Fox News host Sean Hannity pressed Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy about his foreign policy stances during an interview Tuesday night, honing in on his views on Israel.
“I want to go over some of the issues though. You know you said, aid to Israel, our No. 1 ally, only democracy in the region, should end in 2028, and that they should be integrated with their neighbors,” Hannity told Ramaswamy during an appearance on his prime-time program on Fox.
“That’s false,” Ramaswamy responded.
“I have an exact quote. You want me to read it?” Hannity countered.
“That’s actually … I can tell you the exact quote. What I said is it would be a mark of success if we ever got to a point in our relationship with Israel if Israel never needed the United States’s aid,” Ramaswamy said. “And, Sean, you know how politics is played. A lot of the other professional politicians who have been threatened by my rise have used that statement to say that I would cut off aid to Israel. That’s not correct.”
The Fox host pressed Ramaswamy on whether he understands “how important that alliance is and how important the intelligence factor is.”
“I understand it, I think more deeply than probably anybody in this race I’ve traveled to Israel. I have business partners in Israel,” he said. “The reality is this, by the end of my first term, our relationship with Israel will be stronger than it ever has been because I will treat it as a true friendship, not just a transactional religion.”
Ramaswamy made the controversial comments about Israel in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month.
“If we’re successful, the true mark of success for the U.S., and for Israel, will be to get to a 2028 where Israel is so strongly standing on its own two feet, integrated into the economic and security infrastructure of the rest of the Middle East, that it will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S.,” the candidate reportedly said.
Fellow 2024 contender Nikki Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, has been among those who have jumped on the remarks, accusing Ramaswamy of not supporting Israel during the first Republican debate last week.
On his campaign website, Ramaswamy shot back against Haley’s claim. “WRONG,” he wrote. “By the end of Vivek’s first term, the US-Israel relationship will be deeper and stronger than ever because it won’t be a client relationship, it will be a true friendship.”
Ramaswamy has seen a surge in interest and media attention in his campaign following last week’s presidential primary debate, though his support dropped slightly in national polls of GOP candidates this week.
And he remains far behind former President Trump, who Hannity is close friends with and spends hours on his radio and television shows promoting.
Last week Brian Kilmeade, another host at Fox, similarly pushed back on Ramaswamy’s positions relating to foreign policy.