The Left-wing media is always looking for a “gotcha” sound bite. But one Republican wasn’t going to let that happen to him.
And this GOP candidate went on CNN and started throwing punches.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy clashed with a CNN interviewer who tried to interrogate him about former President Trump’s “vermin” statements this week.
The establishment media has persistently chastised Trump over a term he used when attacking his political opponents during a campaign rally on Saturday, with some news outlets connecting his speech to infamous dictators such as “Hitler” and “Mussolini.”
“I pledge to you that we will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” Trump told the crowd.
“This is a classic mainstream media move,” Ramaswamy said.
“Pick some individual phrase of Donald Trump, focus on literally that word without actually interrogating the substance of what’s at issue-”
“The word was chosen for a reason,” host Abby Phillip explained in response to her question.
“It’s actually describing a series of behaviors- you have Antifa and other related groups that have been burning down cities for the last three years in this country wildly violating the rule of law,” Ramaswamy said in an interview.
“We have an invasion on our southern border, we have millions of people crossing our southern border. Let’s talk about the substance of why we have to recognize that we’re not in ordinary times.”
“Would you describe them as vermin?” Phillip interrupted as he was talking, later asking “Would you use that language yourself?”
“I haven’t used that language,” said the biotech entrepreneur.
“Well, would you?” asked the CNN anchor.
“You can look at my track record on the campaign trail, I talk about the issues, we all talk about them differently. But what I’m not gonna do is play some game of focusing on some word that somebody else said without ignoring entirely the substance of what we’re actually talking about – a border crisis of historic proportions, economic stagnation we haven’t seen in 50 years, a national identity crisis and the loss of national pride in the next generation that’s potentially existential for this country,” the candidate responded.
“Let’s talk about our dependence on China on a day we’re actually talking about Xi Jinping – picking on Donald Trump’s word ‘vermin’ to talk about that status quo,” Ramaswamy said.
“You know what’s vermin? What’s running around San Francisco on a given day before Gavin Newsom cleaned it up on a dime to roll out the red carpet for Xi Jinping. If he could do that for Xi Jinping, he could have done it on an ordinary day. And yet we’re here sitting talking not about the substance of that but on one word that Donald Trump said in some speech in Miami.”
“This is what’s wrong with the mainstream media – focus on the substance and let’s have an actual policy debate rather than talking to a presidential candidate instead of the policy substance of what’s actually going on in the country picking on some word that Donald Trump said on a certain day and asking me for comment on it? Please give me a break,” he continued.
You want to know what actual “vermin” is? It’s what crawls around San Francisco daily, until Gavin Newsom chose to finally clean it up on a dime in honor of Xi Jinping. This is a classic MSM trick: obsess over some random word Trump said & sanctimoniously condemn him while… pic.twitter.com/jZpuTLHD4F
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 16, 2023
The most recent national Fox News survey, issued on Wednesday, showed Ramaswamy in fourth place with 7% support, the same as in October.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is in first place with 11%, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is in second place with 14%, and Trump is in first place with 62%.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
