GOP presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is set to air an advertisement during Wednesday’s CNN debate calling on viewers to “turn this s— off.”
In the ad, Ramaswamy claims the “mainstream media is trying to rig the Iowa GOP caucus in favor of the corporate candidates who they can control.”
“They don’t want you to hear from me, about the truth of what really happened on January 6, the truth about the COVID origin, the Hunter Biden laptop story and everything else they have lied to you about,” Ramaswamy says in the ad. “So, you can fix that. Take your remote and turn this s— off.”
As Ramaswamy lets loose the expletive — which is censored in the ad — he appears to press a button on a TV remote, and the video appears to shut off like a TV itself.
Ramaswamy’s diss toward CNN mirrors other recent statements he has made about the network ahead of the debate between fellow GOP candidates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week, Ramaswamy said Wednesday’s CNN debate will be “the most boring in modern history.”
At the end of last month, he went after the network over its town halls with him and Haley.
“CNN’s egregious interference with the Iowa GOP caucus is offensive,” Ramaswamy wrote in another post on X. “My CNN town hall with the voters here went so well that they cut it off early & then threatened our campaign with a cease-and-desist for posting it on YouTube, while Nikki Haley’s scripted CNN town hall from 6 months ago is still up.”
“Then CNN notified our campaign within 48 hours that multiple qualifying polls that the RNC used for its debates wouldn’t count for CNN’s fake ‘debate’ that they’re hosting in Iowa on January 10,” Ramaswamy continued. “The dishonesty needs to end.”
Asked about Ramaswamy’s new ad, a CNN source noted that he did not meet the criteria established a month prior to make the debate stage in Iowa.
Updated: 12:54 p.m.