Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy urged former President Donald Trump to lighten up on the campaign insults, a suggestion the feisty GOP elder appears to have disregarded.
Ramaswamy said on Wednesday he had repeatedly spoken to Trump about focusing on policy, not personality. Ramaswamy also claimed the former president was “receptive” to his criticism and is starting to follow his counsel, according to a report from Politico.
Ramaswamy specifically referenced a call he made to Trump after Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) to be her running mate. The straight-talking Republican remembered telling Trump that this was his chance to “shift the focus to policy.”
But since Walz made his entrance into the race, Trump hasn’t appeared to hold back on personal attacks against the vice president.
Just a day after Walz made his entrance into the race, Trump called Harris “crazy” and ridiculed her for “giving the same exact speech over and over” during a campaign rally in Montana.
“You know she got about nine different ways of pronouncing the name,” Trump told crowds as he joked about how he deliberately pronounces the vice president’s name incorrectly.
While Trump polls ahead of Harris in major national surveys, the vice president has shrunk his lead and stoked fears in the GOP camp that Trump needs to adjust his campaign strategy.
Despite Ramaswamy’s admonition to the former president, this week, it was the same Trump during an Asheville, North Carolina, campaign stop. On Wednesday, Trump called Harris “stupid” as he mocked her laugh.
“For nearly four years, Kamala has crackled as the American economy has burned,” Trump said as his supporters chuckled. “What happened to her laugh?” he questioned. “I haven’t heard that laugh in about a week! That’s why they keep her off the stage; that’s why she’s disappeared.
“‘Her laugh is career-threatening,’ they said — ‘don’t laugh,’” Trump continued, boosted by the cheering audience. “She doesn’t laugh anymore. It’s smart, but someday it’s going to come out. That’s the laugh of a person with some big problems.”
Ramaswamy ran a brief primary race against Trump this election cycle before dropping his bid in January. Since then, he’s given the former president a hearty endorsement and has become one of his top surrogates.
Now he’s one of many Republicans urging Trump to drop verbal slurs in favor of meaty debates.
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“The winning formula for President Trump is very plain to see,” former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said earlier this week. “It’s fewer insults, more insights, and that policy contrast.”
Ramaswamy on Wednesday sounded urgent as he warned Republicans would lose the election if Trump ignored warnings. If the GOP stays focused on policy distinctions, “I think we win,” he said. “And if not, I think we lose.”