Former Bush advisor Karl Rove slams Vivek Ramaswamy's first GOP debate performance as 'robotic' and 'over-the-top'

• Karl Rove called out Vivek Ramaswamy over what he said was a "robotic" GOP debate performance.
• Rove made the comments on WABC radio, where he further critiqued the first-time political candidate.
• "Chris Christie got off one of the better lines of the night that he sounded like ChatGPT," he said.

Former White House senior advisor Karl Rove on Sunday criticized Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over what he felt was a "robotic" and "over-the-top" debate performance by the first-time political candidate last week.

Rove, a longtime aide in President George W. Bush's White House, made the revelation during a WABC 770 AM radio interview with New York businessman John Catsimatidis. While Rove said Ramaswamy "on points had a good evening," he also said that the candidate "had a bad evening" when it came to substance.

"Representative of that was his comment that everybody else on the stage was bought and paid for, which I thought was so over-the-top that it was representative of his mindset [of] 'I'm the only perfect person on the stage,'" Rove told Catsimatidis.

"He was robotic, I thought," he continued. "Very energetic, high level of energy, big smile, talked very fast. But I think Chris Christie got off one of the better lines of the night that he sounded like ChatGPT."

After Ramaswamy during the debate derided "the climate change agenda" as a "hoax," Christie, a former two-term New Jersey governor, called out his competitor as "a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here."

Rove also said Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has so far been unable to dethrone former President Donald Trump from the top of the GOP presidential perch, had "a good night" at the debate.

"There are some people who did what they needed to do that night," he told Catsimatidis. "Ron DeSantis, I thought, had a good opening. He had a good closing. He did a good job of focusing on his ability to get things done, represented by his record in Florida. This was important for him to have a good night."

Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old entrepreneur, has in recent weeks seen his political profile surge amid DeSantis' campaign stumbles and the failure of any of the other candidates to seriously eat away at Trump's dominance.

In the FiveThirtyEight average of national Republican presidential polls, Trump sits at 52%, well ahead of DeSantis (averaging 14.7% support) and Ramaswamy (averaging 9.9% support).

Christie is currently averaging 3.4% support nationally, but he has generally polled much higher in New Hampshire, where he placed second (at 9%) behind Trump in a recent Emerson College survey in the key early-nominating state.