A few months ago, when he first began running for President, Vivek Ramaswamy tried to portray himself as a different kind of candidate. Like Donald Trump, he was a businessman with no political experience. He was supposed to be more polished, though, and willing to go on non-conservative news outlets to promote himself.
As time went on, though, Ramaswamy realized Republican voters weren't interested in a polished candidate. He's started to get more and more extreme and during last night's debate, he conspiracy theorized about the January 6th riots being an inside job.
Phil Mattingly, leading a CNN panel, played a clip of Ramaswamy, then commented, "You sound like an idiot."
Karen Finney then weighed in, "He went... full-on QAnon last night. It almost felt to me as if he knew he may not get another shot on the debate stage, so let me just put it all out there and try to whip up some of the people who believe all of those awful things. It was a pretty shocking litany."
Another panelist, John Avlon, weighed in, "It's worse than idiotic. That was the worst answer that I've heard in any debate because it was so pathetically pandering and disqualifying... that is a dog whistle to a certain segment of the Republican electorate that loves that legitimization that they just heard from the stage. It's worse than cynical -- it's sinister."