Ramaswamy Slammed for Mansplaining ‘Strategic Ambiguity’ to CNN Anchor: “I Think You Don’t Understand”

GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy faces serious backlash as his condescending tone and mansplaining to a CNN anchor garners criticism.

The Republican presidential candidate's discussion on China and Taiwan with CNN's Abby Phillip on November 15 turned into a mansplaining frenzy, reported HuffPost. It's possible that Ramaswamy was already irritated by a CNN report from earlier in the day that highlighted his unimpressive polling in the single digits, the juggling of campaign resources, and an aggressive third debate that caused his favorability rating to plunge further.

Ramaswamy explained that until the United States achieves semiconductor independence, it should protect Taiwan—a maker of semiconductors vital to American interests—from a Chinese invasion.

The United States should, therefore, go back to its “strategic ambiguity” strategy, he added. “Just as a final point of clarity on this,” Phillips said. “Once the United States achieves semiconductor independence, do you believe it will be in the United States’ national interest to deter China from invading Taiwan?”

After Phillip repeatedly questioned Ramaswamy for a straight response, he became quite condescending. “Abby, I think you don’t understand. Abby, do you even know what ‘strategic ambiguity’ means right now?” The anchor then responded, “I’m just asking you a simple question.”

Ramaswamy then began to mansplain what strategic ambiguity means to a Harvard-educated senior political correspondent, “Do you understand the current posture? The current posture is strategic ambiguity, and I feel you don’t know what that is. So I’m happy to educate you if you’re interested. Strategic ambiguity will be what we resume. It’s the current status quo, and that’s what we will resume after we’ve achieved semiconductor independence. It’s that simple.”

Many users slammed him on Twitter, with one posting, “Vivek Ramaswamy is, without question, the most obnoxious, disingenuous, loud-mouthed, rude, sexist, bullying candidate either party has produced (other than Donald Trump) in a very long time.”

Ramaswamy was previously slammed by social media in August when he patronized another CNN anchor Kaitlan Williams, per HuffPost. “Kaitlan, Kaitlan, Kaitlan, Kaitlan, Kaitlan! Of course, it’s not sufficient,” Ramaswamy said condescendingly when she asked about a clip from his speech. He continued his tirade, “I find it laughable that you will take that clip and then put words into my mouth as though that was a sufficient deterrent. Kaitlan, with due respect, that’s a joke, especially when I’ve offered as expansive of a deterrent strategy as I have.”

The two fought on, with Ramaswamy accusing her of journalistic sleaze and placing words in his mouth. “Kaitlan, you might be able to do this trick better with other candidates who don’t know how to respond to the game,” he said. 

His dismissive tone irritated many people at the time. “What a condescending prick,” a user tweeted. Another quipped with a wordplay on his name, “Rama..mansplaining.”