‘Deafeningly Silent’: Republican Presidential Candidate Demands Action From Governor DeSantis, Nikki Haley Following News of Trump Indictment

On Saturday evening, businessman and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy held a press convergence following a campaign event in South Carolina calling upon Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to join him in demanding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) drop the potential indictment against President Donald Trump.

As previously reported by the DC Enquirer, five senior officials told NBC News that law enforcement agencies are conducting “preliminary security assessments” for the Manhattan Criminal Court in case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) brings charges. 

In response to this news, President Trump responded, saying that he will be “arrested” on Tuesday:

“Our nation is now third world and dying. The American dream is dead! The radical left anarchists have stolen our presidential election, and with it, the heart of our country. American patriots are being arrested and held in captivity like animals, while criminals and leftist thugs are allowed to roam the streets, killing and burning with no retribution. Millions are flooding through our open borders, many from prisons and mental institutions. Crime and inflation are destroying our very way of life. Now illegal leaks from a corrupt and highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has allowed new records to be set in violence crime and whose leader is funded by George Soros indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven, and based on an old and fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale, the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take our nation back!”

In response, Vivek demanded his fellow Republican candidates, both prospective and current, demand the end of the investigation.

“I held a press conference following my South Carolina speech,” Vivek wrote. “I called on GOP donor class favorites [Governor Ron DeSantis] and [Nikki Haley] to join me by 9 AM tomorrow in calling on the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to abandon the political persecution through prosecution of the 45th president.”

“Today was an important day in the country so the reason I am doing this is because the rest of the Republican field I think has been deafeningly silent about an important issue in the country today,” he said. “Yes I know it’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Yes, I know there are a lot of other issues in education and elsewhere that need to be addressed. But that’s not the news from today. The news from today was that this morning we learned that it is likely that the New York Manhattan District Attorney is likely to indict a former President of the United States that is running for office.”

“Now I want to be very clear. I am in a presidential primary running against that individual, Donald Trump,” the candidate stated. “But what I am about to say has nothing to do with Donald Trump and has everything to do with the integrity of an election and the integrity of a self-governing democracy. So I don’t care whether you root for Trump or you don’t. If you root for the integrity of our constitutional republic then you need to be on the side, we need to be really clear. We can’t have politically empowered prosecutors eliminating the opposition of a ruling party using arrest power. It is a sad day in America. It is a dark day in America if you have the ruling party in this country using police power to arrest its political opposition. That would be the beginning of the end as we know it.”

AS TRUMP FACES POTENTIAL INDICTMENT, FINANCIAL RECORDS ALLEGEDLY SHOW BIDEN FAMILY RECIEVED MILLIONS FROM CHINESE COMPANY

Ramaswamy then went on to call for those who disagree with Trump to engage in a thought exercise back to 2004 emphasizing that if John Kerry was arrested for a technical campaign finance violation, he said that “liberals would have cried bloody murder and you know what? They would have been right.”

“Whatever your politics are, we put principles first. So the thing that disappoints me is that I said that this morning as soon as I read the news,” Vivek continued. “I didn’t ask my political consultants or anything else. Put out a statement the fastest way I knew how and that’s on Twitter. And I expected my lead Republican fellow candidates in this race, perspective or actual, to follow suit. This isn’t about, you know we’re running against the guy that’s fine, but this is about the principles.”

“We should want to win not by eliminating the competition but by earning the trust of the voters. That’s what I’m trying to do,” he emphasized. “What I heard instead was silence. So the announcement that I want to make tonight to be crystal clear is by tomorrow morning I would like for even the beloved donor class favorites in this race, including Nikki Haley, including Ron DeSantis, to join me in calling on the New York Manhattan district attorney to abandon this political persecution through prosecution. It’s a very clear statement.”

“Either you are on that side of actually avoiding that political persecution as prosecution or you’re not. If you’re not that’s fine but you better explain why,” the businessman remarked, adding, “But I think that the Republican voter base, the Republican primary voters, and the conservative movement deserves transparency, it deserves candor. And if you are not going to stand up then you need to step out of the way. We need to stop being fake in our own party. We need to stop being beholden to a donor class that as we speak is being asked for permission to say the things that we are seeing.”

“The GOP needs to liberate itself from that donor class and start speaking candidly to its base again. Teddy Roosevelt said ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’ We have leaders in this party to speak loudly but when push comes to shove they carry a small stick,” he continued during the press conference. “Teddy Roosevelt is rolling over in his grave but no longer. I’m going to be very clear. It is a challenge, it is a demand that I make to my fellow candidates running in this race, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley included, to clearly come out and state whether they join me in that call to the Manhattan district attorney to abandon a political prosecution that if they do, that will be good for this country, but if they don’t that will be the beginning of the end of much of the American experiment as we know it for a generation. We cannot afford that. Please join me in that movement calling for justice.”

Americans are waiting to see what Governor DeSantis and Nikki Haley have to say about the potential indictment against Trump. Ramaswamy’s demand that they speak out will likely increase that pressure.

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