Vivek Ramaswamy holds town hall in Marcus, IA

MARCUS, Iowa (KTIV) - With January 15th less than a month away, presidential candidates are making one final push before the Iowa caucuses.

And one candidate made his way through Siouxland, Vivek Ramaswamy held town hall meetings across eight Iowa counties today. KTIV caught up with him In Marcus, Iowa for his town hall where he held a nearly 45-minute long Question and Answer session with Iowans.

Audience members asked him questions about his foreign policies, and asked for his stances and plans regarding carbon capture pipelines and the southern border.

“Part of the law that’s not been used, Section 287G [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] basically allows for ICE to delegate the warrant power to local law enforcement. I’ve talked to local law enforcement around this country, they’re standing around ready to do it, but ICE needs to direct them to. Now we’ve got a million people, and the country that put a man on the moon can absolutely get that done,” said Ramaswamy regarding his plan to secure the southern border.

Ramaswamy said that if elected, by March of 2025, he would “have the southern border crisis sealed.” And that by the end of 2025, he plans to be well into mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

After the town hall, KTIV caught up with Russel Bauermeister, the voter who asked him his stance on the border wall, to get their thoughts on the proposed plan.

“I find it a little hard to believe that a week or two after you get in office that things are going to get fixed. You know, when you get fat it’s hard to lose weight.,” said Bauermeister who called himself 50/50 between two candidates. “When you start dealing with [the border wall] it’s going to be a while but I think he has the drive and the right solutions to happen, it’s just going to take a while.”

Ramaswamy will continue to campaign through the hawkeye state ahead of the Iowa caucus, with 33 more town halls planned between tomorrow and January 2nd.

Republican Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is spending Wednesday afternoon crisscrossing northwest Iowa as he holds town halls in multiple counties.

At 3:30 p.m. KTIV was at a town hall Ramaswamy was holding at the Pizza Ranch in Marcus. A recording of that town hall can be found below and on KTIV’s Facebook page.

Ramaswamy’s full schedule for Wednesday:

• Lyon County Town Hall
  • Location: Pizza Ranch in Rock Rapids
  • Time: 9 a.m.
• Osceola County Town Hall
  • Location: Pizza Ranch in Sibley
  • Time: 10:15 a.m.
• O’Brien County Town Hall
  • Location: Pizza Ranch in Sheldon
  • Time: 11:30 a.m.
• Sioux County Town Hall
  • Location: Pizza Ranch in Orange City
  • Time: 12:45 p.m.
• Plymouth County Town Hall
  • Location: Pizza Ranch in Le Mars
  • Time: 2 p.m.
• Cherokee County Town Hall
  • Location: Pizza Ranch in Marcus
  • Time: 3:30 p.m.
• Ida County Town Hall
  • Location: Midwest Deli in Holstein
  • Time: 5 p.m.
• Monona County Town Hall
  • Location: Mapleton Library in Mapleton.
  • Time: 6:30 p.m.

This blitz of town halls comes the day after NBC reported that Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign has stopped spending money on television ads. Ramaswamy’s campaign told NBC it still plans on spending money on ads, just not on TV.

The upcoming Republican Caucus is scheduled for Jan. 15 and the latest poll from the Des Moines Register/NBC/Mediacom Iowa Poll showed that 5 percent of Iowans are considering Ramaswamy as their first choice of president. The leaders in that poll were Former President Donald Trump with 51 percent of caucus-goers considering him as their first choice while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second with 19 percent.