deserved 9/11.” Vance said El-Sayed has campaigned with him. That association, in Vance’s argument, tells voters all they need about the company the Democrat keeps.

On a separate criminal-justice matter days earlier, Vance said he will skip a live feed of the Fort Hood killer’s firing squad, keeping his focus on the political fight in front of him.

Birthplace claim becomes a character charge

Vance zeroed in on how El-Sayed has described himself. The vice president said the Democrat was born in Rochester Hills, just north of Detroit, yet has presented a different story.

JD Vance told the audience:

"Abdul El-Sayed was born just north of Detroit in a town called Rochester Hills. Yet he is claiming to be, and I quote, ‘an immigrant from North Africa.’ For decades, he’s gone even further than that. He told people he is an Egyptian citizen,"

He pressed the motive.

Vance continued:

"Why? Why would you tell people that you were not from the community that you’re actually from? It’s an insane claim to make... [He is] a man who would lie, who is so ashamed of this state that he would lie about being an immigrant from another continent."

In the vice president’s telling, that is not a résumé flourish. It is proof of contempt for the voters El-Sayed now asks to send him to Washington.

Travel and public life have become routine for the second family; Usha Vance describes their world as a fishbowl and has said her husband can feel isolated in the role.

Auto jobs and the “green new scam”

Michigan’s auto sector sat at the center of the economic attack. Vance said El-Sayed “says that he wants to pass the green new scam and kill the auto industry of this state.” He gave the line no soft landing. For workers who still depend on those plants and suppliers, the charge lands as a direct threat to paychecks.

Republicans have also hit El-Sayed over DEI policies in healthcare, government contracting, and aid for minority-run businesses. Vance folded that critique into the larger portrait of a candidate he called extreme.

He even sketched a hypothetical: if recent rioting in France spread to Detroit, El-Sayed would be “right there and cheering them on.” The line was pure political combat, aimed at voters who want order, not street chaos.

President Trump has called El-Sayed a “jihadist.” Vance declined to adopt that word. “I don’t know what’s in the guy’s heart,” he said. “I just know he has a lot of weird friends.” The pivot kept the focus on associations and public conduct rather than a theological label.

Even light stops on the road show the same nonstop pace; a hometown bakery visit ended with three workers riding in the vice presidential motorcade.

Rogers gets the endorsement; Carlson’s objections brushed aside

Against that backdrop, Vance sold Mike Rogers as the steady alternative. He called the Republican “fundamentally a decent guy and the kind of public servant that you want in Washington, D.C.” Rogers is a hawkish former chairman of the House intelligence committee. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has opposed him; Vance waved that off and kept the endorsement intact.

The visit doubled as a closing argument. With El-Sayed tied or leading in the RealClearPolitics average and Election Day a week away, Vance treated the race as winnable if voters look hard at the Democrat’s words, allies, and policy wishes.

Political scrapes are nothing new around the vice president; Cruz calls Vance insecure after the VP said the Texas senator is already running for 2028.

Second lady Usha Vance has had her own unscripted moments on the job, including when she steadies herself after a slip on helicopter stairs with their infant son.

Howell, Mich., served as the dateline for the trip coverage. The rally itself sat outside Detroit. The geography matched the message: this is a Michigan fight about Michigan jobs, Michigan identity, and who actually respects the people who live there.

Vance’s closing case was simple. Rogers is the solid choice. El-Sayed, in the vice president’s words, is a radical ashamed of the state he wants to represent, surrounded by ugly allies, and eager for policies that would hammer the auto workforce. Voters get to decide which portrait matches reality.

Michigan workers do not need a senator who runs from his own hometown story or cheers the ideas that would idle their plants. They need someone who will fight for them, and say so without the racial score-settling.