Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy called out an Iowa newspaper for printing a cartoon he described as "bigotry."
The Quad City Times, a daily paper based in Davenport, Iowa, issued an apology and retraction after a cartoonist depicted Ramaswamy greeting a group of Trump supporters who shout racist things back at him.
"We apologize today for letting such an image slip through our editorial process and into our opinion page Wednesday in the form of a political cartoon," Times executive editor Tom Martin said in the apology. "The cartoon, while intended to criticize racist ideas and epithets, uses a phrase that is racist and insensitive to members of our Indian American community."
The statement said the paper has severed ties with the cartoonist who drew it, as well.
"The oversight that allowed it to run is inexcusable, and we can and will do better," Martin said.
Ramaswamy, one of two Indian Americans in the Republican primary along with Nikki Haley, is a 37-year-old biotech executive who has branded himself as an anti-woke, pro-Trump presidential candidate. After the Quad City Times' statement, Ramaswamy sent the newspaper editor a letter accepting the apology and arguing the cartoonist should not have been let go.
"I’m empathetic to people who make mistakes once in awhile," he said. "Let’s not go further or see people get fired over it; the cartoonist should in no way be ‘canceled.’"
