Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy slammed former President Barack Obama for “woke” and “toxic” comments about diversity in the GOP nominee field.

On Thursday, Obama appeared on David Axelrod’s podcast The Axe Files, during which the 44th president criticized minority GOP candidates, including Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, saying they do not speak truthfully about the racial reality for minority communities in the United States.

“I think there is a long history of African-American or other minority candidates within the Republican Party who will validate America and say everything is great and we can all make it,” Obama told Axelrod.

Ramaswamy disagreed with the former president’s comments during an interview with Fox News host Griff Jenkins on Saturday.

“There is a toxic philosophy on the left,” Ramaswamy told Jenkins. “I describe this in my book Woke Inc several years ago, which says that the color of your skin predicts what you’re allowed to say about this country, that you can’t say systemic racism doesn’t exist if you have black or brown skin.”

Ramaswamy brought up Democrat Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s saying in 2019, “We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.”

“I reject that dogma,” said Ramaswamy.

He added, “Frankly, I was disappointed in Barack Obama. I think he sets a poor example for the country when he tells us that we can’t think independently, regardless of the color of our skin.”

“I probably don’t fit Ayanna Pressley‘s description of what counts as a brown voice. But you better believe that’s why it’s important for folks like me or Tim Scott or Nikki Haley, for that matter, to speak our minds openly,” he continued. “And from my heart, I commit to doing that throughout the rest of this campaign trail. I think it’s going to be unifying for the country.”

In a follow up question, Jenkins asked Ramaswamy whether he believes people in the United State focus too much on racial diversity and equity, to which he responded, “I think we do.”

Our diversity is not our strength. Our strength is what unites us across that diversity. That’s what makes America great. And I’ll tell you, I’m 37 years old. I’m the first millennial ever to run for U.S. president as a Republican. I grew up into a generation that taught us to celebrate our diversity so much that we forgot all of the ways we’re really the same as Americans. We say E Pluribus Unum for a reason. It means ‘from many, one.’ That’s the dream I’m running to revive. And I think most Americans still share that vision. We just need to have the courage to say it out loud and revive it.

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.

The post GOP Candidate Slams Obama For ‘Toxic’ Diversity Talk on Fox: ‘Our Diversity Is Not Our Strength’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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