‘You Look Like a Plant’: OH Gov Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Shades Constituent During Town Hall

Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s the GOP nominee to become Ohio’s next governor, shaded a constituent asking a question at a town hall event in Marietta, OH, on Friday.

Ramaswamy looked irritated as he called on the young man sitting in the front row.

“How can Ohioans trust a jet-setting billionaire who promoted a failed Alzheimer’s drug to govern in their best interest?” the man asked.

“Thank you. I appreciate it. You look like a plant, so I wanted to make sure I gave you a question,” a visually irked Ramaswamy said. “One thing I want to say is that we, unlike my opponent, whose allies, I think, had you come here, we welcome transparency,” Ramaswamy began, before challenging his opponent, Dr. Amy Acton (D), “to show up on a debate stage.”

Ramaswamy said his advisors told him not to accept interviews with CNN or NBC News.

“I said, we’re going to do it because we want to do it the right way for the public,” Ramaswamy said. “And so we’ll take any question, including ones that are based on really, I would say, defamatory, libelous lies. That’s okay,
you go into politics, that’s what you take.

“So let me tell you about my career. First of all, my opponent, all she’ll talk about is the fact that I’m a billionaire. Well, the truth is yes, I am,” Ramaswamy said before his wife, Apoorva Ramaswamy, tried to step in.

“Vivek, mind if I take this one?” she asked, in what appeared to be a bid to get him back on message.

“Yeah, why don’t you take this,” Ramaswamy said before he continued talking.

“The only thing I’ll say before I hand it over to Apoorva is, I was not born a billionaire. I was not born a millionaire. I was not born an ‘anything-air.’ I was born an heir to nothing and achieved what I have because I was able to build successful businesses, including ones that developed life-saving therapies for patients who needed them.”

Amy Acton was targeted by an armed man who lunged at her during the Canfield Fair on Sunday, leaving multiple people injured. Police immediately arrested and charged 38-year-old Patrick Havas with two counts of assault, one count of inducing panic and one of disorderly conduct

In a statement to local media, Ramaswamy said, “Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence. What happened today is completely unacceptable and has no place in politics, and we hope hope that no one was hurt.”

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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