Megyn Kelly slams Ramaswamy over 9/11 comments: ‘dumba– thing to say’

Megyn Kelly ripped GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday over his history of questioning the 9/11 attacks and reluctance to own up to or apologize for his previous comments.

“Just f—ing own it! … You screwed up; it was a dumba– thing to say. Abide by your ‘truth’ brand and own it,” she said on her SiriusXM show.

Ramaswamy cast doubt on the official conclusions about the 9/11 attacks in two separate interviews over the last month. In the second, he suggested that federal agents could have been on the planes taken over by Islamic terrorists Sept. 11, 2001.

“Vivek is in the midst of a controversy entirely of his own making, and it’s irritating on a few different levels,” Kelly said. “He’s been playing footsie with 9/11 trutherism … and I have to say it’s just deeply offensive on a number of levels, not to mention disrespectful to the families of the victims.”

“Why is he doing this? This is totally unnecessary. He’s rolling along just fine,” she added.

Ramaswamy first cast doubt on the outcome of U.S. government investigations into the 9/11 attacks in a BlazeTV interview earlier this month.

“I don’t believe everything the government has told us about 9/11,” he said, when asked whether 9/11 was an “inside job.”

He also questioned the attacks in an interview with The Atlantic published Monday. There, he says there is a “legitimate” question to ask over how many federal agents died on the planes in the attack, implying that the U.S. government was aware of the ensuing hijackings.

“I think it is legitimate to say, ‘How many police, how many federal agents were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers?’,” he told The Atlantic. “Like, I think we want — maybe the answer is zero, probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.” 

Kelly harshly denounced Ramaswamy’s comments.

“Why is that a legitimate question? What is he saying? I thought we weren’t pushing ‘baseless theories?’” she said.

She called the comments “bizarre conspiracy crap pandering nonsense” and also went after how he avoided apologizing for the remarks this week.

In a contentious CNN interview Monday, Ramaswamy claimed that The Atlantic misquoted him and denied that he said the quote. The Atlantic reporter later released his recording of the interview, confirming that Ramaswamy did actually say it.

“Vivek’s whole rap is ‘I’m the one based in facts and truth.’ Great, let’s have some,” Kelly said.

Ramaswamy went on to criticize CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who did the interview, calling her a “petulant teenager.” That wasn’t the right move, Kelly said.

“Her demeanor was not the problem here, his dishonesty was,” she said. “It was wrong of the Democrats to compare Jan. 6 to 9/11. Outrageous. And we called them out on it, repeatedly. But it was also wrong of Vivek to use baseless bulls— conspiracy theories about federal agents on the 9/11 planes to make his case about government dishonesty.”

The candidate’s comments have riled one of his GOP primary rivals. Former Vice President Mike Pence said earlier this month that Ramaswamy’s comments “deeply offended” him.

“I understand he was probably in grade school on 9/11 and I was on Capitol Hill,” Pence said of the 38-year-old GOP candidate.

“I think comments like that, conspiracy theories like that, dishonor the service and sacrifice of our armed forces who fought against our enemies determined to kill us,” Pence added.

Ramaswamy has raced up polls in recent weeks, months after he entered the campaign as a political unknown. The Ohio pharmaceutical and biomedicine businessman has about 10 percent support in national polls on average.

Both Ramaswamy and Pence will appear at the first GOP debate Wednesday alongside the race’s other top candidates, with the exception of former President Trump, who decided to skip the event.