Former Vice President Mike Pence criticized fellow Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over the weekend for appearing to make contradictory statements about Israel, saying that he has a “pattern” where he “goes one direction, then goes back another direction.”
Pence made the remarks during an with Fox News host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” when discussing the recent first GOP primary debate and shots that the candidates have taken at each other in the days that have followed.
Bream played a clip of Ramaswamy telling the network on Friday that he fully backs Israel militarily after he previously said that he eventually wanted to cut off aid to Israel and other countries.
“I’ve been crystal clear that it is a vital U.S. interest to make sure that Iran never comes anywhere close to a nuclear weapon,” Ramaswamy said. “We have to work with Israel to make sure that happens, and, yes, I have said that we would back Israel fully militarily. But I’ve also said that I don’t want our sons and daughters – U.S. troops – to die in that conflict.”
In the clip, Ramaswamy claimed that he has asked Pence and other candidates, like Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, “how many U.S. soldiers they would like to see die in that conflict” and that he has not gotten a response.
Bream noted that Pence has family members in the U.S. military and asked him to respond to the remarks.
Pence responded by criticizing Ramaswamy’s foreign policy positions on Israel, Taiwan, and Russia, saying that he does not “have a problem” with Vivek but believes that “he’s just wrong on foreign policy.”
“Candidly, this is a bit of a pattern for Vivek, he kind of goes one direction, then goes back another direction,” Pence said. “I don’t know how we fully back and then say that there’s a limit to what our military involvement would be defending Israel in an attack by Iran.”
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