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NEVADA, IA — Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd lambasted his GOP presidential rival Vivek Ramaswamy Saturday for his recent remarks about 9/11 that suggested federal agents may have been aboard the planes that crashed that day.
The criticism comes as Ramaswamy is slated to visit Ground Zero Monday for the tragedy’s 22nd anniversary.
“It spits in the face of the thousands of lives that we lost on that day and subsequently,” Hurd said of Ramaswamy’s comments at a campaign stop here.
Ramaswamy initially came under fire for a comment he made during an interview with The Atlantic in August.
“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?” Ramaswamy told reporter John Hendrickson.
During an interview with NBC News in Iowa on Saturday, Hurd said Ramaswamy is running to be “the chief gaslighter of America.” The former congressman said he hopes Ramaswamy visits the 9/11 Memorial Museum during his visit to New York City Monday.
“I have been to the 9/11 museum,” responded Ramaswamy, when notified about Hurd’s comments.
He said that even people on his team have lost family members to 9/11, adding, "That’s what Monday is about. And I’m ashamed that other politicians are trying to politicize this in their desperate attempts to find relevance."
Ramaswamy insists his comments about 9/11 revolve around the FBI’s changing story on Omar Al-Bouyimi.
Twenty years after one of the most horrific days in American history, declassified FBI documents revealed Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, aided two of the terrorists behind the attacks.
“Declassified documents that came out 20 years later from the FBI said that the 9/11 Commission and the FBI absolutely were untruthful about Mohamed al-Bayoumi,” Ramaswamy said.
The 38-year-old, defending himself from Hurd’s comments that he needs to learn more about 9/11, misspoke and called Omar al-Bayoumi “Mohamed al-Bayoumi.”
Hurd says he hopes Ramaswamy can learn more about 9/11 during his visit next week.
“I’m always for people understanding things,” he said, “and not trying to get clicks and eyeballs on videos by saying something outrageous.”