Democratic Squad member Ayanna Pressley accuses Vivek Ramaswamy of a ‘verbal assault’ by claiming she is part of the ‘modern KKK’

Vivek Ramaswamy says he sees a “modern KKK” emerging with the dangerous rhetoric of Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), other members of the so-called Progressive Squad in Congress, and anti-racist activist and author Ibram Kendi.

Pressley accused the 2024 Republican presidential nominee of launching a “verbal attack” with his remarks.

Ramaswamy originally compared Pressley and Kendi to the “modern Gran Whiz” during a speech in Iowa on Friday, but he doubled down on the sentiment during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.

It comes specifically in response to Pressley saying, “We don’t want any more brown faces that don’t want brown voices,” and Kendi saying, “The cure for past discrimination is discrimination in the present.”

Ramaswamy told CNN host Dana Bash on Sunday: “The Great Wizards of the KKK would be proud of what they would hear her say, because there is nothing more racist than saying that your skin color predicts the content of your views or ideas.” ‘

Pressley (D-Mass.) called Ramaswamy’s “dangerous” comments a “verbal assault,” but said the Republican presidential nominee “occupies no real estate in my mind”

The 38-year-old son of Indian immigrants running in the Republican primary for president says race should be removed from the discussion when it comes to what people can think or achieve.

When Ramaswamy first compared Pressley’s rhetoric to that of a “modern KKK” on Friday, three people were also shot dead after a gunman opened fire on a Dollar general in Jacksonville, Florida. The 21-year-old white gunman described in his manifestos that he intended to kill black people, which he successfully carried out with his mass shooting.

“As deeply shameful, offensive and dangerous as his words are, in my mind he does not occupy any real estate,” Representative Pressley assured in an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s Inside Politics this weekend.

“I remain fully focused on undoing the centuries of damage done to black Americans and charting a path of true restorative justice and racial justice forward,” she added.

When CNN’s Bash Ramaswamy pressed why rhetoric can be compared to actual acts of violence and lynching by the KKK, the biotech entrepreneur and self-made millionaire said the two acts exuded “the same spirit.”

“I think it’s the same spirit to say that I can look at you and only on the basis of your skin color, that I know something about the content of your character, that I know something about the content of the positions you may take . express,” he said in the interview on Sunday morning.

Anti-racist activist and author Ibram Kendi was listed as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020. He has written guides such as the 2019 book How to be an Antiracist and its 2022 sequel How to Raise an Antiracist. Ramaswamy says he spreads racist sentiments with his writings and activism

He added: “For Ayanna Pressley to tell me that because of my skin color I can’t express my opinion, that’s wrong, it divides and it spreads hatred in this country. This divides our country to a breaking point.”

Pressley told Sharpton over the weekend that “the verbal attack against me and Dr. Kendi is embarrassing, highly offensive and dangerous.”

“It wasn’t that long ago that we were besieged by images of white supremacists carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville,” she said, referring to violent clashes during Donald Trump’s presidency as counter-protesters descended on the Virginia town to try and control the removal of Confederate statues.

“It wasn’t that long ago that a white supremacist mob seized the Capitol, waved Confederate flags, and set up nooses on the West Lawn of the Capitol,” Pressley claimed of the pro-Trump mob that gathered in January 6, 2021. uprising at the US Capitol. .

Pressley and other team members such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) formed the so-called progressive “squad” of lawmakers as they took office after the midterm elections. of 2018. They are often targeted by Republicans who claim they are trying to fuel racial division by highlighting the differences between white people and minority communities.

Kendi, on the other hand, is an activist and anti-racist author who has been included in Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020. He has authored guides such as the 2019 book How to be an Antiracist and its 2022 sequel How to Raise an Antiracist. Anti-racist.

Bash asked Ramaswamy, giving him another chance to revisit his remarks, “Do you think comparing (Pressley) to the Great Magician and the idea of ​​what she said to a modern KKK leader might also be an step was? far, or will you stand by what you said?’

But Ramaswamy didn’t budge when she pointed to the “non-violent discussion” in which Pressley and Kendi are involved.

“I stand by what I said to provoke open and honest discussion in this country because there is a gap, Dana, between what people will say in private today and what they will say in public,” he said .

“I think we need to close that gap. I think as Americans we need to have a real, open, honest, and raw conversation. That is our path to national unity,” Ramaswamy added. “And there are many Americans today who are deeply frustrated with the new culture of anti-racism, which is really racism in a new guise.”