Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd knocked the foreign policy of fellow White House hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, calling it “always wrong, never in doubt.”
“Vivek Ramaswamy’s approach to foreign policy can be summed up simply: always wrong, never in doubt,” Hurd wrote Tuesday in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Truth: Tens of thousands of undocumented killings of civilians, rapes, torture, and destruction of non-military sites make Vladimir [Putin] a war criminal.”
The former Texas congressman followed up his criticism with a call for fundraising, writing on X, “Support a presidential candidate who won’t kiss Putin’s butt here.”
Hurd was responding to a video posted by CNN where Ramaswamy declined to call the Russian president a war criminal and instead suggested it was up to the International Criminal Court to make such a judgement.
Ramaswamy has faced backlash from multiple GOP candidates in recent weeks over his proposed foreign policies, specifically his stance on the Russia-Ukraine war. The biotech entrepreneur has vowed to cede territory taken by Russia in eastern Ukraine and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO in exchange for Russia ending its military alliance with China, a position some have argued is Putin-friendly.
His foreign policy also took center stage at the first GOP primary debate last month, where he was the only candidate to raise his hand when asked who would not support continued funding for Ukraine. The move prompted GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley to argue Ramaswamy has “no foreign policy experience and it shows.”
John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under former President Trump, compared Ramaswamy’s comments about the war in Ukraine to those of Trump, who has suggested he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours.
“I think Ramaswamy reminds me an awful lot of Donald Trump,” Bolton said Tuesday in a CNN interview. “He has very firm opinions on subjects he knows absolutely nothing about.”
Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the two leading GOP presidential candidates, have shared similar concerns about U.S. support for Kyiv.