Vance tells House Republicans to ‘just talk about Abdul El-Sayed’ if their own opponents aren’t ‘that crazy’
(CNN) — Vice President JD Vance urged House Republicans to make Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed a boogeyman if their own opponents aren’t “that crazy” and stressed the importance of leveling with voters about their economic frustrations, according to a recording of the Tuesday closed-door meeting obtained by CNN.
The vice president, who was visiting the House GOP conference meeting 49 days before the midterms, struck a more candid tone than President Donald Trump about voters’ struggles, while still encouraging GOP lawmakers to blame Democrats and use some of their most prominent Senate candidates as foils.
“And if you are one of the few Republicans who’s running against a Democrat who’s not that crazy, then just talk about Abdul El-Sayed,” Vance said. “He’s got enough material for the whole country.”
“James Talarico has said a lot of weird stuff,” he said of the Democratic nominee in Texas. “Let’s be honest. But that’s true of a lot of these candidates.”
The vice president has repeatedly attacked El-Sayed and has even cast him as “evil,” while appearing in Michigan last month. (The Democrat pushed back on those comments, casting the Trump administration and Republicans as the ones perpetrating evil.) Vance also criticized Talarico at length during his address at last week’s midterm convention.
Much as he did during that speech, Vance acknowledged that Americans may not be universally satisfied with how things are going in the country — a notable contrast from Trump. But, like the president, he laid the blame squarely at Democrats’ feet, accusing the party of leaving the GOP a “sh*t sandwich.”
“Right now, we have a country where people are frustrated. You got to level with them. You got to be honest about those frustrations, and you got to be honest about the ways in which the Democrats cause the problems that you guys have been very diligently fixing over the past 18 months,” Vance told lawmakers.
He said that voters “are not dumb” and that “they know that Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“For 18 months — you got to go out there and tell them — for 18 months, here are the things that we’ve done to make your life better,” he said, urging lawmakers to tout the administration’s economic policies.
“You can talk about these things without pretending that everything is perfect, because the American people know that you guys inherited, we inherited, a massive pile of dog crap, and we have cleaned it out and we’ve made things a lot better.”
And he argued that’s a more effective message. “That message to me has done a lot more — and I’ve seen it in the polling — than just going out there and pretending that everything is perfect,” he added.
But Americans have soured on Trump’s handling of the economy, with 65% saying the president’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country, according to a CNN poll in July. In the same survey, 73% said the president hadn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems.
Vance’s plea to Republicans in safe districts? Campaign with their colleagues and raise money. “We have to pay to make sure that we have parity in the messages that we’re getting out there,” the vice president said, “and so the best way that you may be able to help your fellow candidates out here is to get out there and raise some money.”
He touted a goal of raising $10 billion for GOP candidates in the final weeks of the campaign.
“That is doable, but you got to think that what those dollars are doing is allowing us to fight back against the crazy left-wing media,” he said, trying to motivate the lawmakers.
Vance’s remarks were first reported by Fox News Digital.
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