Republican strategist Scott Jennings said former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s comments on immigration helped him understand Ramaswamy’s performance in the Iowa caucuses.
Ramaswamy and Tesla CEO Elon Musk came under fire on social media over comments about the controversial H-1B visas, which allow for skilled workers to come into the United States. Jennings said that Ramaswamy made a lot of “MAGA people” unhappy with his comments.
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“Somebody got stuffed in a locker, I’m not going to say who,” Jennings told “CNN NewsNight” host Abby Phillip. “Look, I think there’s a way to solve this and talk about this that doesn’t denigrate all of American culture. I mean, I’m now understanding more and more how he got 100 votes in Iowa or whatever it was he got during the Iowa Caucus.”
“The reality is — and Elon, by the way, clarified or further explained his position later and was talking about saying, ‘I want to bring in the top 0.1% of engineering talent from around the world,’” Jennings continued. “It’s like bringing in Jokic or a Wembanyama to help your whole team, if you want to make a comparison to the NBA.”
In a Thursday post on X, Ramaswamy said that American culture celebrated mediocrity, which he said contributed to U.S. workers being less competitive in technical careers.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG,” Ramaswamy said. “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
President-elect Donald Trump named Musk and Ramaswamy as co-chairs of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Nov. 12.
“So I think — I think we can bring in the absolute top talent from around the world, and at the same time not insult the rest of the United States of America and our culture and the way we do things here, and also lift up the American students who have the talent and who have the interest and put them in the right educational opportunities,” Jennings said. “I think what he did today was to overtalk it.”
“A lot of MAGA people are not happy. A lot of Republicans are not happy. And this is why Donald Trump is in the Oval Office,” Jennings said.
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