Vivek Ramaswamy asked if federal agents were on hijacked 9/11 planes

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy went into cleanup mode Tuesday, after newly released audio revealed he openly questioned whether federal agents were aboard the hijacked planes on 9/11.

A profile by Atlantic staff writer John Hendrickson published Monday quoted Ramaswamy as saying: “I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.

“Well, if we’re doing a Jan. 6 commission, absolutely, those should be questions that we should get to the bottom of,” he went on. “‘Here are the people who were armed. Here are the people who are unarmed.’ What percentage of the people who were armed were federal law-enforcement officers? I think it was probably high, actually. Right?”

Ramaswamy tried to defend himself from accusations of trafficking in 9/11 conspiracy theories, texting Semafor that the quote as transcribed by Hendrickson “wasn’t exactly what I said.”

“I stand by the spirit of it, but it turns out that’s not exactly what I told the guy,” he emphasized.

In a Monday night interview with CNN, Ramaswamy doubled down, telling host Kaitlin Collins: “I’m telling you the quote is wrong, actually.”

On Tuesday, Hendrickson posted the unedited audio of his interview with Ramaswamy, along with a transcript confirming the accuracy of his quote.

“When you talk about all the things, ‘We can handle the truth about X,’ you know, and you list off a bunch of stuff—one of them that you said last night is: ‘We can handle the truth about January 6.’ What is the truth about January 6 that you’re referring to?” asked Hendrickson.

“I don’t know, but we can handle it,” the candidate answered. “Whatever it is, we can handle it. Government agents. How many government agents were in the field? Right?”

“You mean like entrapment?” Hendrickson asked.

“Yeah. Absolutely,” answered Ramaswamy, 38. “Why can the government not be transparent about something that we’re using? Terrorists, or the kind of tactics used to fight terrorists. If we find that there are hundreds of our own in the ranks on the day that they were, that they were—I mean, look –“

“Well, there’s a difference between entrapment and a difference between a law-enforcement agent identifying –” Hendrickson began before Ramaswamy discoursed on 9/11.

Ramaswamy’s campaign commended the Atlantic for releasing the audio and argued that it showed he was taken out of context.

“We are grateful that the Atlantic released the audio after we repeatedly asked them to do so. The audio clearly demonstrates that Vivek was taken badly out of context and even this small snippet proves that,” a campaign spokeswoman told The Post.

“We continue to encourage the Atlantic to release more of the recording, rather than their carefully selected snippet, so that full context and reality is exposed.” 

On Tuesday, Ramaswamy backpedaled furiously in a bid to distance himself from the remarks. 

“Of course not,” he told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum when asked if he believed federal agents were aboard the planes. “‘Of course not’ was my point. However, I have a very different view of January 6.”

Earlier this month, Ramaswamy said during an interview with Blaze TV that “I don’t believe the government has told us the truth” about the 2001 attacks that killed 2,977 civilians in Lower Manhattan, northern Virginia and Shanksville, Pa.

“I’m driven by evidence and data. What I’ve seen in the last several years is we have to be skeptical of what the government does tell us,” the candidate went on. “I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary, but do I believe everything the government told us about it? Absolutely not. Do I believe the 9/11 Commission? Absolutely not.”

Once again, Ramaswamy was forced to clean up his own comment, claiming he was referring to alleged involvement of Saudi government officials in the attacks.

“On 9/11, what I’ve said is that the government lied. And this is incontrovertible evidence, Kaitlan. The government lied about Saudi Arabia’s involvement,” Ramaswamy told CNN Monday night.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ramaswamy said his CNN experience had been “hilarious,” adding of Collins: “Felt like I was talking to a petulant teenager.”

Ramaswamy has surged in recent polling, catapulting to third place in the GOP field in the latest RealClearPolitics average.