Vice President JD Vance’s mother fired back Wednesday at Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over comments he made about her son and his family, saying she would “probably punch” him if they ever crossed paths.
Beverly Aikins delivered the blunt response during an interview on “Tomi Lahren is Fearless” after Fox News host Tomi Lahren played a clip of El-Sayed criticizing Vance.
“Can you imagine, he’s got brown kids, at some point he’s going to have a really awkward conversation with his kids, like, you made your career hating people who are different,” El-Sayed said in the clip.
Aikins rejected the characterization and defended Vance’s wife, Usha, and their children.
“I think that man’s an idiot,” Aikins said. “Those are my babies. I love those babies. I would do anything for them. I love Usha as if she were my own daughter.”
“I don’t pay attention to people like that,” she added.
Vance wrote about his relationship with his mother in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which chronicled his childhood in rural Kentucky as well as Aikins’ struggle with addiction.
Aikins attended the 2024 inauguration of Vance and President Donald Trump. She later marked 10 years of sobriety in 2025 during a celebration with her son’s family in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
During Wednesday’s interview, Lahren also raised another remark from El-Sayed that appeared to target Vance’s family. The Michigan Senate hopeful wrote on X, “So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…”
Aikins said she believed people who made such remarks must be “jealous” of the vice president’s family.
“It makes me mad, honestly,” she said. “But in the long run I’m not going to do anything about it. I mean, you know, I’d probably punch the guy if I’d ever seen him, and then that would get me in trouble.”
The war of words erupted after Vance went after El-Sayed during a campaign rally in Detroit on Monday, labeling him “very, very evil.”
“There’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today,” Vance told the crowd.
El-Sayed responded during a CNN interview later that day, turning the accusation back against the vice president and criticizing war, health care policies and tax cuts.
“Well, let me tell you what’s evil,” El-Sayed said. “Evil is the idea of starting wars when there’s peace. Evil is the idea of stripping away people’s healthcare when they absolutely have no other option.”
“What’s evil is to do that, so that you can pass a tax cut for billionaires,” he added.
[READ MORE: Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Dead at 92 After Decades of Political Activism]
