Vivek Ramaswamy Mocks Nikki Haley Over Her Name In Typo-Plagued Rebuttal: ‘Keep Lying, Namrata Randhawa’

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy mocked rival Nikki Haley’s Indian name in a new campaign website page purporting to debunk myriad accusations made against him.

In a section meant to counter Haley’s characterization of Ramaswamy’s view of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Ramaswamy states that the idea that he doesn’t support Israel is “WRONG.”

“Keep lying, Namrata Randhawa,” he continued — in an apparent misspelling of her first name Nimarata. “The desperation is showing. By the end of Vivek’s first term, the US-Israel relationship will be deeper and stronger than ever because it won’t be a client relationship, it will be a true friendship.”

Randhawa is Haley’s maidan name. Nikki is Haley’s Punjabi middle name, which she has gone by since she was a child.

Progressives have often accused Haley of being ashamed of her name and heritage despite the fact that Haley began the video introducing herself as a presidential candidate by calling herself “the proud daughter of Indian immigrants.”

After the video, Politico dispatched six reporters to try to discredit her claim to her own identity, charging her with having a “fraught” relationship with race.

Others mocked her. Wajahat Ali said that writing a column about “Nikki Nimrata [sic] Haley” was “cathartic for the soul,” while The Atlantic‘s Jemele Hill bafflingly asked why she had changed her name.

Ramaswamy has repeatedly referred to the U.S.-Israel relationship as “just client relationship.” Last week, he promised that by the end of his first term in office, it would be deeper than it ever has been, because it won’t just be a client relationship, it’ll be a true friendship.”

“What do actual friends do? They push each other to be the strongest version of themselves,” he added.

During the first Republican primary debate last week, Haley accusing him of wanting to “stop funding Israel,” based on comments he made to the Washington Free Beacon about getting to “a 2028 where Israel is so strongly standing on its own two feet, integrated into the economic and security infrastructure of the rest of the Middle East, that it will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S..”