Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he would have handled the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, “very differently” than former President Donald Trump, but emphasized a distinction between “bad behavior and illegal behavior.”

“I would have handled that situation very differently than Trump did,” Ramaswamy said on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning.

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“I think there were a number of bad judgments that were made — frankly, if I were the U.S. president, I would have never let it get to that place,” Ramaswamy added.

His comments come days after saying he would have handled the situation differently than former Vice President Mike Pence, pushing the need for reforms in Congress to secure elections. Speaking on NBC News with Chuck Todd in an interview on Meet the Press, Ramaswamy said he would have pushed for a new federal law that requires states to have a “single-day voting on Election Day.”

Ramaswamy listed off a number of reasons he believes aided the frustrations leading up to the Capitol riot, including COVID mandates and Hunter Biden's laptop, and pointed to “different standards of law for people who were part of BLM or ANTIFA.”

Trump, who was indicted for the fourth time this year alongside 18 co-conspirators, recruited slates of fake electors to support his claims that he won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden. Ramaswamy said he “would not have nominated phony slate of electors.”

Despite denouncing Trump’s judgments made on Jan. 6, Ramaswamy disagreed with the characterization that the former president encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol, saying he “read the transcript very carefully” and believes Trump called for a “peaceful protest.”

“Is that what I would have done that day under those circumstances? No, but I do think that that's different from a crime,” Ramaswamy said.

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“And so I disagree with a lot of what he did that day,” Ramaswamy said, adding, “but that is still different from saying that he should be prosecuted for it, which I think sets a dangerous precedent of first amendment infringements in this country and sets a dangerous precedent for eliminating political opponents in the midst of an election.”

Ramaswamy restated his support for Trump if he secures the Republican 2024 nomination regardless of a criminal conviction, saying under his presidency, he'd move to pardon to former president "because that will help reunite the country."