‘You Sound Like a Surrogate Right Now’: Newsmax Host Not So Sure Ramaswamy Is Serious About Challenging Trump
Newsmax host Rob Schmitt spoke with Vivek Ramaswamy on the heels of the Republican presidential candidate’s whirlwind debate, where he sparred with rivals not named Donald Trump.
The former president remains the runaway frontrunner in GOP primary polling and has so far boycotted the Republican debates. His challengers have criticized him to varying degrees, except Ramaswamy.
“We’re two months from Iowa, and Trump is still dominating this thing,” Schmitt observed to Ramaswamy on Thursday night. “I often wonder what your motivations are in this moment because it just feels like Trump’s got this as a candidate.”
“The other candidates all want to sit there and Monday morning quarterback Donald Trump on some small thing after most of them were licking his boots not that long ago for favors and endorsements and money,” the candidate replied.
He went on to call Trump “an excellent president.
“You’re not trying to take this from him then,” Schmitt reacted. “You sound like a surrogate right now. You’re not trying to take it from him.”
“Well I aim to exceed that high bar,” Ramaswamy protested. “And I have something to Donald Trump doesn’t. I have fresh legs. I come from a different generation. So, there are two America First candidates in this race. That’s Donald Trump and myself. And the voters, I think could face a choice. Do you want somebody who comes from that prior generation with experience? I can’t claim to have that experience. But I think in this moment, more than ever, we need somebody with fresh legs from the next generation to reach young Americans, and nobody is reaching that next generation like I am in the Republican Party.”
Ramaswamy got himself in various spats on the debate stage Wednesday night – none more dramatic than his clash with former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
“You’re just scum,” she told him after he invoked her daughter in one of his responses.
Watch above via Newsmax.
