Vivek Ramaswamy may not be participating in CNN’s Republican primary debate tonight, but he’s found a clever way of making his voice heard anyway.
Upon being excluded by CNN, Ramaswamy and his campaign retaliated by filming a 30-second ad that will air during the debate between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.
“The mainstream media is trying to rig the Iowa GOP caucus in favor of the corporate candidates who they can control. Don’t fall for their trick,” Ramaswamy says in the ad.
He goes on to allege that the establishment media has lied about everything from COVID to Jan. 6 (fair enough) and concludes by telling viewers, “You can fix that. Take your remote and turn this s*** off.”
The most interesting 30-seconds of the most boring presidential “debate” in modern history. pic.twitter.com/qYYMiXxQ32
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 10, 2024
Why did he have to resort to this unorthodox method in the first place?
According to Fox News, Ramaswamy was not invited to participate in the debate because Haley and DeSantis were “the only qualified candidates who agreed to appear for the debate based on polling.”
CNN made this determination based on its own requirements. According to those requirements, candidates “must receive at least 10% in three separate national and/or Iowa polls of Republican caucusgoers or primary voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.”
Will you be watching the CNN debate?
Seems fair enough. Why is Ramaswamy so salty then?
Maybe because he has received at least 10 percent in three separate national polls.
While his numbers have trailed off in recent months, Ramaswamy garnered double-digit support in polls conducted by Morning Consult, Reuters/Ipsos and Fox in September, according to Real Clear Polling.
Now, regardless of what you think about Ramaswamy as a candidate, or whether these polls meet CNN’s “standards for reporting,” this ad is an ingenious strategy to get his message out there, despite the obstacles placed in his way.
Ramaswamy has had no compunctions calling out the left-wing media for its biased and sometimes deliberately erroneous and misleading reporting.
During a CNN town hall last month, for instance, he picked apart the media’s lies, especially about the whole Jan. 6 debacle, noting that “the establishment doesn’t approve of this message.”
Of all the candidates, Ramaswamy might be the one who has dealt the most strongly with fake news. We’ll miss his bluntness in the face of establishment media nonsense in this debate.
Will DeSantis and Haley challenge CNN and its biased moderators with the same ferocity as Ramaswamy might have? Will they let the network lie, or will they at least try to set the record straight?
Regardless of who wins tonight, the debate will be quite telling for that reason alone.
