On Sunday (April 30), Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he wouldn’t allow former President Donald Trump to “get away” with not participating in GOP primary debates.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ramaswamy asserted that when Trump ran in 2016, he was an “outsider and disruptor” but contended that now, the former President and current GOP Presidential candidate simply seemed like an “existing establishment.”
The comments were in response to Chuck Todd, asking the conservative entrepreneur if he wouldn’t support Trump as the GOP nominee if Trump didn’t participate in debates.
Ramaswamy said that Trump, who announced his 2024 campaign on November 15, wouldn’t be excited to debate him. He added that other GOP Candidates also wouldn’t “relish being on the debate stage with me.”
The entrepreneur noted that voters had given Trump credit for being an “outsider and disruptor,” but explained that now he, Ramaswamy, was the outsider.
Ramaswamy noted that Biden was an “exist establishment” that wouldn’t want to debate, suggesting that people wanted “new blood.”
Asked what leverage the Republican Party should use to get Trump on the debate stage, Ramaswamy said it was the candidate’s “job” to tell voters if they want someone across the table from Chinese President Xi Jinping, if they want someone that has the backbone to take over the executive space… they better not be afraid to appear on the debate stage with a new challenger.
Ramaswamy, whose net worth is estimated to be $635 million, is a longshot in the GOP primary but explains he has plans to start a “cultural movement.”
