‘What Have You Been Smoking, Man’: Vivek Ramaswamy Fumes Over Question on Nikki Haley – News18

Indian-American presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy had a heated exchange with popular US news anchor Chris Cuomo over fellow GOP candidate Nikki Haley. During an interview, Cuomo accused Vivek of “going at Nikki Haley” and questioned the potential outcome of such a move.

To this, the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur said, “I don’t know what you have been smoking man. Nikki Haley has been going after me the whole campaign. The first debate, second debate, and third debate. She has been trailing me the whole time.” “The establishment media has realised that there is a puppet that they want to put up. I am not playing that game. The grassroots of the country know that they want a leader who isn’t gonna send our sons and daughters to fight foreign wars that have racked up USD 7 trillion in debt.”

Haley vs Ramaswamy

Both Haley and Ramaswamy have clashed publicly during the last two of the three Republican primary debates. The two Indian Americans have qualified for the fourth primary Republican Party debate, boycotted by former president and frontrunner Donald Trump. Last week, both went head-to-head at the GOP primary during the third debate in the state of Florida. Haley called Ramaswamy “scum” after he brought up her daughter at the third Republican presidential debate stage in Miami.

‘Leave My Daughter Out…,’ Says Nikki Haley, Calling Ramaswamy A ‘Scum’ At 3rd GOP Debate

In a separate Fox News interview Monday, Ramaswamy said that he has a “fundamental ideological divide” with his Republican rival Haley who represents an older generation in the party.  “I think there’s a fundamental ideological divide. She represents an older generation of Republicans,” he said about the 51-year-old former governor of South Carolina.

“She talks a lot about how we need a new generation of leadership. I agree with her. It’s just that she’s on the wrong side of that generational divide, taking us back to the Dick Cheney era, pointless wars that wasted USD 7 trillion of national debt that we accumulated, thousands of America’s sons and daughters of lives sacrificed, people my age,” Ramaswamy said.

‘We deserve somebody who is not a puppet’

“That’s a mistake. I think that anybody who has made money off those wars, people who have been part of the establishment, joining military contractors, monetising their time in government, I don’t care if that’s the Biden corruption family or if it’s a Republican version of that, which is what I see in Nikki Haley. It’s wrong, he said. So, I’m calling that out. The establishment doesn’t appreciate that very much. But I think we deserve somebody who is not just a puppet of the special interests, but somebody who’s independent, coming in from the outside…, he said in response to a question.

“I will be there, and I will be similarly unrestrained, as I was in the last debate as well. That’s what our base is hungry for. They want the truth. They don’t want professional politicians with talking points. So, yes, I have qualified. I will be there. And I don’t think that we’re going to disappoint people by hiding behind some shell. I’m going to be pretty open. And that’s what people are hungry for,” Ramaswamy said in response to another question. Describing himself as the best person to lead the country, Ramaswamy said: I’m a CEO. I come from outside of this broken world of politics.”

(With agency inputs)