Multimillionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said he has no regrets about zinging the likes of Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and NBC moderator Kristen Welker during the third GOP presidential primary debate Wednesday night.
He told Newsmax on Thursday if he can't be so bold on the debate stage, he has no business being president.
"I'm asking [the] people of this country to put me in a position to sit across the table from [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping and represent this nation," Ramaswamy told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "I better be willing to sit across the table from Ronna McDaniel, or Kristen Welker, or Nikki Haley.
"This is a small play compared to what's actually ahead. I expect to lead this country forward, but [if] I'm not going to have a spine on that debate stage, I don't deserve to be the next president."
Early in the debate, Ramaswamy called on McDaniel to step up to the debate stage and resign given the GOP's underwhelming performances in national elections since she became chair in 2017. He said the party needs to hold people like her accountable.
"I'm coming in from the outside," Ramaswamy said. "I don't believe in [a] lack of accountability. That's the problem with the Democrats, it's the problem of people who serve in government. We can't be the party that talks about bringing accountability to government if we don't have accountability within our own political party.
"It's nothing against her personally. It's just a fact of reversing a pattern that needs to end in this party. End this pattern of losing, and I think we cannot reward failure by saying that this person who's leading the RNC while we face these losses is absolutely the best person for the job. I believe in meritocracy, and meritocracy means you put the best person in the job."
Ramaswamy said he and other Republicans have rightly blamed President Joe Biden and Democrat lawmakers with problems ailing the country.
"But we have to have our own house in order in our own movement to be able to actually get this right," he said. "I can't be a credible critic of the Democrats if I'm not calling it 360 degrees all around."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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