O.J. Simpson on Sunday released a video suggesting Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is “onto something” but said he should “untie” himself from some in the party, floating the idea he could run alongside fellow candidate Nikki Haley.
“Just like the debates, the Republican debates, I said, ‘Hey, this guy’s onto something,’” Simpson said of Ramaswamy’s performance at the first GOP presidential debate last week and an appearance on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend. “Then he’ll say something else, oh my god. I attribute it to his youth.”
The disgraced former running back said he has “a little problem” with Ramaswamy’s foreign affairs positions, but he chalked it up to the candidate’s youth and lauded his “fresh” perspectives. He said one way to fill that gap in foreign experience was to consider fellow GOP candidate Nikki Haley, a former ambassador, as a running mate, which Simpson said would give Ramaswamy “a chance.”
“I think he gets in trouble when he seems to want to try to placate some other politicians in his party,” Simpson added.
In his Sunday “Meet the Press” appearance, Ramaswamy said he’d make former President Trump — who is facing several legal battles as he runs for another White House term — an “adviser” and “mentor” if he wins the office. He’s pitched himself as a nonpolitician and a new generation for the GOP, but he has also been vocal in his support for the former president, promising to pardon Trump if he’s convicted in one of his cases.
Ramaswamy was a top target for his fellow candidates on last week’s debate stage in Milwaukee.
Former Vice President Mike Pence made an apparent swipe at the youngest candidate on stage, saying “we don’t need to bring in a rookie.”
Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, blasted Ramaswamy with a jab that “you have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”
He’s also stepped into recent controversy over remarks last week comparing Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) to “grand wizards” in the Ku Klux Klan, comments that he doubled down on in another Sunday show appearance on CNN this weekend.