Matt Whitlock
Role at the time: Republican communications strategist and former NRSC adviser, posting on X
Response to this claim
El-Sayed supports Sharia law and treats opposition to it as white supremacy.
“This is a pretty wild pretzel to twist into just to justify supporting somebody who actually has spoken out on support of Sharia law.”
Whitlock's reply to a September 30, 2026 post by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who wrote that she backs El-Sayed because Mike Rogers would confirm judges hostile to the separation of church and state.
Why we used this label
The reference point is El-Sayed's position on Sharia law, which he describes as religious freedom and which Vance characterized as support for Sharia. Whitlock adopts the support-for-Sharia reading and uses it against El-Sayed, so we labeled it Condemned. Challenged the characterization loses because he endorses the critical description rather than disputing one. Evidence level: his own post.