(HorizonPost.com) – On the Saturday before the Iowa Caucuses, Donald Trump turned on Vivek Ramaswamy, launching an attack against the Republican presidential candidate whom he declared was “not MAGA,” CNN reported.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump noted that Ramaswamy launched his campaign for president “as a great supporter,” but now he was disguising his support for Trump with “deceitful campaign tricks.”
Calling Ramaswamy “sly,” Trump told his Truth Social followers that voting for Ramaswamy would be a vote for “the ‘other side.’”
Ramaswamy’s sin was posting a photo on social media posing with a group of supporters wearing T-shirts featuring Trump’s mug shot and the caption, “Save Trump, vote Vivek.”
A Trump campaign advisor told CNN that the picture “infuriated” the former president, who reportedly believes that Ramaswamy was trying to undercut Trump’s support while portraying himself as a Trump supporter.
Trump was also irritated that Ramaswamy described him as “wounded” in an interview he gave earlier this month with the Des Moines Register and NBC News.
The advisor told CNN that Ramaswamy’s slights against Trump had not gone unnoticed.
In an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning, Ramaswamy was asked by host Steve Doocy about the former president’s attack.
Doocy asked the longshot candidate why he thought Trump threw him under the bus.
Ramaswamy took issue with Doocy’s question, arguing that Trump hadn’t thrown him “anywhere.” He claimed that he took Trump’s attack “in a lighthearted way” and argued that the mainstream media was ignoring the fact that he had been surging in Iowa “late in the process.”
Ramaswamy assured Doocy that the media would “see a shock tonight,” hinting that he would do well in the Iowa caucus.
As it happened, Trump won the Iowa Caucus with about 51 percent of the vote, with Ron DeSantis coming in second and Nikki Haley coming in third. Ramaswamy came in a distant fourth place with only 8 percent of the vote.
During his concession speech, Ramaswamy announced that he was dropping out of the race and threw his support behind Trump.
Copyright 2024, HorizonPost.com
