Comparing biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to an “annoying freshman roommate” and claiming he was auditioning to be a “fill-in” host on Fox News, MSNBC hosts gleefully took turns ridiculing the breakout GOP presidential candidate following Wednesday night’s “shitshow” of debate.
With clear frontrunner Donald Trump skipping the first Republican debate of the 2024 election cycle, Ramaswamy replaced the quadruply indicted ex-president as the center of attention on the Milwaukee stage Wednesday night.
Whether it was calling climate change a “hoax,” claiming he was the only candidate who wasn’t “bought and paid for,” or getting into skirmishes with every other candidate, the “anti-woke” businessman made sure to keep the spotlight squarely on himself. Naturally, this came much to the chagrin of his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls.
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Moments after the debate concluded, MSNBC host Joy Reid noted that most of the candidates didn’t even seem like they were actually running for president, especially considering that Trump currently has a polling lead of over 40 points.
“They all felt like they could be Cabinet members in a Trump administration,” she observed. “None of them struck me as somebody who could actually be president.”
As for Ramaswamy, Reid added that he “just seemed like sort of your annoying freshman roommate in college” and it wasn’t “clear what he was trying to do that other than to be provocative at every moment that he could.”
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, meanwhile, agreed that Ramaswamy was the “dominant figure at the debate” before suggesting that it may not have been to his benefit.
“I’m not sure he did himself any favors in terms of people liking him, but he took up the most airtime,” she declared. “It sort of felt like he was the snappy podcast host and everybody else was his guest.”
Wasting no time, host Nicolle Wallace snarked that perhaps the media-obsessed millionaire was actually trying out for a different position.
“I thought he was sort of running to be Jesse Watters’ fill-in, like he seemed much more like a Fox host,” she quipped. “Like trying to get a word in on The Five. You know, like he seemed more like a banterer than a policymaker.”
Of course, in recent weeks, Fox News has seemingly pivoted to Ramaswamy as their Trump alternative in the GOP field, replacing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—a fact that didn’t seem lost on Wallace.
