JD Vance calls El-Sayed voters ‘self-hating white liberals,’ then blames elite colleges for creating them

Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday on Fox News that Dr. Abdul El-Sayed‘s win in Michigan‘s Democratic Senate primary came down to what he called “self-hating white liberals.” He made the comment during an interview with host Laura Ingraham.

El-Sayed beat Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in Tuesday’s primary. Stevens had outspent him nine to one, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) alone put more than $30 million into ads against him, according to reporting from the New York Times.

Vance also referred to El-Sayed as one of “these DSA types” while making his comments. However, the Democratic Socialists of America has not endorsed El-Sayed in this race, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Vance ties the primary result to his view of the Democratic Party’s base

During the interview, Vance said, “He basically represents the modern Democratic coalition, which is self-hating white liberals united to people who just came to the country for the first time and don’t actually have the sense of appreciation for it that they should. Those are the people who are voting for El-Sayed.”

Ingraham then asked Vance what this said about higher education in the country. Vance replied that many young Americans had been given a false promise by elite universities. He said the promise was that students could go to college, get a degree, and expect everything to work out fine for them afterward. The former Ohio senator’s remarks on higher education follow recent statements on U.S.-Israel relations. 

He went on to say that in reality, many universities did not deliver on that promise. According to Vance, schools loaded students with debt without giving them useful skills or useful credentials, leaving many of these students angry as a result. Vance’s critique of the Democratic base comes as he navigates Republican party tensions, such as when Marjorie Taylor Greene called the GOP a repulsive cult. 

Vance said, “In reality, actually, a lot of universities sold these kids a bill of goods. They gave them a lot of debt. They did not give them useful skills or useful credentials, and a lot of these kids are very angry.” He continued, “But that really is, if you look at the data, Laura, the base of the Democratic Party today is downwardly mobile, hyper-progressive, well-educated people. People, I think, who were sold a bill of goods by universities have a lot of debt, but not a good job to show for it.”

Mediaite points out that Vance’s own 2016 book, Hillbilly Elegy, spends a significant amount of time discussing his years as a student at Yale Law School. In the book, he often describes his law degree as a source of “upward mobility” that changed the course of his own life.

The interview aired as El-Sayed prepares to move forward as the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s Senate race, following a primary contest that drew national attention over campaign spending and outside political ad money.