Tipsheet

Vivek Ramaswamy Is First of Trump's Primary Opponents to Address Latest Indictment

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  August 15, 2023 6:45 PM

On Monday night, former and potentially future President Donald Trump was indicted yet again, this time by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, over allegations to do with the 2020 election. That same night, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is also running in the Republican primary and was participating in a NewsNation town hall, became the first to respond. As the Washington Examiner reported, he was the only primary opponent to respond on Monday.

"The reality is this--these are politicized persecutions through prosecution," Ramaswamy told Leland Vittert, who was hosting the town hall. "And I say this as somebody who's running in some polls third, and some polls, like today's, second. It would be a lot easier for me if Donald Trump were not in this primary. But that is not how I want to win this election."

Ramaswamy currently polls with 6.4 percent, according to RealClearPolitics (RCP), which indeed puts him in third place, behind Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Trump. He comes in second place, behind Trump, in polls from Kaplan Strategies and Cygnal. 

Vittert also asked Ramaswamy about pardoning Trump, should he be elected, something Ramaswamy is committed to doing, and has spoken about when it comes to other indictments. 

In June, when Trump was indicted for the second time, to do with his handling of classified documents, Ramaswamy held a press conference from Miami in which he pledged to pardon Trump and called on other primary candidates to do the same.

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Ramaswamy also weighed in earlier on Monday, when the docket report in the case against Trump was prematurely posted and then deleted. 

Calling the indictment "disastrous," Ramaswamy also called it "downright pathetic" that Fulton County would post the indictment before the grand jury had even finished convening, which wouldn't take place until later that night, in something of a sped-up fashion. 

As Spencer highlighted earlier on Tuesday, the excuse remains that the indictment posted earlier was "fictitious," as well as "unofficial and a test sample only."

During the NewsNation town hall, Ramaswamy also indicated he'd like to have Trump as an adviser. "I think his defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 was an important political event that stopped the leftward march through our government and our institutions," Ramaswamy said. "And so I expect to take him as an adviser as well as, I’m actually taking to the next level our America first agenda, shutting down that administrative state," speaking of Trump.

As live updates from NewsNation also noted, this part particularly caught the attention of one Iowa voter.