Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate, took a pointed shot at Vice President JD Vance by invoking one of college football’s most storied regional rivalries.
The remark came during a Sunday night interview with CNN’s Laura Coates, who asked El-Sayed to respond to comments Vance had made about him during a CBS News town hall.
During that town hall, Vance questioned El-Sayed’s position on the ongoing conflict, saying he wanted to know “what is Abdul El-Sayed’s solution for the problem that we have right now?”
Vance had also referenced what he described as things El-Sayed “says about the war in Iran,” framing El-Sayed’s criticism as lacking a constructive alternative.
El-Sayed wasted no time firing back, delivering a line that drew on the deep-seated rivalry between the University of Michigan and Ohio State University.
“First of all, Ohio State [University] owes that boy a refund, because he clearly didn’t get anything from his education there,” El-Sayed said in response to Coates.
Vance completed his undergraduate degree at Ohio State University, while El-Sayed attended the University of Michigan, making the jab a direct play on one of the Midwest’s most recognized and fiercely contested college rivalries.
El-Sayed followed the quip with a substantive policy argument, placing blame for the current situation on the decision to abandon a prior diplomatic framework with Iran.
“The thing we should not have done is started the war in the first place,” El-Sayed said, adding that “we were in a state of peace with the potential for nuclear proliferation to be contained under the JCPOA under President Obama.”
The JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration negotiated with Iran, and El-Sayed used the reference to draw a clear contrast with the current administration’s approach.
The exchange reflects a broader political battle taking shape in Michigan, a key swing state where El-Sayed is mounting his Senate campaign against the backdrop of heightened tensions over U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Vance’s decision to engage El-Sayed by name during a nationally televised town hall signals that the vice president views the Michigan race as one worth monitoring closely heading into the election cycle.
