Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been “copying a lot” of lines from Barack Obama on the campaign trail, according to a super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Never Back Down PAC posted a video on the X social media platform Wednesday showing the former Democratic president speaking, followed by very similar or identical phrasing by Ramaswamy.
It starts with the GOP candidate being asked about being called “the Republican Obama.”
“You know what? I actually — there are elements of that that I’m actually leaning into,” he responded.
Then came several examples demonstrating that point.
“There has never been a Democrat or Republican idea,” Obama is shown saying. “This is an American idea.”
After which the businessman is shown to say: “These are not Democrat or Republican ideas. These are fundamentally American ideals.”
Obama: “Imagine they were driving a car, and they drove it into the ditch. You can’t have the keys back!” Ramaswamy: “If somebody has repeatedly crashed your car, do you want to turn over your keys to the same people who crashed it?”
Obama: “Is that Russia, in the 1980s or now, calling to ask for their foreign policy back? The Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” Ramaswamy: “I have a news flash. The USSR doesn’t exist anymore. It fell back in 1990.”
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The two men talking about themselves — Obama: “A skinny guy with a funny name.” Ramaswamy: “Who the heck is this skinny guy with the funny last name?”
Obama: “What they sense deep in their bones — E pluribus unum. From out of many, one.” Ramaswamy: “I believe deep in my bones — E pluribus unum. From out of many, one.”
Obama: “We are one people!” Ramaswamy: “I have a dream — that we can be one people again.”
The video then cuts to Ramaswamy looking into the camera and saying: “I’m not going to read speeches written by others. What you’re going to get from me is what’s coming from the heart, my bone-deep convictions.”
It’s not just once: Vivek Ramaswamy has been copying a lot of Obama’s lines.
Watch! pic.twitter.com/QXscC1Gosl
— Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) September 27, 2023
The Never Back Down post is not the first to level charges of plagiarism or hypocrisy against Ramaswamy.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accused Ramaswamy of plagiarizing Obama during the Aug. 22 GOP presidential debate.
“The last person in one of these debates … who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur onstage tonight,” Christie said.
Ramaswamy has been critical of candidates not speaking from the heart but using material pumped out by political consultants.
However, according to a Mediaite article Sept. 26, Obama isn’t the only person whose quotes he has borrowed.
It said Ramaswamy has been using campaign lines from failed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, who is advising his campaign.
After she was snubbed by former President Donald Trump last year when he chose to endorse Dr. Mehmet Oz in the GOP primary, Barnett said, on separate occasions, “MAGA doesn’t belong to Donald Trump; MAGA belongs to the people,” and “President Trump coined the word but the word itself Make America Great Again belongs to the people,” according to the report.
Ramaswamy has used similar language on numerous occasions, Mediaite reported.
“America First does not belong to Donald Trump. It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to those voters we just looked at. It belongs to the people of this country,” he said April 27.
“The America First agenda does not belong to one man. Does not belong to Donald Trump. It does not belong to me. It belongs to you, the people of this country,” the candidate said Sept. 22.
The RealClearPolitics polling average showed Ramaswamy in fourth place in the GOP presidential race Tuesday behind Trump, DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
