Vivek Ramaswamy’s Panel of No-Shows
Taking down the temperature is still not on the Trumpworld agenda. Vivek Ramaswamy held a town hall with several hundred people in attendance in Springfield, Ohio, where he promised “unity through dialogue.” Though he said he had spent the day meeting with city officials and Haitian community leaders, none of them were in the room with him. It was a largely MAGA crowd, and it got a largely MAGA message.
“I think the reason that they’re not here tonight is not because they don’t care about this,” Ramaswamy said, insisting the local leaders actually do care about what Donald Trump and JD Vance have pushed (one city commissioner apparently only made it into the overflow room). “It’s because they are scared, actually.”
Charles Patterson is one of the local Republican VIPs who was asked to go but stayed away (he was also supposed to be at a local candidate forum that was canceled due to safety concerns because of Trump’s slurs against Haitian migrants). After retiring as Clark County health director, he is running for a commission seat in the county home to Springfield. I asked him about why he’d avoid a room full of Republican voters with one of the party’s stars.