OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy riffed on CNN’s Van Jones during a Turning Point USA event over the weekend, dropping an ‘F-bomb’ in the process.
The candidate’s remarks on Sunday came after the fourth GOP primary debate when Jones said during a CNN segment that he was “shaking” while he watched Ramaswamy talking, claiming that he was seeing “the rise of an American demagogue.”
“You’re watching the rise of an American demagogue that is a very, very despicable person. And literally, I was — I was shaking listening to him talk because a lot of people don’t know. That is one step away from Nazi propaganda coming out of his mouth,” Jones whined.
At the AmericaFest conference in Phoenix on Sunday, Ramaswamy directly addressed Jones’ intellectually dishonest remarks.
“You got this character, Van Jones, on CNN afterwards saying this is the rise of an American demagogue who’s going to live 50 years longer than Trump. This is dangerous. I am shaking. That’s what he says. Just shut the f*ck up,” he said to wild applause.
“At a certain point. Just shut the f*ck up. Van Jones at CNN. We’re done with it,” he added.
🔥Vivek Ramaswamy on Van Jones: “Just shut the fuck up. At a certain point, just shut the fuck up."pic.twitter.com/9Fo2StUJ8N
— Merissa Hansen (@merissahansen17) December 18, 2023
Earlier this month, following the debate, “Fox & Friends” morning show co-host Brian Kilmeade got into a heated exchange with Ramaswamy.
The candidate was with Fox News reporter and morning show co-host Lawrence Jones in Tuscaloosa when the shouting match took place live on the air, The Western Journal reported.
Initially, Jones was critical of Ramaswamy’s attacks on fellow GOP contender and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, which he calmly addressed. But when Kilmeade began asking the questions, the exchange quickly became heated after the co-host focused mainly on Ramaswamy’s policy propositions regarding the Ukraine-Russia war.
“His policy—it’s just ridiculous on Russia and Ukraine,” said Kilmeade. After confirming that the candidate could hear him, Kilmeade spoke to the candidate directly.
“Hey, Vivek, are you comfortable with Russia taking as much of Ukraine as they want? Are you comfortable pulling all our aid out? And do you believe that Vladimir Putin will agree not to have an alliance with China?” Kilmeade asked.
He responded by saying that it is important to “play hardball” and should go beyond just sanctions and include a “maximum pressure campaign.”
“What I’m saying, Brian, is the clear principles are: This war doesn’t advance U.S. interest. The Russia-China alliance is the top threat that we face,” Ramaswamy said.
But Kilmeade countered that the war there is in U.S. national interests.
“Vivek, are you comfortable giving up Eastern Europe? Because, you know, they’re already taking Moldova, already making moves on the Baltic, they’re taking more and more pieces of Georgia, and all we’ve done is sit there and send blankets and MREs, and we got an invasion,” Kilmeade said.
The candidate’s response received a round of applause from an audience behind him.
“Because we have no idea how Ukraine has spent $200 billion of our money. We’re forking over more taxpayer money so some Ukrainian kleptocrat can buy a bigger house. That’s corrupt, and I’m not going to stand for that,” Ramaswamy said.
At that point, co-host Ainsley Earhardt attempted to intervene but then stopped short, as her fellow co-host and the candidate continued debating the alleged parallels between the current situation in Ukraine to World War II, with some mention of the chaos along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I think it is offensive that people would sooner spend $200 billion of our resources to protect some other nation’s foreign border — that’s not a democracy — when in fact, we’re not even doing that effectively here on our border,” Ramaswamy said, as the audience applauded again.
That led Kilmeade to insist that the country could fund both endeavors, even as the national debt has now surpassed $34 trillion, leading the candidate to label that “neo-con wisdom.”
At that point, Jones intervened and stopped the back-and-forth.
