George Stephanopoulos Pushes Ramaswamy to Admit Trump Was ‘Wrong’ to Push Fake Electors
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos got Vivek Ramaswamy to say Donald Trump was “wrong” in trying to overturn the 2020 election with his fake elector scheme.
Stephanopoulos and Ramaswamy had a highly confrontational interview on Sunday for This Week, and it largely consisted of the two grappling over the latter’s repeated Trump defenses. Much of the interview revolved around how Ramaswamy once called Trump’s January 6 actions “downright abhorrent,” but now he’s proclaiming that he’ll back Trump for president even if he’s convicted of the criminal charges levelled against him.
Ramaswamy explained this as his intent to honor the pledge he took to support the inevitable GOP nominee.
“If the Constitution permits somebody to run,” he said, “and that’s the person that people of this country want to elect, then that’s the way our system works, and I stand by it.”
Stephanopoulos continued to press him on the subject, asking, “Why do you think it’s OK for a convicted felon to be president?” And “What exactly did you find abhorrent about his actions around January 6th?” Ramaswamy answered the latter by referring to his Wall Street Journal column where he blamed censorship for the events of January 6, the day when Trump’s supporters — fueled by his election lies — violently stormed Congress to overthrow the certification of the former president’s loss to Joe Biden.
Throughout the interview, Ramaswamy railed against the prosecution of Trump by arguing that his “bad behavior” did not constitute “illegal behavior.” This led to Ramaswamy dodging at first when asked if it was “wrong” of Trump to embrace his alleged scheme of using phony electors to overturn the 2020 results in states where he lost.
RAMASWAMY: I think there were a number of bad judgments that were made. Frankly, if I were the U.S. president, I would have never let it get to that place. We had systematic suppression of information. We had systematic Covid mandates, which I think actually created a lot of the frustration that led up to January 6th that was pent up. Two different standards of law for people who were part of BLM or Antifa or otherwise. A Hunter Biden laptop story that was suppressed on the eve of an election. So, if I were the U.S. president, I would have never let it get to that place.
But the important part of the story is, at the end of the day, I’m in this race because I’m actually going to lead this country to reunite us. That being said, I do not believe that Donald Trump should be prosecuted.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn’t answer my question. Was it wrong to create slates of phony electors?
RAMASWAMY: I would not have. I — The answer to your question is ‘No.’ I would not have nominated phony slates of electors.
Stephanopoulos followed up by asking Ramaswamy if Trump was “wrong” to “encourage the mob” that besieged the Capitol.
Watch Ramaswamy’s answer above via ABC.
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