WATCH: Vivek Ramaswamy Throws Down With Jim Acosta On Pardoning Jan. 6 Prisoners and His Plan to Deal With Putin in Tense Interview

CNN’s Jim Acosta had a tense clash with Vivek Ramaswamy over his continued defense of Donald Trump’s supporters after they violently besieged the U.S. Capitol.

Acosta spoke with Ramaswamy on Saturday about the Republican presidential candidate’s stalled momentum as he and his primary rivals head into the third 2024 GOP debate. After several minutes discussing the latest polls, the CNN anchor brought up Trump’s rally in Texas last week where he saluted January 6 rioters jailed for trying to overthrow his 2020 election defeat.

Asked if he agreed with Trump characterizing these inmates as “hostages,” Ramaswamy answered “I think many peaceful protesters on January 6 should absolutely not be in prison. We have a dual standard of justice in this country.” That led Acosta to interject and ask “Isn’t that irresponsible to call them hostages what’s going on in Israel right now?”

This led to Ramaswamy broadly complaining about the media’s handling of the “Russia collusion hoax” and the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.

“Jim, let me just be really clear about what’s irresponsible as it relates to coverage of Donald Trump,” Ramaswamy said. “And I think that your network and others like you owe some accountability here — from the Russia Trump-Russia collusion hoax that never was, to the Hunter Biden laptop story that was actually real before people before the election were told that it was false. So I think that the real accountability here belongs to the media.”

When Acosta tried to refer back to his question, Ramaswamy said he agrees with the “spirit” of Trump’s comments, claiming “many” of the rioters were “denied their constitutional rights and many of them who are peaceful.”

“They’re going through the justice process,” Acosta retorted. “They’re being prosecuted”

“Well, I don’t think that many of those prosecutions are just. My view is if you’re using one standard of political prosecution for somebody because they have political views different from your own, that’s not justice. That is injustice. And that’s why I have said that anybody who was a peaceful protesters on January 6th, for those peaceful protesters, they will earn a pardon from me on Day One. And I will stand by that.”

Watch above via CNN.