GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is now joining forces with far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to go after Fox News star Sean Hannity, who put Ramaswamy through the wringer earlier this month in a “disaster” interview.
Ramaswamy’s anti-Fox collaboration with the notorious Sandy Hook truther is particularly noteworthy considering it was just this past summer that the biotech entrepreneur appeared to be the conservative cable giant’s preferred non-Trump contender for the Republican nomination.
During the latest episode of his TRUTH podcast, which streams on the social media platform formerly called Twitter, Ramaswamy welcomed Jones, describing the Infowars founder as the “most censored man in the world.” Despite Elon Musk reversing the suspensions of most controversial figures after purchasing Twitter, Jones and his media outlet remain banned from the site now known as X.
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For the vast majority of the friendly hour-long sitdown, Ramaswamy largely whistled past Jones’ history of peddling wild conspiracies about the 9/11 terror attacks and the Sandy Hook mass shooting, suggesting that Jones was merely a truth-seeker pushing back against the establishment.
Describing Jones as just “curious,” Ramaswamy went on to tell the Infowars host that “you’re in this to seek underlying truth that other people aren’t getting to.” The presidential candidate said this means that “once in a while, you’re going to find something that looks one way that wasn’t exactly the way you thought, and so maybe you were wrong.”
Jones, meanwhile, admitted that he’s “made a lot of mistakes,” seemingly satisfying any concerns Ramaswamy had about Jones’ unhinged conspiracy theories. Of course, at the same time, Ramaswamy himself has been accused of peddling trutherism about 9/11 being an “inside job.”
After expressing sympathy for Jones having to pay over a billion dollars to Sandy Hook families that he defamed, Ramaswamy eventually brought up the Hannity interview, which Jones admitted he had not seen yet. The “anti-woke” politician helpfully described it in detail for his guest.
“I’m making the case, I think it’s sane, that on the one hand, absolutely Israel is our ally, what happened to them was wrong, it was barbaric, it was medieval, and of course, they have the right to national self-defense,” Ramaswamy exclaimed. “But I’ve also said that we should not want to enter a broader regional conflict in the Middle East that doesn’t advance U.S. interests because we have to learn from our prior mistakes.”
Ramaswamy, who has been fundraising off the “disaster” interview, then brought up that much of the testy Fox News exchange revolved around his criticism of fellow GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s connections to national defense firms.
“And so I also pointed to others in the Republican Party like Nikki Haley who screech ‘finish them! finish them,’ talking about Hamas and Iran like there’s no distinction. Finish them! Okay, what are the consequences of that for the United States of America? So interestingly, this guy Hannity—I was very disappointed—comes after me for pointing out that Nikki Haley has made $8 million after her time as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. as a military contractor and otherwise!”
Describing that exchange as a “wake-up call” for him, Ramaswamy said he realized that it was disappointing to see a “purported conservative voice buy into what is the captured establishment Super PAC puppetry.”
Jones, for his part, turned to the camera to directly warn Hannity that “World War III” could be right around the corner. “These are the crazy times that it kicks off,” Jones sighed.
Unsaid by Ramaswamy is that much of Hannity’s contention centered on the presidential hopeful’s propensity to deny his own words. Specifically, Hannity took issue with Ramaswamy’s claims about the “financial and corrupting influences” that led to “selective moral outrage” over the Hamas terror attacks, only for Ramaswamy to insist the Fox host was mischaracterizing him when he read the quotes back.
“You do this in every single interview: You say stuff and then you deny it. You deny your own word,” Hannity shouted during their contentious exchange. “So, you know, why don’t you just own what you say and stand by it and stop playing these games?”
Towards the end of the podcast, Jones heaped praise on Ramaswamy and even told him that he’d be his preferred candidate in the 2024 presidential election—after Donald Trump.
“They may assassinate Trump, so you know, you're—I mean, I’d like him to get elected, but if not, [then] you,” Jones declared.
The Infowars star showing an affinity for Ramaswamy shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. In recent months, he has taken to calling the 38-year-old billionaire “Alex Jones 2.0.”
