Ben Shapiro dinged former 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for spending his entire Iowa campaign sucking up to Donald Trump and his supporters.

In an episode of The Ben Shapiro Show that aired before the Iowa Caucus — which Trump won and Ramaswamy placed fourth in before ending his longshot campaign — the Daily Wire founder broke down a major mistake Ramaswamy made in the final stretch to the Hawkeye state.

“Over the weekend, a big mistake was made by Vivek, and Trump absolutely clobbered him,” Shapiro said. “So, Vivek was making the argument that people should vote for him in the Iowa caucuses. The problem is that Trump is, actually, in the Iowa caucuses, and you can vote for Trump. So the question is, why are you in the race if Trump is so unbelievably great? And if your entire role in the race was to defend Trump, why are you here? You should drop out. You’ve served your purpose.

“So, Vivek was telling people, in order to save Trump, you have to vote for him. Which is weird, because it makes no sense. Because Trump definitely, definitely does not need Vivek Ramaswamy in the race.”

Shapiro then played a video of Ramaswamy telling a woman, “If you wanna save Trump, you vote for me. You vote for Trump, you’re sending him to his own demise…Do the right thing for him and for this country.”

Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to finally throw Ramaswamy under the bus, accusing the entrepreneur of employing “deceitful campaign tricks” to lure voters:

Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter, “the best President in generations,” etc. Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the “other side” — don’t get duped by this. Vote for “TRUMP,” don’t waste your vote! Vivek is not MAGA. The Biden Indictments against his Political Opponent will never be allowed in this Country, they are already beginning to fall! MAGA!!!

“This obviously was very, very bad for Vivek, who spent his entire campaign basically massaging Trump,” Shapiro said. “You literally could not get him to criticize Trump on virtually any topic. And, again, there are many reasons to run for president, but it’s hard to make the argument that what you’re actually doing is running for president when you spend your entire campaign massaging one of the other guys.”

Shapiro then laid out Ramaswamy’s campaign strategy.

“There is an actual plan by Vivek. I mean, this is being laid out by the Wall Street Journal. His actual strategy was, wait for Trump to drop out. If Trump actually gets hit by indictments, Trump gets defeated, something happens to Trump, then all of Trump’s support flows over to Vivek. Vivek is basically the catchall for Trump support.”

But Shapiro said Trump wasn’t falling for Ramaswamy’s plan.

“He spent the entire campaign talking about how wonderful Trump is unless, God forbid, something happens to Trump and then Vivek is standing right there. And meanwhile, Trump was like, ‘No. Not interested at all. Why are you here? If you love me so much, get out!'”

Shapiro said he’d be surprised if Ramaswamy garnered eight percent of the Iowa vote, “Particularly after Trump smacked him down over the weekend.” Ramaswamy ended up falling short, with 7.7%.

Watch the clip above via The Ben Shapiro Show on Daily Wire.

The post Ben Shapiro Skewers Vivek Ramaswamy For Slavish Devotion to Trump: ‘You’ve Served Your Purpose’ first appeared on Mediaite.

from Mediaite https://www.mediaite.com/politics/ben-shapiro-skewers-vivek-ramaswamy-for-slavish-devotion-to-trump-youve-served-your-purpose/