Excluded from Wednesday night’s CNN debate in Iowa, Vivek Ramaswamy still found a way to make his presence known to voters tuning in.
“Take your remote, and turn this [bleep] off,” Ramaswamy says in a direct-to-camera ad set to air during the debate.
As if preemptively dropping out of a debate for which he didn’t qualify wasn’t enough, Ramaswamy dedicated the front end of the ad to airing a litany of conspiracy theories in an attempt to present himself as the victim of censorship, not poor polling numbers.
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“The mainstream media is trying to rig the Iowa GOP caucus in favor of the corporate candidates who they can control,” Ramaswamy says over an ominous soundtrack.
The 38-year-old then proceeds to list off “the truth of what really happened on Jan. 6, the truth about the COVID origin,” and “the Hunter Biden laptop” as the main topics “they don’t want you to hear” from him about.
Airing for one night only, the ad will run across all nine of the TV markets touching Iowa, according to the Ramaswamy campaign.
“Now, the network of Don Lemon and Jim Acosta takes it upon themselves to disrespect Iowa voters and the caucasus by holding a debate and excluding Vivek when his polling clearly qualified for the stage,” campaign CEO Ben Yoho said in a statement, calling the network “the furthest thing from a credible news network” in the “most Orwellian, deeply cynical way.”
To qualify, Ramaswamy needed to hit at least 10 percent support in three separate national or Iowa-based polls meeting CNN’s standards—which were more stringent than the RNC’s for previous debates—as well as a CNN poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers.
