Appearing on CNN News Night with anchor Abby Phillip Vivek Ramaswamy wasn't going to let Donald Trump be the only GOP presidential candidate to use the loaded term vermin, saying on Wednesday night the word also applies to San Francisco homelessness or homeless people. [00:00:18] >> Over the weekend, I just wanna play this from what President Trump said to his supporters. >> Speaker 3: We will root out the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. [00:00:34] The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. >> That language, they live like vermin, do you believe that that is, as your Republican colleague Chris Christia said, Neo-Nazi rhetoric. [00:00:51] >> Speaker 4: This is a classic mainstream media move. Pick some individual phrase of Donald Trump, focus on literally that word without actually interrogating the substance of what's at issue. >> Speaker 4: The word was chosen of a cultural war in this country. Well, you know what? [00:01:07] It's actually describing a series of behaviors. You have antifa and other related groups that have been burning down cities for the last three years in this country. >> Speaker 2: Would you describe them as vemin? >> Wildly violating the rule of law, we have an invasion on our southern border. We have millions of people crossing our southern border. Let's talk about the substance of why we have to recognize that we're not in [00:01:24] ordinary times. >> Speaker 4: Would you use that language yourself? >> The vocabulary of the verb in or not is not what's important. Well, I haven't used that language, so you can look at my track record under the campaign trail. I talk about the issues, we all talk about them differently. But what I'm not gonna do is play some game of focusing on some word [00:01:40] that somebody else said without ignoring entirely the substance of what we're actually talking about. >> Speaker 1: There is no substance. And he refused, of course, unwilling to discuss the matter further, he shares who he thinks are vermin. Take a look at this. [00:01:55] >> Speaker 4: Picking on Donald Trump's word vermin to talk about that status quo. You know what's vermin? What's running around San Francisco on a given day before Gavin Newsom cleaned it up on a dime to roll out the red carpet for Xi Jinping. If he could do that for Xi Jinping, he could have done it on an ordinary day. [00:02:10] And yet we're here sitting talking not about the substance of that, but on one word that Donald Trump said in some speech in Miami. This is what's wrong with the mainstream media. Focus on the substance, and let's have an actual policy debate rather than talking to a presidential candidate instead of the policy substance of what's actually going [00:02:26] on in the country, picking on some word that Donald Trump said on a certain day and asking me for comment on it, give me a break. >> Speaker 2: Look, Mr. Ramaswamy, the former president saying that people on the left live like vermin in this country, that's a pretty substantive thing. [00:02:43] And the word choice was not accidental. >> Speaker 4: Looking for people living in San Francisco normally. >> Social media and I think it's important for us to talk about it, but we appreciate your time tonight, thank you very much for joining us. >> Speaker 4: I think it's important to talk about the substance of it. Thank you, Abby. [00:02:58] >> Speaker 1: What substance are you looking for us to discuss with Donald Trump? Donald Trump is almost as flat as your ass is, Mr. Ramaswamy. You don't have substance, neither of you. You could try and talk fast and try to out talk people, talk over people, but you are disgustingly empty when it comes to policy and substance, you and [00:03:15] Donald Trump. And the idea that you're gonna sneak in the fact or the thought that people in San Francisco are vermin while you're saying you don't wanna discuss this or use this word is intentional on your part as well. So I cannot stand this type of politics, it's absolutely disgusting to me. [00:03:34] This person is substantive list, yet and still he is a place for him in the Republican party. And that is damn sure disgustingly. >> Speaker 5: I mean, my question to him is was it substantive or focusing on the substance when he made fun of Ron DeSantis for wearing heels? [00:03:53] Was he sticking to the substance when he said that Nikki Haley's daughter is on TikTok? Is that sticking to the substance? I think the hell not Ramaswamy. But just quickly to the actual [LAUGH] substance of what he did say, [00:04:09] he doubled down that homeless people are vermin, which is a level of dehumanization that is difficult for me to fathom. The idea that you could look at a person who is suffering immensely because of policy decisions by the United States to view them as less than human, [00:04:28] to view them as animals. I mean, I mentioned earlier in the show, but there are tent cities for migrants who fought to come to the United States right around the block from where I live. And I see people in Chicago, which is supposed to be like this blue blue city, [00:04:44] protesting, not the conditions that the city is forcing these asylum seekers to live in, children sleeping in tents outside on the hard floor in Chicago, winter is happening right now. They're not protesting that, they're protesting that they have to see these people. [00:04:59] They want them out of their neighborhoods. They don't want better conditions for them, they don't want them around at all. And American politicians continue to choose to represent policies that exacerbate homelessness instead of actually investing in meaningful [00:05:16] solutions to solve homelessness so that every individual in the richest country in the world can live in dignity and not have to sleep literally outside. I mean, it's grotesque. I keep saying absurd, but that's all I can really say about Vivek Ramaswamy, [00:05:34] born into immense privilege, who would spit on somebody who didn't have a doctor mother and a lawyer father and a rich house to [LAUGH] come home to every day. >> Speaker 1: It's absolutely disgusting.