Vance attacks El-Sayed at Michigan GOP rally without mentioning trade war with Canada

U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Monday did not even once mention the nation’s ongoing trade war with Canada — and The White House’s politically charged renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America as a result — during a visit to Sterling Heights aimed at boosting President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidates in Michigan.

Vance’s visit was exclusively billed as a rally for Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. John James of Shelby Township and U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers. Both spoke to supporters before Vance’s address. Trump made a similar visit to Michigan in July days before the August primary.

James will face Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in the gubernatorial contest, and Rogers is up against Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. 

Vance asked Republicans to focus on the fight ahead, as the GOP views Michigan as a major battleground with control of the U.S. Senate, Congress, the Michigan Legislature and the state’s top executive offices all on the line in 2026. 

Vance put the various races’ stakes in stark terms: Choose candidates that have America’s back, or choose candidates focused on social and economic issues Americans rejected the last time Vance’s name was on the ballot.

“I’m sure that people who are paying attention to this race, they’re going to be able to point to this or that issue that they don’t agree with me on, or they don’t agree with the president, or they may not even agree with Mike Rogers on,” Vance said. “But that’s not the issue. Of course, you’re going to have disagreements with your elected officials because you’re free-thinking people who develop your own opinions. I’m not asking you to vote for Mike Rogers because you’re going to agree with him 100% of the time. I’m asking you to vote for Mike Rogers because he’s going to go to Washington and he’s going to fight for you.”

Vance labels El-Sayed as ‘evil’

Vance took aim at El-Sayed, hitting his campaign on multiple fronts. Vance at one point called El-Sayed “evil.”

“This guy is a goldmine of content, but unfortunately, it’s a goldmine of content of him fighting against the interests of the people in this room, and fighting for the most terrible ideas and terrible policies and the craziest ideas out there,” Vance said.

Vance mentioned El-Sayed’s comments in the aftermath of the Temple Israel attack in March, which El-Sayed apologized for over the weekend at a gathering of Jewish Democrats, but also his embrace of leftist streamer Hasan Piker, who has made controversial comments in the past about Israel, the state of American capitalism and about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“I was trying to understand what would motivate a person to say these things … and I realized that there’s something about Abdul El Sayed that is very evil, and on the rise in the United States of America today,” Vance said. “It’s people who see themselves not as citizens of a common 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, and that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America.”

Vance asked that voters reject El-Sayed in November, and “reject the people that try to divide us one race against the other.”

Vance dodges talk of economic war with Canada

As Vance focused mostly on El-Sayed, he didn’t mention the ongoing trade tensions between the United States and Michigan’s neighbor to the north, Canada.

Trump recently announced new tariffs on Canadian-made goods, which are expected to further raise prices on goods sold in the United States. 

Trade talks have completely stalled between the U.S. and Canada, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News on Wednesday evening. The new tariff regime came a day after Canada announced retaliatory taxes to start Sept. 8 on $27.6 billion worth of American goods. 

Despite voters saying the high price of goods and services were a top concern, Trump moved forward to escalate his dispute with Canada.

James blames Michigan’s areas of decline on Benson

James said Vance’s appearance amid the trade war was a sign that a GOP win in Michigan was top of mind for the Trump administration. He said auto workers are still worried about the future of manufacturing, while parents in the Great Lakes state are worried about Michigan’s failing education system.

James said those were the products of Michigan under Democratic control, pointing to the party’s trifecta in which it controlled all three executive offices, the state Senate and the state House of Representatives for a two-year period in 2023 and 2024. The House has been under Republican control since 2025.

“Michigan families are paying too much for gasoline,” James said. “Our unemployment rate is above the national rate. Our children are falling behind. Infrastructure is struggling, and too many of our young people are leaving to find opportunity elsewhere.”

Some of those dynamics depend on decisions by federal policymakers and the president, while the state’s woes with educational attainment and literacy are issues both parties have struggled to address.

Still, that didn’t stop James from placing the blame on Benson and her gubernatorial running mate, state Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks.

“For nearly eight years, Jocelyn Benson in Michigan’s Democrat Party has been in leadership. For two of the years that President Biden was there, they had a full trifecta. They had the power. The Benson Brinks B team passed their agenda,” James said. “Our state is spending 50 percent more than it did under Governor Snyder. Do you feel like your child’s school is 50 percent better? How about your roads? How about your health care? No.”

Rogers calls El-Sayed a “con man.”

Rogers in his brief remarks called El-Sayed a “con man” for his positions on gender issues, criminal justice reform, abolishing ICE and his connections with Piker. El-Sayed is working to distance himself from Piker, and recently put out a statement saying that Piker does not speak for El-Sayed’s campaign.

Rogers said he was suspicious of El-Sayed’s attempts to do so now that he is a general election candidate.

“I was a former FBI agent. I busted swindlers and the mob, drug dealers, murderers, human traffickers, terrorists, and I have to tell you this: I know a con man when I see one,” Rogers said.

The Republican Party and its proxies have been accused of using Islamophobic tropes in their respective attacks on El-Sayed since he was elected as the nominee. They have also called the progressive candidate a communist and a socialist, even though El-Sayed has described himself as a capitalist who “understands how capitalism works.”

Rogers sought to distance himself from those lines of attack by saying his problem was not about how El-Sayed, who is Muslim and of Egyptian descent, prays or worships.

“This is not about your name,” Rogers said. “It is about the ideas that you have for big socialist government for our state and our country.”

Benson ties James to Trump’s tariffs

In a press conference held before Vance’s remarks, Benson excoriated Trump and Vance for manufacturing crises that she says have put the United States, and by proxy Michigan, in a precarious place at home and abroad.

Benson, along with former Democratic Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, who has endorsed Benson’s candidacy, noted that Trump’s tariffs have caused Michigan families to pay an extra $5,619 over the past year, the highest of any state in the nation, according to Axios.

Benson said James helped make that a reality by his unwavering support of Trump’s second term agenda.

“Because of his silence, he owns this. He owns these reckless tariffs. He owns this tax on Michigan,” Benson said. “So I’m going to call these tariffs what they are: they are a tax from John James, a John James tax on Michigan. The John James tax is a tax on our small businesses, on our gas prices, and a tax on our groceries.”

Benson added that, “as someone running to lead this state, I know the next governor has a moral responsibility to respond when someone hurts our state.”

“Michiganders deserve leaders who will never hesitate to stand up to anyone, no matter how wealthy or powerful, who threatens our residents or our state,” she said. “I’ve done that as Secretary of State, and I’m ready to do that as governor.”

Blanchard, who served as Michigan’s governor from 1983 to 1991, was also the U.S. Ambassador to Canada during the administration of President Bill Clinton. He called Trump’s tariff fight with Canada “totally destructive.”

“They’re going to cost us jobs and prices, car prices are already going up because of the tariffs on aluminum and steel and auto parts, as grocery prices are going up,” Blanchard said. “This is a major increase on the cost of living because of Donald Trump’s tariffs.”

El-Sayed calls Trump an ‘a**hole’ for picking on Canada 

Later in the afternoon, El-Sayed appeared in Warren with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak), who had competed against El-Sayed in the Democratic primary before dropping out in early July, along with several UAW workers to decry Rogers’ loyalty to Trump, working as Benson did to tie Rogers and Trump together.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to afford a second bag of groceries. It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your rent. It shouldn’t be this hard to see a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world,” El-Sayed said. “Meanwhile, Mike Rogers was fielding the call too. His call didn’t come from the people in the state of Michigan, it didn’t come from hardworking people across the state who understand that things need to get better and need to get better faster. It wasn’t about rooting out corporate corruption because he’s never seen a corporate check he did not want to take. It wasn’t about providing health care because he’s voted to raise your prescription drug prices 19 times.”

Instead, El-Sayed accused Rogers of running simply because Trump told him to do so.

“In fact, there’s nothing that Donald Trump will call him and tell him to do that he won’t willingly do. There is not a command he won’t ‘roger’ from the likes of Donald Trump or a corporation that’s willing to pay into his campaigns,” El-Sayed said. “Mike Rogers is corrupt, and he’s cowardly.”

El-Sayed also turned his attention to the trade war with Canada, saying that picking on a country that is often stereotyped for being the most polite was a choice.

“If you’re starting a trade war with Canada, it’s because you’re the a**hole. And here we are with Mike Rogers. He has no choice but to rubber stamp — to ‘roger’ — a trade war that is now costing the Michiganders that he says he wants to serve,” El-Sayed said. “This is a vanity war, and I want to be clear: this vanity war is not a war with Canada. It’s a war on Michigan because we have to pay the price.”

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