Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday defended former President Donald Trump, who is facing a special counsel investigation into the January 6, 2021 Capitol protests.
The biotech entrepreneur, during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” responded to being slammed for not criticizing Trump a month before the first GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee.
“I’ve been consistent all along,” he said, “that I made different judgments than Donald Trump did — that’s why I’m running in this race for president — the same race that he’s in.
“But a bad judgment is not the same as a crime,” continued Ramaswamy. “And when we combine the two, that sets a dangerous precedent for this country. I don’t want to see us become a banana republic where the party in power uses police force to arrest political opponents.”
“Now that I am third in the national polls, in my own interest it would be easier for me to win this election if Trump was not the front-runner – if Trump was removed from the federal administrative police state. But that is not the right thing for the country,” he added.
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![Vivek Ramaswamy spoke at the Turning Point USA conference](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-1546794648.jpg)
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Turning Point Action conference on July 15, 2023. Ramaswamy argued on Sunday for US economic independence from China, putting him up against former President Trump. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In a recent Fox News survey of Iowa Republicans, Trump received 46% support among those likely to attend the Iowa GOP caucus, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis received 16% and Sen. Tim Scott, RS.C., received 11%. Ramaswamy came in fourth, polling at 6%.
In South Carolina, another recent Fox News poll found Trump leading by more than 30 points. Ramaswamy came sixth in that poll with just 3%.
Ramaswamy has maintained that he is “not running against anyone,” including rival GOP presidential candidates and Democrat President Biden, stressing that he is running for “the vision of what it means to be American.”
“We don’t want too many PAC puppets,” Ramaswamy said. “We want an independent voice, and a patriot who really speaks the truth. That’s what I’m bringing to the race.”
![Trump on the Turning Point USA stage](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-1542990254.jpg)
Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, July 15, 2023. Trump is the current GOP front-runner. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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In a previous book, Ramaswamy argued that Trump falsely claimed he was undefeated in the 2020 election and raised millions of dollars from his supporters, “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream said. “What Trump did last week was wrong. Absolutely despicable. Plain and simple,” Ramaswamy previously tweeted on January 12, 2021. “I’ve said it before and I did it in my piece.”
During the appearance, Ramaswamy responded to Trump’s recent comments describing Chinese President Xi Jinping as “brilliant” and “an iron hand.” Ramaswamy said Xi is “a dictator, and China is the greatest threat facing the United States,” arguing that he stands apart from other 2024 candidates, including Trump, in campaigning for “economic independence” from China.
![Vivek Ramaswam during Sirius XM town hall](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-1500088016.jpg)
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at a SiriusXM town hall on June 20, 2023, in Philadelphia. (Lisa Lake/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
Ramaswamy said he also laid out a foreign policy plan based on breaking up the Sino-Russian alliance.
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“NATO was created to stop the USSR. The USSR no longer exists, but NATO expanded much more after the collapse of the USSR than it ever did during the USSR. So I think we have to ask the question, ‘What advances American interests?'” Ramaswamy said. “And for me, America’s top interest is breaking up the China-Russia alliance — ending the war in Ukraine, preventing us from funding another hundreds of billions of dollars to protect someone else’s border that we could use to protect our own border. And more importantly, it’s also the way we can prevent Xi Jinping from going after Taiwan.”