Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy told Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Saturday former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) “was a China Stooge” who tries “to talk tough now” and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) “really isn’t that different.”
Host and Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle and Ramaswamy spoke about a number of storylines coming out of the debate in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday night, including some tense back-and-forth exchanges he had with Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), and one she had with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Ramaswamy also contended his opponents bore responsibility for the lack of focus on domestic policy issues in the first hour.
At one point in the debate, Haley and DeSantis knocked each other on Chinese businesses or subsidiaries in their respective states under each of their tenures as governor. Ramaswamy, who told Boyle Saturday that Haley “was absolutely a China stooge until she tried to talk tough now, but Ron is really not that different,” was a buffer in the exchange, hitting both of them on the front.
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a Republican presidential primary debate hosted by NBC News, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“You know, Ambassador Haley… she welcomed them into South Carolina, gave them land near a military base, wrote the Chinese Ambassador a love letter saying what a great friend they were. That was like their number one way to do economic development,” DeSantis said of Haley on the debate stage.
“In Florida, I banned China from buying land in this state, and we kicked out the Confucius institutes out of our universities,” he added.
Ramaswamy chimed in to commend DeSantis for his comments on the former United Nations ambassador before criticizing the Florida governor.
“What he left out though, Ron, and be honest about it, there was a lobbying-based exemption in that bill that allowed Chinese nationals to buy land within a 20-mile radius of a military base – lobbied for by one your donors, so I think we need to call a spade a spade,” he said.
The next time Haley had the opportunity to speak, she admitted to bringing in a Chinese fiberglass company to South Carolina a decade ago, before returning fire on DeSantis:
You have a company that is a manufacturer of Chinese military planes. They are expanding two training sites at two of your airports now, one of which is 12 miles away from a naval base. Then you have another company that’s expanding, and they were just invaded by the Department of Homeland Security. So mine was ten years ago. So what’s your story?
Haley Says DeSantis Is Letting China Develop “Military Planes” on Florida Land
NBC News
As Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong noted, citing a New York Post report, “The Chinese firm, Cirrus Aircraft — a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corp. (AVIC) of China — had opened two new locations in central Florida in 2022.” One of them, the Orlando Executive Airport, is situated just 12.7 miles from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division.
“I found it, you know, genuinely dishonest from him that that he was trying to attack Haley with this when he’s guilty of it too,” Boyle noted to Ramaswamy.
“Exactly my whole point. I also pointed out the times when Ron was right and when Tim Scott was right. I’m just calling the truth, as I see it, and that means nobody is going to be spared, Republican or Democrat, man or woman,” Ramaswamy said. “And by the way, I do think that the Republican Party, for a party that claims to not like identity politics, somehow the establishment certainly acts like if you have two X chromosomes and you’re running for president, that immunizes you from criticism. I disagree with that. That’s why Nikki Haley has gone unscathed so far. It’s why she’s the candidate of choice for the New York Times, CNN, and the mainstream media. And our Republican National Committee is hiring that mainstream media to run our debates. It’s a broken and corrupt process.”
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“It’s a bunch of kleptocrats in this country that are actually wielding the keys to how our future is determined, and I refuse to be a stooge of that establishment,” he continued. “That’s where they’re coming from me. Ronna [McDaniel] says they won’t give me another cent of their money, but the real irritation is, I’m the guy that doesn’t need it because I’ve put in tens of millions of dollars of my own family’s hard-earned money. We didn’t inherit it. We made it through hard work and in building successful businesses. But that’s what it takes to break this system.”
At another point in the debate, Haley and Ramaswamy had a heated exchange after he invoked her adult daughter’s use of TikTok.
“In the last debate, she actually made fun of me for joining TikTok, while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first,” he told Haley on stage Wednesday night.
“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” she immediately shot back, going on to tell Ramaswamy, “You’re just scum.”
“YOU’RE JUST SCUM!” Things Get HEATED Between Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy at GOP Debate
NBC News
After Boyle pointed out that Haley’s daughter is in her mid-20s, Ramaswamy wondered how she “would do on that debate stage with Joe Biden with Joe Biden saying, ‘Keep my son’s name out of your mouth,’ when Nikki Haley spouted off about his cocaine issue or whatever.”
The 38-year-old entrepreneur also said fellow candidates, not just the Republican National Committee (RNC), were to blame for the lack of domestic policy discussion in the first hour of Wednesday night’s debate.
“That’s not just from the RNC. That’s from the other candidates,” Ramaswamy told Boyle. “I mean, the problem with the Nikki Haleys of the world is it’s beautiful how much she cares about a random Ukrainian kleptocrat who can buy a bigger house with our taxpayer money. The problem is she doesn’t give a second care about Americans here at home. And that’s not just her, but that’s Lindsey Graham, it’s Mitch McConnell. It’s Karl Rove to John Bolton to Chris Christie to pretty much everybody else on that debate stage, Tim Scott, you name it. It’s Dick Cheney 2.0 crawling all over that debate stage, and I think that that’s the issue with the modern Republican Party.”
“So my view is pretty simple: as the next U.S. president, my moral obligation is exclusively to Americans here at home, period. I launched the night before the debate, we did a rally in Miami, “No to Neocons,” that’s the pledge. And in fact, we made a website for it. NotoNeocons.com. People should go there. It’s not for the purpose of fundraising or anything, just sign up,” Ramaswamy said. “And there’s three commitments that we want every U.S. policymaker to understand right now: Avoiding World War III is a vital national objective, war is never a preference only ever in necessity, and third, most clearly, the job of a U.S. policymaker – the sole duty – is to U.S. citizens, not some other country, the citizens of this country.”
Breitbart News was first to report on Ramaswamy’s No to Neocons challenge for his fellow candidates. Any of them would have to sign the pledge if they wanted to serve in the Ramaswamy administration should he win.
“I think I was the only person on that debate stage who had moral clarity about that obligation. And the rest of them are, you know, really peddling lies about Ukraine being some democratic nation. It’s not,” he added.
