Ramaswamy Says Who He Thinks Are 'Vermin'

Former President Trump's use of the word "vermin" last weekend to describe his political enemies raised a red flag, with critics calling it "straight-up Nazi talk" and a Trump rep responding by calling those critics "snowflakes." Now, another GOP presidential candidate is getting in on throwing around the controversial term. The Daily Beast reports that businessman Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on CNN on Wednesday night, where he was asked by anchor Abby Phillip if he was bothered by Trump's use of such rhetoric. The short answer: apparently not.

The longer answer, in Ramaswamy's words, via Sky News: "This is a classic mainstream media move: Pick some individual phrase of Donald Trump—focus on literally that word, without actually interrogating the substance of what's at issue." He went on to say that he hadn't used that language himself—including to describe migrants coming into the US along the southern border, which he called an "invasion"—and at first insisted he wasn't going to "play some game of focusing on some word that somebody else said," per Fox News.

Soon, however, Ramaswamy deployed that particular word himself. "You know what's vermin?" he said to Phillip. "What's running around San Francisco on a given day before Gavin Newsom cleaned it up on a dime to roll out the red carpet for Xi Jinping." Ramaswamy was referring to the California governor's cleanup of that city in advance of the Chinese leader's visit, including by clearing out some of San Francisco's homeless encampments. (More Vivek Ramaswamy stories.)