Vice President JD Vance's mother went on national television to defend her daughter-in-law Usha Vance and her grandchildren against months of racially charged provocations from Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and she did not hold back.
Beverly Vance Adkins appeared on OutKick's Tomi Lahren is Fearless on Wednesday and called Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed an "idiot" for his repeated public attacks on the Vance family. She said she loves Usha Vance "as if she were my own daughter," praised her as "one of the best, most genuine people I've ever met," and offered a blunt theory about what drives El-Sayed's behavior: jealousy.
The interview was the sharpest public response yet from the Vance family to a Michigan Democrat who has spent months making the vice president's interracial marriage and mixed-race children a subject of political commentary. El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American Muslim running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, has insinuated that Vance's late grandfather would have rejected Usha Vance because of her Indian heritage, urged Usha Vance to leave her husband, and stated that Vance views his own mixed-race children as "less American."
He has also described the vice president as having the "charisma of a doorknob" and the "aura of a toad."
Adkins did not try to match El-Sayed's rhetoric with polished political language. She spoke like a mother who has watched a stranger attack her family on television for months and finally had enough. She told Lahren that El-Sayed's comments make her angry because "he doesn't know JD and he doesn't know what type of person he is."
"I mean, it makes me mad, honestly, because he doesn't know JD and he doesn't know, you know, what type of person he is, and I do, but in the long run, I'm not going to do anything about it. I mean, you know, I'd probably punch the guy if I ever seen him, and then that would get me in trouble. So, I'll just go with the flow."
She also dismissed El-Sayed's provocations as unworthy of serious engagement, saying he "can take all the shots he wants" and that none of it would "get any merit from any of us."
When asked about her grandchildren and daughter-in-law, Adkins was direct. "Those are my babies," she said. "I love those babies and would do anything for any of them." She described Usha Vance as someone who "loves my son" and is "a good mother." El-Sayed, meanwhile, has faced bipartisan backlash for his public comments targeting Usha Vance.
Adkins offered a plain explanation for what she thinks motivates the attacks. "JD is 42 years old. He's handsome. He's the vice president of the United States. He's got a beautiful wife, four beautiful children, and jealousy is the only thing I can think of," she said.
Beverly Vance Adkins was not the first member of the family to respond. Earlier in the week, Vice President Vance himself issued a pointed statement aimed at El-Sayed, one that went well beyond the personal attacks and into the Michigan Democrat's broader record.
"My message to Abdul El-Sayed is: You can pal around with terrorist sympathizers, and you can say that America deserves 9/11, or you can empathize not with the children who were targeted at Temple Israel, but with the attacker. These are all despicable things, but they're all things that the people of Michigan will judge you on based on your record. But whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the h*** out of your mouth, because she's way out of your league."
Vance's statement alleged that El-Sayed has associated with "terrorist sympathizers," suggested America deserved the September 11 attacks, and sided with an attacker rather than children targeted at Temple Israel. The specific incidents behind those claims were not detailed in the interview or the vice president's statement, but El-Sayed has separately faced criticism for deleted September 11 posts and past comments that have drawn scrutiny from both sides of the aisle.
El-Sayed, for his part, has not backed down. In one public statement linked to a Breitbart report from August 23, he posed a rhetorical question about Vance's marriage: "So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no?", an insinuation that Vance's Appalachian grandfather would have disapproved of his Indian-American wife.
The running dispute between El-Sayed and the Vance family is not a single outburst. It is a pattern that has stretched over months. El-Sayed has repeatedly made the vice president's marriage and children a subject of public political commentary, urging Usha Vance to leave her husband, questioning whether Vance truly accepts his own children, and mocking the vice president's personal qualities.
For a candidate seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, the strategy is revealing. El-Sayed has chosen to build his public profile not on policy but on racially charged personal attacks against the family of the sitting vice president. That approach has already drawn fire from members of both parties, and his broader political associations have raised additional concerns. He has drawn criticism for ties to far-left commentator Hasan Piker, and questions have surfaced about the financial backing of his campaign.
Separately, records have shown that some of El-Sayed's donors also bankrolled an antisemitic congressional campaign, adding another layer of scrutiny to a candidacy already defined by controversy.
What El-Sayed has not done is explain how attacking a vice president's wife and children advances any argument about governance, policy, or the interests of Michigan voters. The attacks do not address the economy, border security, crime, or any of the issues that actually shape daily life in the state. They are personal, racial, and aimed at a family, including children, who did not choose public life.
Beverly Vance Adkins is not a politician. She is not a spokesperson. She is a grandmother who watched a man she has never met tell the country that her son looks at his own children as "less American," that her daughter-in-law should leave her marriage, and that her late father-in-law would have rejected the family she loves.
She responded the way most mothers would. She called him an idiot. She said she'd like to punch him. And she said she loves her grandchildren and her daughter-in-law.
The contrast between her plainspoken defense and El-Sayed's calculated provocations tells the story more clearly than any political analysis could. One side is a family. The other side is a candidate who decided that family was fair game.
Michigan voters will get their say on whether that kind of conduct belongs in the United States Senate. If El-Sayed's campaign is any indication, the answer should be obvious.
