Republican primary candidate and conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy recently denounced the Colorado court ruling to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot. He claimed that the move is prohibited by the constitution and infringes upon democracy, as it subverts the interests of voters.
“It’s an unconstitutional and flagrant violation of the way we conduct elections in this country. This is not the way we do things in the United States of America. We the people are the ones who select our leaders, not unelected cabals of Democrat judges and back office,” Ramaswamy said.
In light of the controversial ruling, the Republican entrepreneur decided to withdraw his name from the primary ballot as a means of protest. “The reason I made the statement I did is very practical,” he continued. According to Vivek, if other members of the GOP primary joined in solidarity to remove their names from the ballot, it would nullify the impact of this “blatant election interference.” After calling on the other Republican challengers to join him in the decision, he expressed disappointment in their unwillingness to pull their names.
“If every Republican in the Colorado GOP primary also says, ‘We’re not participating,’ then this blatant act of election interference has no impact, so I wanted to lead by example to say that, if they are going to forcibly remove Trump’s name from that ballot, then I would voluntarily remove myself too, and called on Chris Christie and Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis to do the same thing. I have to say, I was disappointed to hear radio silence or worse from those other candidates who said they wanted to still collect their delegates,” he stated.
Ramaswamy noted that Trump’s absence on the ballot would only benefit him as a competing primary candidate. Still, in the interest of defending the principles of our republic, he could not sit idly and take advantage of the circumstances.
“I am running to win this election. It would be a lot easier for me, for us, if Donald Trump weren’t in the race to win, but what are we winning for? It’s to protect a constitutional republic. And that’s the first principle we have to stand for above all, so that’s why I made the decision that I did,” Vivek said.
Following the Colorado court’s decision last week, Ramaswamy took to X, posting a lengthy condemnation of the move. He stated that the ruling is an “actual” attack on American democracy, calling out the political establishment for trying “every trick in the book” to prevent Trump from running for president.
Last Tuesday, the court ruled 4-3 to disqualify Trump by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Ramaswamy also rebuked this assertion in his post on X, criticizing it as “absurd.”
Each of the other Republican primary candidates have denounced the Colorado ruling but haven’t gone as far as Ramswamy and removed their names from the ballot. Gov. DeSantis, Christ Christy, and Nikki Haley have all criticized the court decision as essentially being judicial overreach and interfering with Democracy.
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