Vance tells House Republicans to ‘just talk about Abdul El-Sayed’ if their own opponents aren’t ‘that crazy’

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.

据 CNN 获得的周二闭门会议录音显示，副总统 JD Vance 敦促众议院共和党人将密歇根州民主党参议员候选人 Abdul El-Sayed 塑造成一个吓唬人的“恶魔”，如果他们自己的对手没有“那么疯狂”的话。他还强调了向选民坦诚表达他们对经济的不满的重要性。

距离中期选举还有 49 天，副总统访问了众议院共和党会议，他对选民的困境表达了比唐纳德·特朗普总统更加坦率的态度，同时仍然鼓励共和党议员指责民主党人，并利用他们一些最杰出的参议院候选人作为攻击目标。

“如果你是少数几个共和党候选人之一，而你的对手民主党人又没那么疯狂，那就说说阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德吧，”万斯说。“他有足够的素材供全国人民使用。”

“詹姆斯·塔拉里科说过很多奇怪的话，”他谈到这位德克萨斯州的民主党候选人时说。“说实话，很多候选人都是如此。”

副总统多次抨击埃尔-赛义德，甚至在上个月访问密歇根州时称他为“邪恶之人”。（这位民主党人反驳了这些言论，指责特朗普政府和共和党才是作恶者。）在上周的中期选举大会上，万斯也对塔拉里科进行了长时间的批评。

正如他在那次演讲中所做的那样，万斯承认美国民众可能并非对国家现状都感到满意——这与特朗普形成了鲜明对比。但是，和总统一样，他将责任完全归咎于民主党，指责该党让共和党陷入了“进退两难”的境地。

“现在，我们国家人民感到沮丧。你们必须坦诚相待。你们必须坦诚面对这些沮丧情绪，也必须坦诚面对民主党人造成你们在过去18个月里一直在努力解决的问题的方式，”万斯对议员们说。

他说，选民“并不愚蠢”，而且“他们知道罗马不是一天建成的”。

“在过去的18个月里——你们必须走出去告诉他们——在过去的18个月里，我们做了这些事情来改善你们的生活，”他说道，并敦促立法者们大力宣传政府的经济政策。

“你可以谈论这些事情，而不必假装一切都很完美，因为美国人民知道，你们继承了，我们继承了，一大堆狗屎，但我们已经清理干净了，而且我们已经让情况好转了很多。”

他认为这种信息传递方式更有效。“对我来说，这种信息传递方式的效果要好得多——而且我也从民调中看到了这一点——比假装一切都很完美要好得多，”他补充道。

但美国民众对特朗普的经济政策感到不满。根据CNN 7月份的一项民调显示，65%的受访者认为总统的政策恶化了美国的经济状况。同一项调查还显示，73%的受访者表示总统对国家最重要的几个问题关注不足。

万斯向共和党稳固选区的候选人发出呼吁：与同僚们一起竞选，筹集资金。“我们必须投入资金，确保我们传递的信息公平公正，”副总统说，“因此，帮助其他候选人的最好方法就是走出去，筹集资金。”

他宣称，要在竞选的最后几周为共和党候选人筹集 100 亿美元。

“这当然可行，但你们要想想，这些钱的作用是让我们能够反击疯狂的左翼媒体，”他试图激励立法者们说道。

Vance的言论最初由福克斯新闻数字频道报道。