Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican who is running for U.S. president in 2024, faced a backlash on Tuesday after he was caught on tape questioning the role of federal agents in the 9/11 attacks and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In an interview with The Atlantic published on Monday, Ramaswamy said he wanted to know how many police and federal agents were on the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. He also suggested that there was a high percentage of armed federal law-enforcement officers among the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The 38-year-old presidential candidate claimed that his quote about 9/11 was inaccurate and that he did not believe in any conspiracy theories. He told CNN that the reporter had misquoted him and that he stood by the “spirit” of his statement. He also told Fox News that he had no doubt that there were no federal agents on the planes and that his point was “of course not”.
On Tuesday, The Atlantic released the audio of the interview, which confirmed that Ramaswamy had said exactly what was reported.
{{/usCountry}}On Tuesday, The Atlantic released the audio of the interview, which confirmed that Ramaswamy had said exactly what was reported.
{{/usCountry}}The reporter, John Hendrickson, asked Ramaswamy what he meant by saying that “we can handle the truth about January 6”. Ramaswamy replied, “I don’t know, but we can handle it. Government agents. How many government agents were in the field? Right?” He then went on to compare Jan. 6 to 9/11 and said that he thought the number of federal agents involved in the Capitol riot was “probably high”.
Ramaswamy’s campaign thanked The Atlantic for releasing the audio but insisted that he was taken out of context. A campaign spokeswoman said that the audio showed only a small snippet of the conversation and that they wanted more of the recording to be released to show the full context and reality.
The Indian-origin ‘outsider’ has previously expressed skepticism about the official narrative of 9/11. In an earlier interview with Blaze TV, he said that he did not believe the government had told us the truth about the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Ramaswamy claimed that he was not convinced by the official account of 9/11 and that he had reasons to doubt the government’s honesty.
“I’m driven by evidence and data. What I’ve seen in the last several years is we have to be skeptical of what the government does tell us. I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary, but do I believe everything the government told us about it? Absolutely not. Do I believe the 9/11 Commission? Absolutely not,” He said in an interview with Blaze TV.
Ramaswamy later clarified that he was referring to the alleged role of Saudi Arabia in the attacks and that the government had lied about it. He told CNN, “On 9/11, what I’ve said is that the government lied. And this is incontrovertible evidence, Kaitlan. The government lied about Saudi Arabia’s involvement.”
Ramaswamy also mocked his CNN interviewer, Kaitlan Collins, on X, a social media platform that replaced Twitter. He wrote, “Felt like I was talking to a petulant teenager.” He added that his experience on CNN was “hilarious”.