US election: Indian American Republican leaders slam Kamala Harris on policy issues

PTI, Oct 22, 2024, 8:50 AM IST

Washington: Three Indian American Republican leaders — Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy — have slammed Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president on the Democratic ticket, over her allegedly flawed immigration, economic and foreign policies.

Former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in a video, which is being run as an advertisement on social media, has claimed that Harris’ Medicare plan will give 12 million illegal immigrants “gold-plated” healthcare.

“It will flood the US with more illegal immigrants,” Jindal said in a video released by America First Policy Institute, a political action committee. “Don’t let your families and friends fall for the lies.” Jindal, 53, was the Louisiana Governor from 2008 to 2016. In 2016 he unsuccessfully tried his luck in the Republican presidential race. After keeping a low profile and initially being on the other side of the Trump campaign, Jindal is now back in action supporting former president Bobby Jindal on his policies.

Besides Jindal, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and businessman-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy have run for the presidency. Jindal ran in 2016 and the other two in the 2024 election cycle.

Now all three have endorsed Trump for the presidency. Ramaswamy has emerged as the close confidant of Trump and has been campaigning in his favour.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Haley said, “When I look at the issues and the differences between the two candidates, there is no question that I want to see Donald Trump win this election.” “We cannot have Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. All you have to do is to look at what Kamala Harris has said. She does not think illegal immigrants are illegal. She thinks that we should give them free education, free place to live, free healthcare,” she said.

Hailey claimed that Harris and her running mate Walz doves not have foreign policy experience.

“The experience that they do have is expanding the Iran deal and giving more money to a terrorist organization that says death to America. There are a lot of differences there… we need to hope that Donald Trump wins this election,” she said.

In a newly launched podcast on SiriusXM, Haley said the current presidential poll is “shaping up to be the tightest election this century”.

However, of the three Indian American leaders, Ramaswamy has emerged as the harshest critic of Harris.

He has been campaigning in favour of Trump across the country, particularly in the battleground States. Last week he attracted hundreds of people to his campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

In a recent interview with Fox News, he said, “There is no need to obsess over Kamala Harris, the candidate. She’s a radical liberal that can’t produce results and does nothing but lie on the campaign trail.” Another Indian American leader Kash Patel is among the few people who are considered to be in the inner circle of Trump.

The former chief of staff to then acting defence secretary in the last days of the Trump Administration, Patel, 44, has been campaigning for the Republican nominee among Indian Americans in the key battleground states. According to the New York Times, Patel aims to run the CIA if Trump wins the presidency.