Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is starting to remind MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” panel of Donald Trump quite a bit — and not just because he loudly touts lies and conspiracy theories. Mostly, it’s because “he’s all style and no substance.”
On Thursday’s episode of the talk show, host Willie Geist argued that, though Ramaswamy seems to be improving his standing simply because he’s getting so much attention, people need to realize exactly why he’s getting that attention.
“If you stop and listen to what he was saying, he was talking about completely cutting off Ukraine from aid, climate change is a hoax, ‘I’m gonna issue a preemptive pardon to Donald Trump,’” Geist recounted, referring to Ramaswamy’s performance at the first Republican debate.
“He’s questioned whether we should continue to support Israel, which has drawn the ire of a lot of Republicans,” Geist continued. “Even Sean Hannity had it out with him on that issue. It’s important to listen not just to how he’s saying things, but what he’s saying.”
Vanity Fair writer Molly Jong-Fast readily agreed, arguing that Ramaswamy “is really cut from the same cloth as Donald Trump.”
“He’s all style and no substance, which is very Trumpy, right?” she said. “He is a charismatic guy. And what I think that a lot of people were responding to during that debate was his style, right? His charisma, his ability to speak fast and sound like he knows what he’s talking about. But it’s very clear that there’s a lot of stuff that he’s either flip-flopping on or just blatantly lying.”
Expounding on that, Geist added that Ramaswamy is simply copying Trump in an attempt to win the MAGA base.
“I mean, he’s effectively in many ways doing an impersonation of Donald Trump,” Geist said. “And there’s a sense that he is a smart guy, and that this is all cynical and that he knows better on a lot of it. And so we might complain about what he said at the debate. But to the base, he’s pushing all the right buttons.”
You can watch the full discussion from “Morning Joe” in the video above.
