Ramaswamy says he won’t let Trump dodge debates

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday said he won’t let former President Trump “get away” with not participating in the GOP’s primary debates.

“If Donald Trump doesn’t do debates, will you not support him, if he’s the nominee?” host Chuck Todd asked the conservative entrepreneur on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I’m not gonna let him get away with that,” Ramaswamy responded.

Trump last week floated the possibility of skipping the two Republican presidential primary debates announced so far, citing his high poll numbers.

Ramaswamy on Sunday said that Trump, who announced his 2024 campaign late last year, was an “outsider and a disrupter” when he first ran for office, but that he now risks appearing like “existing establishment.”

“I don’t think the other candidates, including Donald Trump, are gonna relish being on that debate stage with me. …. What people gave him credit for was that he was [an] outsider and a disrupter. I’m the outsider in this race. And I think that if you want to be like Joe Biden, an existing establishment that doesn’t want to debate, I think people are hungry for new blood,” he added.

Asked what leverage the Republican Party should use to get Trump to the debate stage, Ramaswamy said that he thinks it’s his job and the job of candidates “to tell voters that if you want someone sitting across the table from Xi Jinping, if you want someone with the spine to take on the administrative state … you better darn well not be scared to show up on a debate stage with the new challenger.”