DeSantis super PAC targets Ramaswamy over mirroring Obama in speeches

The super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) released a video Wednesday going after fellow GOP presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy for mirroring former President Obama in some of his remarks. 

The video, released by Never Back Down PAC, plays clips of Ramaswamy against clips of Obama, a Democrat, highlighting similar lines under on-screen text reading “Vivek copies Obama.”

One clip includes Ramaswamy’s opening line during the first GOP primary debate in Milwaukee last month, when he asked, “Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name, and what the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?” 

At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama — then a Senate hopeful from Illinois — called himself “a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another 2024 Republican candidate, called Ramaswamy out on the August debate stage for the echo of Obama. 

“The last person in one of these debates … who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What is a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama. And I am afraid we are dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight,” Christie said.

Never Back Down highlighted other lines from Obama’s 2004 speech — including “but they sense, deep in their bones” and a reference to “E pluribus unum” — in comparison to Ramaswamy’s presidential launch video.

In his launch, the entrepreneur also referred to the Latin motto and used the phrasing “I believe deep in my bones.”

“Vivek Ramaswamy is a fraud and a flip-flopper who has been caught in too many lies to count,” a Never Back Down spokesperson said, adding, “Xopying parts of Obama’s most famous speech for his campaign launch video just shows what an empty suit he really is.”

The Hill has reached out to Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment on the Never Back Down video.

Ramaswamy and DeSantis are among seven candidates set to face off onstage at the second GOP presidential primary debate Wednesday night in Simi Valley, Calif. The debate will be hosted by Fox Business.

Polling after the first debate indicated many in the GOP saw DeSantis and Ramaswamy as the top performers of the night.