George Stephanopoulos Nails Vivek Ramaswamy’s Whining For Media ‘Obsessing’ Over Trump: ‘Sir, That Man is Defeating You’
George Stephanopoulos’ interview with Vivek Ramaswamy took a confrontational turn when the ABC News anchor challenged his complaints over how many times he has been asked about Donald Trump.
As the 2024 Republican primary continues, Ramaswamy has established himself as an upstart candidate who regularly defends Trump between a litany of his own controversial statements. When Ramaswamy joined Stephanopoulos on Sunday for an interview on This Week, he faced a barrage of questions about Trump’s federal indictments for mishandling classified documents and attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Throughout the conversation, Ramaswamy denounced the Trump prosecutions as “vengeance-driven” while arguing that the former president’s “bad judgment” was not criminal. This resulted in a clash as Stephanopoulos noted how Ramaswamy once called Trump’s January 6 actions “downright abhorrent” before he started excusing Trump from the blame surrounding that day.
That’s when Ramaswamy started griping over the continued focus on Trump, to which, Stephanopoulos retorted by pointing out Trump is still beating him as the GOP frontrunner:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You find his actions abhorrent around January 6th. 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.
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 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 has…
STEPHANOPOULOS: That man is defeating you (CROSSTALK). That man is leading you by — Sir — Sir, that man is the frontrunner 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 is the frontrunner right now.
“I think 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,” Ramaswamy answered. He also wound up reiterating his pledge to pardon Trump if elected president.
“So your bottom line is that you would vote for a convicted felon because other people are voting for a convicted felon?” Stephanopoulos asked.
Ramaswamy scoffed at the question before answering “My bottom line, George, is that I will vote for the person who I think is best positioned to move this country forward. I do not think that’s Joe Biden. I do not think that is whichever other puppet, Kamala Harris or anybody else, that they roll out after Joe Biden.”
Watch above via ABC.
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