Vivek Ramaswamy suspends campaign after coming fourth in Iowa

Vivek Ramaswamy is ending his presidential campaign after finishing fourth in the Iowa Caucuses.

The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke author endorsed Donald Trump after the former president’s overwhelming victory in the first contest in the Republican presidential primary.

“We did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight… as of this moment we are going to suspend this presidential campaign,” he told his supporters in the Hawkeye State on Monday night.

“There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” he added.

“As I’ve said since the beginning, there are two America First candidates in this race and I called Donald Trump to tell him that,” Mr Ramaswamy said. “I congratulated him on his victory and now going forward he will have my full endorsement for the presidency, and I think we’re gonna do the right thing for this country.”

Mr Ramaswamy came into the GOP primary having done a few appearances on Fox News bashing wokeness. He made a name for himself as someone willing to say anything and everything to get attention.

He aggressively pushed a litany of baseless rightwing conspiracy theories, such as the climate crisis being a hoax, the white supremacist great replacement theory of political elites bringing in immigrants to replace the white population being Democratic party policy, and claiming that the January 6 insurrection was an “inside job”.

He garnered a lot of attention for his clashes with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, whom he bashed for allegedly being corrupt and only campaigning for the benefit of her donors, as well as for supposedly being light on foreign policy knowledge. Mr Ramaswamy for his part,