Republican debate: Indian-American Ramaswamy calls US support to Ukraine 'disastrous'

The youngest Presidential candidate from the Republican party, Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy, has termed the US support for Ukraine, amid the conflict with Russia, as “disastrous” saying that if he is elected President, he would not support an increase in aid to the battle-scarred country, reported CNN. The tech entrepreneur made these remarks at the ongoing Republicans party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate. He added that the resources going to Kyiv should be used domestically, instead. To a question from the moderator, Brett Baier of Fox News, Ramaswamy was the only one of the eight Republican contenders to raise his hand. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would push the US’ European partners to increase their support while appearing to lift one arm only partially. “Our support should be contingent on them doing it,” DeSantis remarked, according to CNN. “This is disastrous…we are protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border when we should use those same military resources to prevent the invasion across our southern border here in the United States of America," Ramaswamy said at the Fox News debate. “We need to secure our own border instead of somebody else’s,” he added. Pointing to other candidates who had visited Ukraine, Ramaswamy claimed that they wouldn’t have done the same for residents of “Maui, the southside of Chicago, or Kensington.” Former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who travelled to Ukraine, refuted Ramaswamy’s assertions. Christie said he wished to see “what Vladimir Putin’s army was doing to the free Ukrainian people”. Christie talked about the atrocities reported from the battle as well as the kidnapping of Ukrainian children by Russians. “This is the Vladimir Putin who Donald Trump called brilliant and a genius. If we don’t stand up against this type of autocratic killing in the world, we will be next,” Christie said, according to CNN. Eight Republican presidential candidates are on stage in Milwaukee for the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign. The contenders are attempting to establish why they are the best suitable replacement for front-runner Donald Trump, who elected not to participate, in the debate. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, has previously engaged in a number of heated discussions with other GOP candidates during the debate stage. Ramaswamy is a biotech and healthcare entrepreneur who has written two books, ‘Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence’ and ‘Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam’, CNN reported. “To put America first, we need to rediscover what America is. That’s why I am running for president,” Ramaswamy wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial earlier this year, adding, “I am launching not only a political campaign but a cultural movement to create a new American Dream—one that is not only about money but about the unapologetic pursuit of excellence.” “We embrace secular religions like climatism, Covidism and gender ideology to satisfy our need for meaning, yet we can’t answer what it means to be an American,” Ramaswamy wrote in the Journal. “The Republican Party’s top priority should be to fill this void with an inspiring national identity that dilutes the woke agenda to irrelevance,” he added. The editorial also demanded that the border be secured, affirmative action be abandoned, and that civil service protections for federal workers be revoked. While Ramaswamy is competing with seasoned politicians in Republican primary surveys, he is still in the single digits and far behind former President Donald Trump, CNN reported. The tech entrepreneur tweeted a shirtless video of himself playing tennis on Monday, describing it as his preparation for a debate. The 37-year-old lawmaker was born on 9 August, 1985 and was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents migrated to the US from Kerala. He is the third Indian-American — along with Nikki Haley and Hirsh Vardhan Singh — who will be up against former President Donald Trump in the primaries in January next year.