Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy praised Ann Coulter on Wednesday after she told him she couldn’t vote for him because he’s “an Indian.”
After Ramaswamy introduced Coulter on his podcast, Coulter replied, “Thanks for having me, that was a fantastic opening monologue. I too am a fan of yours, so I’m going to make a point of disagreeing with you so it will be fun. You are so bright and articulate, and I guess I can call you articulate since you’re not an American Black. Can’t say that about them, that’s derogatory.”
She continued, “I agreed with many, many things you said during– in fact, probably more than most other candidates when you were running for president, but I still would not have voted for you because you’re an Indian. We’ll get back to that.”
As Ramaswamy sat with a neutral expression, Coulter explained her comment.
“There is a core national identity that is the identity of the WASP and that doesn’t mean we can’t take anyone else in, a Sri Lankan, or a Japanese, or an Indian, but the core around which the nation’s values are formed is the WASP,” she said.
Coulter noted, “We’ve never had a president who didn’t have at least partial English ancestry. Never. We’ve only had one Catholic president [sic]. There was only one Catholic signatory to the Declaration of Independence. They were all not only protestants, but pretty much Presbyterian.”
Ramaswamy pushed back on Coulter, making the argument that an immigrant or the children of immigrants could have greater loyalty to the United States than a seventh-generation American who hates their own country.
After the podcast, Ramaswamy took to social media to praise Coulter for her candor, despite adding that he personally disagreed with her views.
“@AnnCoulter told me flat-out to my face that she couldn’t vote for me ‘because you’re an Indian,’ even though she agreed with me more than most other candidates,” he wrote. “I disagree with her but respect she had the guts to speak her mind. It was a riveting hour. The TRUTH podcast is back.”
In January, one of Ramaswamy’s supporters reportedly told his campaign that some Iowa Republicans were hesitant to vote for him because of his “dark skin” and because “they think he’s Muslim.”
According to NBC News, Ramaswamy’s wife “listened intently” to the report before acknowledging, “Not much we can do about that one.”
Watch above via Vivek Ramaswamy’s TRUTH Podcast.
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