Ramaswamy cancels three events in Iowa due to weather, a day after jabbing at Haley for canceling her own
By Aaron Pellish, CNN
(CNN) — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy cancelled three campaign events on Tuesday due to severe winter weather across Iowa, one day after lambasting other candidates for cancelling their own events as the storm hit on Monday.
Ramaswamy announced on social media early Tuesday that his campaign was postponing an event in Coralville, Iowa, the first of seven events on the day’s schedule, citing weather conditions which he said make it “effectively impossible to safely get from Des Moines to Coralville.”
Later in the morning, Ramaswamy released on updated schedule on social media, which no longer reflected previously planned campaign stops in Burlington, Iowa, and Keokuk, Iowa.
On Monday, Ramaswamy touted his campaign’s decision to hold his planned four campaign events in Northwest Iowa as scheduled, making a point to jab at former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for cancelling her event in Sioux City, Iowa, while he hosted an event in the same city. Ramaswamy said Haley’s decision to cancel her events reflected a lack of the necessary resolve to serve as president. The Trump campaign also cancelled surrogate events in the state due to the weather.
“You know, some saw snowstorm, canceled events in northwest Iowa. We got four events, we’re keeping them intact. If you can’t handle the snow, you’re not ready for Xi Jinping, that’s my view,” Ramaswamy told the audience of approximately 25 people at his Sioux City event on Monday.
Speaking to reporters after that event, Ramaswamy said he wasn’t concerned about potential safety risks of holding events during a snowstorm, and said he thinks it reflects well on his qualifications as president to not cancel events despite the storm.
“If this was truly the blizzard of the century, that’d be another question. It’s not that. So, I think people got to toughen up a little bit,” he said.
“I think that it says something about a candidate hopefully, if you’re gonna lead this country, you can’t just be a wilting flower when some basic things don’t go your way,” he added.
Following his events on Monday, Ramaswamy’s vehicle got stuck in a snow ditch while driving from his final event in Primghar, Iowa, to Des Moines. He said in a social media post that a passerby pulled the car out of the ditch to help them get home safely.
“Just got back to Des Moines after a 5+ hour drive in snow from northwest Iowa. Got stuck in snow ditch on the way. 5 of us tried to push SUV out, finally got it done with extra help from a good Iowan,” he said.
The area around Des Moines is under a winter storm warning until Tuesday evening, with estimates suggesting the area could see as much as 9 inches of snow.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
