Ohio biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is firing back against Republican presidential opponent Nikki Haley in a blistering war of words over his position on U.S.-Israel relations.
Ramaswamy took aim at the former United Nations ambassador after her appearance Tuesday on Fox News in which she claimed that Ramaswamy would “abandon Israel” as president. Haley has turned the same accusation since last week’s first GOP debate of the 2024 presidential primary season.
Ramaswamy, a top-tier candidate who has seen his poll numbers soar in recent weeks, blasted Haley for “lying” about his “strong support for Israel” and his “clear commitment to defend Taiwan, which is unique in the Republican field.”
“We challenge the failing Haley campaign and any media outlet to find a single instance where Vivek utters that he would not support Israel. They will not – because Vivek never said it,” Ramaswamy’s campaign said in a press release. “Instead, they continue to recycle blatantly false headlines that they manufactured. Vivek said that if Israel ever gets to the point that it no longer needs U.S. financial support, that would be a mark of achievement – but that the U.S. will never cut off aid to Israel until Israel says they are ready for it.”
In an interview earlier this month on the podcast “Stay Free with Russell Brand,” Ramaswamy said he wants to expand the Abraham Accords, the pillar of former President Donald Trump’s Middle East policy that normalized relations between Israel and a few Arab nations. Expanded and improved relations with Israel and more of its neighbors would make it so additional aid for Israel “won’t be necessary” by 2028, the expiration date on the current aid package, Ramaswamy told Brand.
Ramaswamy, like Trump, has hammered home an “America First” vision of foreign policy, pushing back hard against what he and many other conservatives see as a globalist takeover of U.S. interests at home and abroad. While Ramaswamy said he would “never leave Israel hanging out to dry,” America’s interests must come first.
“There’s no North Star commitment to any one country other than the United States of America,” he told Brand, a British actor and activist.
Israel, a critical U.S. ally in the Middle East, has long enjoyed bipartisan support. The current memorandum of understanding between the two nations grants Israel $3.8 billion annually in U.S. aid until it expires in 2028.
Ramaswamy has said the U.S. needs to honor its current commitments to Israel while moving to stabilize an ever-unstable region of the world. The political outsider is proposing an “Abraham Accords 2.0” that he said would strengthen U.S.-Israeli relations on the basis of a “friendship,” not a “client relationship.” He laid out his recalibrated America First foreign policy ideas this week in a piece published in The American Conservative.
Haley, trailing Ramaswamy in the polls but reportedly seeing a post-debate boost, has attacked the millennial Republican candidate for his lack of political and foreign policy experience. At the debate, she hammered Ramaswamy on his position on Israel and his opposition to continuing U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine.
Post-debate, the Haley campaign quickly fired out a press release asserting, “Nikki Haley will make America strong, Ramaswamy will make America weak.”
As he vies nationally for second place against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary polls, Ramaswamy has taken increasing flak from rival campaigns, particularly Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump hater No. 1, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Ramaswamy’s campaign this week rolled out a “Truth Over Myth” fact checker on his campaign website. The anti-woke crusader, whose one-word campaign slogan is “Truth,” said the site will debunk “the biggest lies and planted trash being peddled” about the political outsider “by other insecure campaigns, Super PAC puppets, ‘listless vessels’ of the political establishment, and fake establishment media.”
In answering the attacks from Haley, Ramaswamy’s campaign took a parting shot at the former South Carolina governor.
“We wish Ambassador Haley and her family well in their future careers in the private sector, noting that they rapidly generated an impressive fortune as military contractors following her short-lived stint as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,” the press release stated.
The campaign referred to reports that Haley’s financial disclosures noted that as much as $500,000 of her husband’s net worth was generated in“military technical services company.” Michael Haley is a major in the South Carolina Army National Guard.
“By contrast, as Vivek continues his own path to serve as the next U.S. President, he will speak the TRUTH about his views without apology.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Vivek Ramaswamy” by Vivek Ramaswamy. Photo ‘Nikki Haley” by Nikki Haley.
