Successful businessman and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has clearly had enough with the media’s games. After constant harassment by ABC This Week’s George Stephanopoulos on why he’s willing to support former President Donald Trump, Ramaswamy threw it all back in the left-wing anchor’s face.
“You find his actions abhorrent around January 6. You said he was wrong to take the classified information, you said you would not do that yourself. But you still say you would vote for him for President. That's what I don't get,” Stephanopoulos bitterly lectured.
Ramaswamy explained that he’s simply doing what “every Republican nominee said to make it on that debate stage that we will actually support the Republican nominee from our party.”
Pivoting to an attack on the biased media in the United States, Ramaswamy pointed out that Stephanopoulos’s questioning is an “embodiment of what's wrong with our culture right now. Looking backwards, obsessing over details in the past, going after one man, a deranged mental cultural state in the media.”
Instead, he insisted the candidates need to be talking about how to revitalize the economy and “declare independence from China.”
“Sir, that man is the front-runner for the Republican nomination right now. He's a former President of the United States. He's leading you by 40 points,” Stephanopoulos howled. “Yet you still say you would vote for him despite what you say about his behavior. That's the question I am asking. It's not an obsession. He’s the frontrunner right now.”
“Just as I expect him to vote for me when I'm the nominee,” Ramaswamy responded.
“I think that the way elections work in the United States of America is that the people in a political party get to choose their nominee, and then the people from the general election get to choose their President,” he continued. “The fact that that's a foreign idea shows how badly our political culture has decayed in this country.”
This segment was made possible by IBM.
The transcript is below:
ABC’s This Week
9/3/2023
9:11:03 a.m. EasternGEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You find his actions abhorrent around January 6. You said he was wrong to take the classified information, you said you would not do that yourself. But you still say you would vote for him for President. That's what I don't get.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: George, I said what every Republican nominee said to make it on that debate stage that we will actually support the Republican nominee from our party. Frankly I think that this is an embodiment of what's wrong with our culture right now. Looking backwards, obsessing over details in the past, going after one man, a deranged mental cultural state in the media, and in this country as opposed to talking about what we need to talk about, how to better declare independence from China than any past President—
[crosstalk]
STEPHANOPOULOS: That man is leading you by—sir.
[crosstalk]
RAMASWAMY: Stimulate our economy. That's what I care about.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sir, that man is the front-runner for the Republican nomination right now. He's a former President of the United States. He's leading you by 40 points. Yet you still say you would vote for him despite what you say about his behavior. That's the question I am asking. It's not an obsession. He’s the frontrunner right now.
RAMASWAMY: Just as I expect him to vote for me when I'm the nominee. Well, look George I think that the way elections work in the United States of America is that the people in a political party get to choose their nominee, and then the people from the general election get to choose their President. The fact that that's a foreign idea shows how badly our political culture has decayed in this country.
