Vivek Ramaswamy: DeSantis, Haley Like ‘Dick Cheney in Three-Inch Heels’

NBC News
Katherine Hamilton

Businessman and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy swiped at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) during the third GOP debate on Wednesday night over allegations DeSantis wears lifts in his boots.

Ramaswamy was answering a question about his foreign policy positions when he nodded to “Bootgate,” lumping former U.N. Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and DeSantis together as warmongering neo-conservatives who resemble “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels.”

He said:

But I want to be careful to avoid making the mistakes from the neo-con establishment of the past. Corrupt politicians in both parties spent trillions, killed millions, made billions for themselves in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting wars that sent thousands of our sons and daughters, people my age, to die in wars that did not advance anyone’s interests — adding $7 trillion to our national debt.

Joe Biden sold off our foreign policy. Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden got a $5 million bribe from Ukraine — that’s why we’re sending $200 billion back to that same country.

The fact of the matter is, the Republican Party is not that much better. You have the likes of Nikki Haley, who stepped down from her time at the U.N., bankrupt or in debt was her family — then she becomes a military contractor, she joined the board of Boeing and otherwise, and is now a multimillionaire. I think that that’s wrong when Republicans or Democrats do it. 

“That’s the choice we face,” Ramaswamy concluded. “Do you want a leader from a different generation who is going to put this country first, or do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels? In which case, we’ve got two of them on stage tonight.” 

Last week, three professional bootmakers told Politico magazine they believe DeSantis is likely wearing lifts in his boots, following his viral interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David, who brought up allegations from viral internet videos that DeSantis wears heels inside of them. 

DeSantis, who claims he is 5’11”, denies he wears heels inside his boots to appear taller, insisting to Bet-David that he wears “standard, off-the-rack Lucchese,” a luxury boot brand that serves as the official boot of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

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