Rising Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is catching heat from detractors after he was caught plagiarizing part of a speech from then-candidate Barack Obama from 2008.
The multimillionaire entrepreneur Ramaswamy appeared to channel Melania Trump during the first Republican debate in Iowa on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. Most remember that Melania Trump also infamously stole a portion of a speech from former first lady Michelle Obama and believed that no one would detect it.
While introducing himself to conservative America, Ramaswamy rhetorically asked the nearly homogenous crowd, “Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name? What the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?” Ramaswamy said during the opening round of the debate.
Vivek Ramaswamy pulled a Melania tonight and plagiarized a famous speech by President Obama. He auditioned to be Trump's VP all evening just to have Nikki Haley destroy him 😂 #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/o2NwAQQVQE
— Jon Pierre 🪩 (@Mr_Repertoire) August 24, 2023
Other GOP candidates immediately remembered that Obama made that same statement more than a decade ago, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who torched Ramaswamy for swagger jacking.
“The last person who stood up here saying, ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight,” Christie spat at Ramaswamy.
— Ramaswamy says he is the only person on the stage not "bought and paid-for"
— Christie says he sounds like Chat GPT #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/dK7wRYJLiq
— ElectionMuse (@ElectionMuse) August 24, 2023
This is not the first time that Ramaswamy has come off as dastardly and unscrupulous. Two months after imploring his Twitter followers to celebrate the new Juneteenth holiday, Ramaswamy told an all-White crowd in Iowa that Juneteenth was “useless” and said the national holiday should be eradicated.
