Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign slammed Vivek Ramaswamy for supposedly flip-flopping on the issue of Jan. 6 on Sunday, highlighting the fellow Republican presidential candidate’s past comments that condemned the incident.
Pence’s campaign produced multiple instances in which Ramaswamy appeared to contradict his own past statements about the pro-Trump storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“On August 4, 2023, [Ramaswamy] refused to say he would have certified the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021,” the Pence campaign wrote. “Yet at Wednesday’s GOP debate, he raised his hand in support of what Mike Pence did in following the Constitution.”
The campaign cited a Jan. 11, 2021, op-ed Ramaswamy wrote for the Wall Street Journal in which he referred to the “disgraceful Capitol riot” as a “stain on American history.”
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The following day on Jan. 12, 2021, Ramaswamy referred to his op-ed in a statement: “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple. I’ve said it before and did so in my piece.”
A litany of other examples followed. The Pence campaign referred to Ramaswamy’s own book, “Nation of Victims,” which was published in 2022.
“It was a dark day for democracy. The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again,” Ramaswamy wrote. “I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.”
“I was especially disappointed when I saw President Trump take a page from the Stacey Abrams playbook,” Ramaswamy wrote. “His claims were just as weak as Abrams’.”
Ramaswamy’s tune on the Capitol riot seemed to change in June and July as he seemed to take a far more sympathetic view of the incident.
“I will pardon *all* Americans who were targets of politicized federal prosecutions & those who were denied due process. This includes all peaceful Jan 6 protesters. It’s important that every candidate is clear about where we stand on the hard issues, not just the standard GOP talking points,” he wrote June 8 on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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The candidate emphasized that view again in mid-July, stating that “pervasive censorship” caused Jan. 6.
“You tell people in this country they cannot speak. That is when they scream. You tell people they cannot scream. That is when they tear things down,” he said at the time.
Ramaswamy was asked about the issue again Sunday morning during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said he would have championed “reforms” to the voting process and made the certification of the election result contingent on passing those reforms.
