WATCH: Vivek Refuses To Take Anti-Trump Neil Cavuto’s Bait, Stands With 45

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, gaining in the polls and facing increased scrutiny from the mainstream media, pushed back against an anti-Trump narrative suggested by Fox News host Neil Cavuto and said the former president, like all Americans, deserves to have his day in court.

Challenged to agree with Cavuto that the four indictments against former President Donald Trump “can’t all be politicized,” Ramaswamy didn’t take the bait.

“Just because the government has brought a case – if we’re going to be a culture that starts to say there must be something wrong if the government has charged 91 counts – I think that’s a people of sheep. And when the people behave like sheep, that breeds a government of wolves,” said the candidate.

Speaking about President Trump’s criminal indictment by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Cavuto pressed on with his anti-Trump screed.

“So you don’t think there’s anything in this case that suggests or strongly hints that the former president tried to reverse that Georgia contest?” Cavuto asked.

“There’s a difference between a bad judgment and an illegal act. And I view this indictment in the context as you put it of three other indictments… When you have a series of novel legal theories that are used to indict a prior U.S. President and a sitting candidate in the middle of an election, I just don’t think that’s good for the country,” responded Ramaswamy.

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“I think our country is worse off because of this politicization,” he added.

Throughout his rise in the polls, Ramaswamy, a biotechnology venture capitalist and first-time candidate, has gained popularity for his continual defenses of his leading rival in the race for president, a stark contrast with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who has publicly sparred with President Trump while struggling mightily to define his own candidacy. The dynamic has led Ramaswamy to climb into second place as the Florida governor has struggled with technical and staffing problems and a loss of trust from Rupert Murdoch, the Fox News mogul who believes the GOP should nominate someone other than the former president.

All eyes will be on Ramaswamy at the upcoming Republican National Committee debate in Milwaukee, where he will join Governor DeSantis and the slate of other Republican candidates polling in the low single digits. President Trump has toyed with skipping the debate in favor of holding his own event, bragging to aides that he’s “up by too many points.”