Vice President JD Vance’s mother says a chance meeting with the Democrat running for Senate in Michigan would not end politely. Beverly Vance Aikins told listeners of the OutKick podcast “Tomi Lahren Is Fearless,” in its September 2 episode, that she would probably take a swing at Abdul El-Sayed if their paths ever crossed — though she noted in the same breath that she has no intention of doing anything of the kind.
The line capped a long stretch of her defending her son’s household. Tomi Lahren, 34, who also co-hosts Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show,” had steered the conversation there, pointing out that El-Sayed, 41, keeps invoking the Vance family when he talks about the vice president, his wife and their children.
“I think that man’s an idiot,” Aikins said. Of the couple’s four children, she said: “Those are my babies. I love those babies and would do anything for any of them. And I love Usha as if she were my own daughter. She’s one of the best, most genuine people I’ve ever met. And she loves my son, and she’s a good mother.”
“I’d probably punch the guy if I’d ever seen him, and then that would get me in trouble,” Aikins said. Part of what angers her — “It makes me mad, honestly” — is that El-Sayed has no idea what her son is really like. She was clear about the limits of the threat, telling Lahren, “I’m not gonna do anything about it.” Asked why opponents go after relatives, she answered in a single word: jealousy.
What El-Sayed Said About the Family
Months of pointed commentary from El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s 2026 midterm Senate race, preceded the exchange. On the podcast “The Allen Analysis Show” in April, he said: “I love my Brown kids, and I think my Brown kids are just as American as everyone else. JD Vance has Brown kids who he thinks are less American than everyone else.” Vance would one day have “a really awkward conversation with his kids,” El-Sayed added, along the lines of “you made your career hating people who are different.”
The dispute reportedly began with a speech in which Vance talked about going back in time to visit his “Papaw” and telling him about the state of the Democratic Party in 2026. El-Sayed brought up the family on August 22 in a post on X: “So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…” Usha Vance, 40, answered it herself: “I have to admit, I kind of laughed. Because yes, I never met JD’s Mamaw and Papaw. But I do know and love the children that they raised.”
Vance Answers at a Detroit Rally
Vance, 42, took it on directly at a rally in Sterling Heights, Mich., outside Detroit, on Monday, August 31, telling the crowd, “But whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth because she’s way out of your league.”
He did not stop there. “There’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise,” the vice president said, describing what he opposed as people who “see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others.”
El-Sayed Points to a Trump Post
On CNN that same night, El-Sayed pushed back and accused the vice president of hypocrisy. He said he would rather not discuss spouses at all, then argued that President Donald Trump had made his own wife a target first, pairing side-by-side pictures on Truth Social on August 8 of Trump and the first lady with El-Sayed and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, who wears a hijab, under the caption “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” “Donald Trump, almost as soon as I was nominated, tweeted a picture of me and my wife relative to him and his wife, trying to highlight the fact that my wife wears a hijab, as if to make an argument that that’s somehow less American,” El-Sayed said.
That post was widely condemned as Islamophobic and racist, according to a profile published August 9. El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in November, and a victory would make him the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate.
A Shout From the Convention Floor
The rhetoric has escalated since Aikins spoke. At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Thursday, September 10, an attendee shouted from the floor, “He should be shot!” during a speech by Senator Ted Cruz, moments after Cruz named Zohran Mamdani, El-Sayed and James Talarico. Representative Debbie Dingell called it “chilling and disturbing,” writing that “threats of political violence are dangerous, unacceptable, and have no place in our democracy.” Vance delivered the convention’s closing keynote the same night.
The race is close. Polling averages on September 9 gave El-Sayed a lead of about a point and a half, while a Glengariff Group survey published by The Detroit News that day put Rogers narrowly ahead. The two meet in televised debates on October 8 in Grand Rapids and October 21 in Southfield, before the November 3 election.
The feud took up only part of the interview. Aikins also discussed Amy Adams’ portrayal of her in “Hillbilly Elegy,” her battle with opiate addiction and reclaiming her nursing license. A follow-up segment on September 7 returned to the second lady, prompted by online attention to an inexpensive Old Navy maternity dress she had worn. “She’s very humble,” Aikins said there. “She’s very genuine, very authentic. She loves JD. She’s a good mom. I can’t think of anything bad to say about her.”
Policy is not what drives Aikins here — the people in the family photos are. Her frustration, as she framed it, is about her grandchildren and her daughter-in-law, and she insisted the criticism will not shake them, with the caveat that a face-to-face meeting might test her restraint.