Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stuck to his guns Wednesday night when a CNN anchor confronted him on his views about the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Ramaswamy was at a CNN Town Hall at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, speaking in front of an audience of voters.
Many of them applauded his points.
“Let me ask you about something that you said at the debate last week,” said CNN moderator Abby Phillip.
“You used the phrase ‘inside job’ to describe what happened on Jan. 6. The next day, capitol rioter Alan Hostetter highlighted your comments at his sentencing; he is going to prison for 11 years.”
She said Hostetter threatened members of Congress and brought tactical gear and weapons to the protest, including a hatchet, knives and pepper spray that day.
“Are you concerned that a convicted felon like that is now promoting your comments in court?” Phillip said.
Hostetter was sentenced on Dec. 7 for his role during the 2021 Capitol incursion, according to Breitbart.
Too bad for CNN, we’ll take the TRUTH on Jan. 6 mainstream. There is clear evidence that there was at the very least entrapment of peaceful protestors, similar to the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot & countless other cases. The FBI won’t admit how many undercover officers… pic.twitter.com/SBuc6nnymg
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 14, 2023
Do you agree with Ramaswamy?
Ramaswamy responded that 3 years ago, when he was a biotech CEO, if he had been told that Jan. 6 was an “inside job,” it would have been “crazy talk” to him and “fringe conspiracy theory nonsense.”
“I can tell you now, having gone somewhat deep in this, it’s not,” he said.
“We do have a government, first of all, we have to acknowledge, that has lied to us systematically over the last several years about the origin of COVID-19.”
Ramaswamy also mentioned other reported lies from the government, including 51 former CIA officials falsely labeling the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation, as well as the Trump-Russia collusion, which was later proven to be a hoax.
“Now we come to Jan. 6. The reality is, we know that there were federal law enforcement agents in that field — we don’t know how many,” he said.
There were paid FBI informants in the crowd on Jan. 6. Evidently, there were so many that the FBI lost track, according to the New York Post.
When Phillip tried to interrupt Ramaswamy, he spoke over her with a response that resulted in applause from the audience.
Even Phillip herself seemed to stifle a giggle.
“I know the establishment doesn’t approve of this message, but we should be able to talk about this; this is important to talk about,” Ramaswamy said.
Phillip countered that there was no evidence of federal agents being in the crowd on Jan. 6, and asked Ramaswamy to prove his claims.
“Why did they suppress footage of … 200 hours of footage of shooting rubber bullets into that crowd, shooting tear gas into that crowd,” Ramaswamy said. “You didn’t see that before; you saw what the response was to that.”
J6…
Tear Gas and Munitions Fired Randomly Into Crowds… pic.twitter.com/LmHxBbEXlE— We the People… (@77HERCULES77) February 23, 2023
“Now you see footage coming out of actually rolling out the red carpet, for Capitol police allowing people in, right through the front door. … That evidence should have been released before.”
The crowd applauded again.
Phillip accused Ramaswamy of cherry-picking; he countered that the government was the one cherry-picking the footage.
Ramaswamy also pointed out the apparent entrapment parallels between Jan. 6 and the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
“Three people, who were in an alleged plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, were acquitted at the end of trial because it was entrapment. That is, government agents put them up to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done,” Ramaswamy said.
Three of the 14 men involved in the plan to kidnap Whitmer were acquitted in September, according to Fox News.
And there were at least 12 undercover FBI informants and several agents who had infiltrated the kidnapping group months before the October 2020 bust, according to The New York Times.
Phillip attempted to cut Ramaswamy short again and accused him of misleading the audience, but the audience seemed to laugh and shout at the anchor as she said it.
