The Daily: A Breakout Moment for Vivek Ramaswamy

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In the Republican president's joys, the battle for second place has been jolted by the sudden rise

of a political newcomer whose popularity has already eclipsed that of far more seasoned candidates.

Today, my colleague, Jonathan Weissner,

on the backstory, message and strategy of Vivek Ramaswamy.

It's Wednesday, August 30th.

Jonathan, for the past week, the story of the Republican presidential race has been,

quite unexpectedly, the story of Vivek Ramaswamy.

Remarkable, huh? Six months ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was, as he says, a skinny little guy with a long name.

Nobody knew who he was, but he was out there tilling the soil in Iowa and New Hampshire,

using his own money, which is copious, and his patented style of saying no to nobody.

This is a guy who will be on any TV show, any podcast, any radio show.

You ask him, he'll be there. He could do as many as 30 media hits a day.

And that is really his secret.

Right. I remember thinking around the end of the spring that this guy was everywhere.

There was a kind of Vivek ubiquity.

And he was rising in the polls. He was actually moving upward while Ron DeSantis,

who was supposed to be the great threat to Donald Trump, is going down in the polls.

And suddenly you're starting to see some guy named Vivek Ramaswamy,

who is about to overtake the second place Republican in the primaries.

It was kind of a jolt.

Right.

And as if to confirm what we were seeing, these memos leaked out from the Super PAC that is

trying to boost DeSantis' campaign, just ahead of what would be the first debate

of the 2024 Republican primary season.

And in those memos, that Super PAC says,

watch out for Vivek Ramaswamy and hit him hard multiple times when you get onto that stage.

Right. Nothing could better confirm that Ramaswamy was having a moment

than the campaign apparatus around the guy who was supposed to be having a moment saying,

you should be worried about this other person and you should be beating him up.

Yeah. I mean, Ramaswamy had been saying for months,

oh, this is really a two-person race. It's between Donald Trump and me.

And it always kind of sounded like a joke, right?

Right.

But then all of a sudden these documents emerge that look like they worry about the rise of this guy,

Vivek Ramaswamy. And then we get to the debate.

And we're all expecting that Vivek Ramaswamy will take a hit from Ron DeSantis.

We're all watching for it.

And in fact, Vivek Ramaswamy takes multiple hits from multiple candidates.

And every time he proved deft, he somehow bobbed and weaved and turned the debate back on his

opponents. And he got exactly what he wanted from that debate because he was the guy they

were taking seriously. And he was confirming to the rest of the world what he had been saying

to himself for months. I'm the guy to beat.

Right. And suddenly after that debate, it felt like we were looking at a bonafide breakout

moment in this primary for the Vivek Ramaswamy of what duration and importance we can't say at

this moment, but a breakout moment nonetheless. And of course, that's why we wanted to talk to

you, Jonathan, because you have been covering Ramaswamy closely for many months, traveling with

him across the country. You've gotten to really know him. And so we want to talk to you about

the full Ramaswamy story, not just the momentum of the past few weeks, but a complete portrait

of who he is and how he reached this point. So Vivek Ramaswamy is the child of Indian immigrants

who were Brahmins, the highest caste in Indian society. His father was an engineer. He was trained

at the MIT of India. His mother is a psychiatrist. They settled in a server of Cincinnati. His dad,

he likes to say, was a liberal. And he liked to talk back to his dad and take the contrarian

conservative position. And by the time he got to Harvard, he was a libertarian. He actually had a

alter ego called David, who was a libertarian rapper.

But his undergraduate degree is in biology, and he got a job out of undergraduate as a stock

picker for a prominent hedge fund. He was a biotech guy and told the hedge fund what biotech

companies looked promising. And ultimately, that's how he became very, very rich.

When he gets out of Yale Law School, he starts a company, RoyVant, with a really smart idea

of combing through the patent files of the big pharmaceutical companies, looking for discarded

patents that weren't abandoned because they wouldn't necessarily work, but were abandoned because

they didn't look particularly profitable for a company as big as, say, Merck. And he thought,

well, I'm going to buy the patent cheap, and I'm going to develop them cheap.

You're saying he's basically selling bargain basement patents that everybody else has more or

less abandoned. Exactly. And he had a lot of success. He was involved in bringing about

five different drugs to market, which in the biotech world is a pretty good track record.

But the drug that really put him on the map was, in fact, a failure. Mr. Rama Swami,

welcome to have money. Good to see you, sir. Very good to see you. A drug to address Alzheimer's.

Tell me why Glaxo kind of wrote this drug off, and yet you have such great hopes for it.

I actually think the potential opportunity here is really tremendous for delivering value to patients.

Rama Swami just went everywhere in the biotech world and pitched this idea that he was going

to bring an Alzheimer's drug to market. Actually, we believe we're only one additional

phase three study away from the approval of this drug on a global basis.

He pumped up the stock price of his company and its subsidiary X event way high.

When I see a red hot stock, I don't want to get people hurt. You know that.

Absolutely. It got one drug, and everyone hopes that it works.

I think you're asking all the right questions, exactly. Fair enough. Okay, well, we're going

to be following the situation. And then, lo and behold, it didn't work. It failed,

the subsidiary collapsed. A lot of people took a bath. But the way this structure was set up

for his company, Rama Swami did fine. In fact, by the time he's 35, he's made 200 million dollars.

Wow. So that sounds a bit like the story of a charismatic salesman telling people what they

want to hear, which doesn't seem like that big a stretch or leap from politics.

No, exactly. In fact, he was in some ways born to politics. This is a guy who knows how to sell

himself. And why does he eventually turn his attention to politics?

It goes back to 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after George Floyd's murder.

Remember, at that time, CEOs from companies large and small were speaking out in favor

of the Black Lives Matter protesters and against systemic racism, against police violence.

And Rama Swami wasn't insulated from those trends. In fact, he was under pressure from

employees of his company, Roy Vant, to be out there, to speak out. And he said, no,

it is not the role of a chief executive officer of a company with fiduciary responsibilities to

its shareholders to get involved in politics at all. Now joining me, Vivek Rama Swami,

big corporate entities embracing woke politics whole cloth. Why?

Big business in this country decided to enter an arranged marriage with the new woke left.

And it's more like mutual prostitution because each side gets something out of the trade.

He started appearing on Fox News. But these woke values are really easy. They love anti-racism

because they could applaud diversity and inclusion, put some token minorities on their boards.

He alienated a lot of very big name Democrats who were advisors to his company. And he also

alienated some of the employees of his company so much so that within months of his first commentary

in public, he had stepped back, left as CEO, and was writing a book called Woke Inc., a Jeremiah

against liberal politics in corporate board suites. He follows up his first book, Woke Inc.,

with two other books and translates that to a lot of appearances on Fox News, on Fox Business.

He starts making a name for himself in conservative circles and he decides,

I want to run for president. And he seems to be driven by his fear of wokeism from the left,

that society is under assault from liberal activism. And when he finally announces his

run for president, he does so with a vision for this country and a society that is extremely dark.

We'll be right back.

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Times Cooking and I'm sitting on a blanket with Melissa Clark. And we're having a picnic using

recipes that feature some of our favorite summer produce. Ywande, what did you bring?

So this is a cucumber agua fresca. It's made with fresh cucumbers, ginger, and lime.

How did you get it so green? I kept the cucumber skins on and

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advance. Oh, it is so refreshing. What did you bring, Melissa? Well, strawberries are extra delicious

this time of year. So I brought my little strawberry almond cakes. Oh, yum. I roast the

strawberries before I mix them into the batter. It helps condense the berries juices and stops them

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strawberry flavor. It tastes amazing. Oh, thanks. New York Times Cooking has so many easy recipes

to fit your summer plans. Find them all at nytcooking.com. I have sticky strawberry juice all over my fingers.

So Jonathan, tell us more about this dark message at the heart of

Rama Swami's eventual presidential campaign. Well, nothing captures that message more than the video

that launched him. We're in the middle of a national identity crisis. Faith, patriotism,

and hard work have disappeared. He speaks of a hole in our soul, a darkness in the American

society. We hunger to be part of something bigger than ourselves, yet we cannot even

answer the question of what it means to be an American. Today, the woke left praise on that

vacuum. They tell you that your race, your gender, and your sexual orientation govern who you are,

what you can achieve, and what you're allowed to think. This is psychological slavery. And his

message is that he can bring the country back from this morass. And that is why today I am

announcing my run for president of the United States. This isn't just a political campaign.

This is a cultural movement to create a new American dream for the next generation.

Jonathan, some of this candidly feels a bit familiar for the Republican Party

in the era of Donald Trump, who has long railed, for instance, against political correctness

and will culture. So what, in your mind, and I guess in Ramaswamy's mind, makes this distinct?

You know, it's not just his diagnosis of what Donald Trump called American carnage.

It's his remedy. It's the details to actually do something about it that pulls his agenda

much farther to the right of Donald Trump. Explain that.

Well, for instance, remember, Donald Trump kind of invented the notion of the deep state.

Well, Ramaswamy talks about the administrative state, and he says that he would do things that

Trump never dreamed of. The people who we elect to run the government ought to be the ones who

actually run the government. He's talking about cutting 75 percent of the federal workforce,

eliminating the Department of Education, the IRS, the FBI. He's talking about gutting the

administrative state, not just railing against it. We will shut them down.

And that's just the very beginning of his agenda. So in the first day of my campaign,

I pledged to do something, which is to use U.S. military force, if necessary, to address the

Mexican drug cartels who, yes, are terrorist organizations. This is a guy who talks about

taking U.S. troops and actually attacking Mexican cartels in Mexico. Well, I don't think citizenship

should be something that anybody automatically takes for granted, born here or not. He talks about

ending birthright citizenship, which would mean that the children of undocumented immigrants

born on U.S. soil would no longer be American citizens. Why are you against supporting Ukraine?

Because it does not advance American interests. And as the U.S. president, I'm not running for

any other role other than looking after the interests of Americans. And then, if anything,

his foreign policy is even farther to the right. Certainly a swing toward isolationism.

He talks about not giving another dime of military aid to Ukraine, but he even goes farther.

I would freeze the current lines of control and that would leave parts of the Donbass region

with Russia. He says he would give Vladimir Putin eastern Ukraine. Our engagement in Ukraine

is further driving Russia into China's arms. So my foreign policy centers on weakening that

alliance. He says we need to make friends with Vladimir Putin. He doesn't trust Putin,

but he wants to woo Putin away from China. And to do that, he's willing to give up the sovereignty

of a would-be ally, Ukraine. And if we rediscover who we really are, then we can actually stand up

to the actual threats we face on the global stage. And the top of the list, it isn't in Ukraine.

It is communist China. And he talks about that the most important piece of his foreign policy

is to confront China and to break the United States' dependence on China. That is our number

one threat that we face in the next century. Similarly, he seems ready to give up on Taiwan.

We are dependent on a tiny island nation off the southeast coast of China for our

entire modern way of life in the United States of America.

He's actually said out loud many times that he would spend the first four years of his presidency

building up the domestic semiconductor industry. So we would no longer be dependent on Taiwan for

semiconductors. And then at the end of those four years, he would no longer defend Taiwan,

basically signaling to Beijing, take it, it's yours.

And we will not take the risk of war that risks American lives after that for some

nationalistic dispute between China and Taiwan. Wow.

And then that leads to actually perhaps maybe his most controversial position,

at least in Republican politics. He'd like to further the bilateral peace agreements that

Israel is pursuing with its neighbors so he can stop giving military aid to Israel. Now,

aid to Israel is sacrosanct in the Republican Party, but he's saying, you know,

eventually we don't need to do that either.

Jonathan, you started to hint at this, but these are extremely unorthodox views of American foreign

policy, period, and especially for a Republican when it comes to Taiwan and Israel, defending

those two have been pillars of modern Republican foreign policy. So what do you make of that?

Well, it's not only radical, but if you just look under the surface, some of this doesn't

make a lot of sense. I mean, he says that we're going to confront China in every way, but that

somehow we will, you know, have four years to build up a semiconductor industry so China can

have Taiwan. That doesn't make a lot of sense for a confrontation, but also how does he know

that in four years we'll be able to build up a semiconductor industry that's totally independent

of Taiwan? How does he know that China won't invade before four years? It's like the world

doesn't work the way he wants it to, but he's almost willing it to work the way he wants it to.

Right. He's saying the arguments don't add up, they're flawed, and they are not representative

of someone who's really understood geopolitics. I mean, this has led foreign policy experts,

including conservative foreign policy experts, to say that Vivek Ramaswamy is just engaged in

bizarre magical thinking. Remember on the debate stage, Nikki Haley looked at him and said,

you don't know what you're talking about. You've never conducted foreign policy and it shows.

If ideas like this don't make sense, why is Ramaswamy even articulating that? I mean,

it's not clear to me that Republican voters need him to make a four-part argument around

Taiwan that results in it being given back to China. So why is he even treading there?

What you need to know about Vivek Ramaswamy is that he has this quality about him that

anticipates what people want to hear and gives them what they want, whether it's the truth or not.

I remember being in New Hampshire and a woman stood up and said that she really didn't like all

this anti-wokism that seemed beside the point to her, and he said, oh, I'm not really into that

stuff anymore. But in the back of the room, they were giving out little buttons that said,

stop wokism, vote Vivek. Wait, how could you not be into wokism? That's his whole campaign.

That's his whole campaign, and yet he said he's not into it anymore. He says these things a lot.

I remember following him to the south side of Chicago. He was there to talk about his immigration

policies because they were settling migrants shipped up from Texas in the south side, and

the community was getting upset. He thought he was going to be able to stir the pot with

black Chicagoans about this, but they were much more interested in really peppering him

on his opposition to affirmative action, on his belief that there's no such thing as systemic

racism. Then nobody asked about immigration, just nobody. I was in Iowa just a few days ago,

and he had this shtick where he said, nowhere were they more interested in my immigration policies

and my promise to go after the cartels than in the south side of Chicago in an all black audience.

I remember writing in my notes, this is a lie. Wow. It's clear that his message has a radical

quality to it. The content of what he's saying can at times strain logic and practicality.

You're spending all this time with him out in the field. How are voters that you're talking to

and watching receiving all of this messaging and content? The thing about Vivek Rama Swami is

that he exudes confidence so much that whatever he says sounds correct. He speaks with such clarity

that he doesn't invite you to analyze whether what he said was logical or not. I remember

everywhere I go, I talk to people after his events and they always say he is so brilliant.

They are convinced that whatever he said had to be right because he said it so well.

It sounds like his success as a salesman in biotech is very naturally translating

into selling the idea of himself as president on the campaign trail.

It is remarkable because obviously Donald Trump was the guy who said originally I'm a

businessman, not a politician, but I can bring my business smart. Well, Vivek Rama Swami says the

same thing, but he says it in a much more convincing way. He sounds like he has all of the answers.

Well, speaking of Trump, Jonathan, I'm curious if Rama Swami is running a campaign

that's basically to the right of Trump. How does he think about his relationship

to Trump as a rival in this campaign? He doesn't want to challenge Trump. He doesn't want to

alienate Trump's voters. I think his whole theory of the case is that there will be some event that

takes Trump down. Maybe he'll be convicted. Maybe he just can't make it through all of these court

cases and that Vivek Rama Swami will be in the position to gobble up all of those Trump supporters

because after all, he is more Trump than Trump. A lot of people think Vivek is running to be

Donald Trump's vice president. I think he only wants to be president. This is a guy who was a

CEO in his early 30s. He only wants to be the guy on top and he thinks that's his destiny.

What you just outlined that Trump can't run for some reason can't end up being the nominee. That

has been the presumed strategy of other candidates in this race, most notably, of course, Rhonda

Santis, whose policy positions it would seem overlap a fair bit with Rama Swami. He too,

is running as an anti-woke isolationist. But Rama Swami is farther to the right

than Rhonda Santis. He is more personable than Rhonda Santis, just a much more natural candidate

on the campaign trail. And unlike the Santis, he never criticizes Donald Trump. In fact,

he said on the debate stage he is the greatest president of the 21st century. He has said he

will pardon Donald Trump for any convictions or any charges regardless. His only criticism,

perhaps, would be that he can do what Donald Trump wasn't able to do, but that Donald Trump will

always be his inspiration. I want to talk about what it means that Rama Swami is having this

breakout moment with the really important caveat that it's just a moment that it could change,

that he could plunge in the polls as so many hot-burning candidates do in crowded Republican

fields. But knowing that he's doing this well now, it feels very telling that the two most viable

candidates to be the number two in the Republican field are so Trump-like, right? I mean, one,

Rama Swami, so Trump-like that he's to the right of Trump on many issues. And to Santis,

a little less so, but likes to see himself as the electable Trump, the Trump without the baggage.

If you put all the supporters of Trump, Rama Swami, and to Santis together, you have a really

large chunk of the Republican electorate. And what that seems to suggest is that Trumpism

might not just be about Trump at all at this stage, but about just how far right-word the

entire Republican Party has shifted over the past few years. When that many candidates are all this

conservative, you're clearly no longer just talking about Trump and his base.

The Republican Party is now the party of right-wing populism.

The old Republican Party of George W. Bush conservatism is gone.

We have candidates trying to run that way in Chris Christie, or Asa Hutchinson, or even Mike Pence.

But I'm at these events. I talk to these people. They want somebody who is going to reflect their own

skepticism and cynicism of where this country is, that sense that they are under assault.

And the candidate who really grapples with their own negativity is the one that seems to be getting

their allegiance. Right now, that's Donald Trump, but it could be Vivek Rama Swami,

who's willing to push dark visions of society into places we never dreamed of.

Well, Jonathan, thank you very much. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

We'll be right back.

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Today's episode was produced by Mary Wilson, Diana Nguyen and Summer Tamad. It was edited by Rachel

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Ben Landfork of Wonderly. That's it for the daily. I'm Michael Boboro. See you tomorrow.

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