News/Commentary

Ramaswamy talks scrutiny over past views, admits he wasn’t ‘spouting’ Republican views in ‘birth canal’

September 3, 2023 | | Print Article

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy has impressed many with his straightforward approach to the problems that America is facing. Still, the young candidate has thus far been unable to escape his own past views, leading many conservative voters to suspect the millennial entrepreneur may be a globalist in GOP clothing.

On Wednesday, The New York Times published a story, co-written by Maggie Haberman, that declared Ramaswamy, like former President Donald Trump, “shows a penchant for dispensing with the facts.”

According to The Times, he “has spread lies and exaggerations on subjects including the 2020 election results, the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol and climate change.”

Ramaswamy addressed the concerns with the hosts of “Fox and Friends Weekend” on Saturday and admitted that he “didn’t come out of the birth canal spouting Republican talking points.”

(Video: YouTube)

“You have had a big burst of scrutiny following that debate performance,” Fox co-host Pete Hegseth noted before asking him, “What’s your answer to voters who say, who’s the Vivek today versus the Vivek of things we might see from the past?”

Ramaswamy pointed to a recently resurfaced clip of him from 2003 at an MSNBC “Hardball” town hall asking then-Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton why he should vote for him and reminded viewers that he was a teenager when it was shot.

“One that they dug up this week is at the age of 18,” he said. “Yes, I was asking Al Sharpton a question on MSNBC, and I didn’t come out of the birth canal spouting Republican talking points. That’s true. I came to my views based on my experiences.”

“I was a CEO who, like so many CEOs, was browbeaten into potentially making statements on behalf of Black Lives Matter after George Floyd died among CEOs in America,” Ramaswamy explained. “I was unique in saying that I refused to do it, to say that businesses should stay out of politics, should focus on profits.”

“That ultimately led me to a journey that’s caused me to arrive at the pro-American views that I espouse today,” he continued. “And that’s why my convictions are deeper than a standard politician who will recite, let’s say, the slogans provided in a binder by their super PAC. That’s not me, but I’m an independent patriot who speaks the truth. And I think that that’s why I’ve been so clear and my convictions are so strong. I don’t say things the way a standard politician does, but I think that’s why we’re actually having success in this race.”

Co-host Will Cain pressed Ramaswamy to reveal when, specifically, he made “that transition.”

“There does seem to be a transition in your political ideology and that makes people question, ‘Is it legitimate or is it convenient?'” Cain said. “So when did this transformation take place?”

His ideological epiphany came, he reiterated, in the wake of George Floyd’s death and with the birth of his first son.

“Well, I think you all have known this through my journey. It started around 2020. I mean, I was apolitical before 2020,” he said.

“There were years, many people pointed out in much of my twenties, I didn’t vote,” he recalled. “That’s accurate. I was disillusioned by partisan politics. I voted Libertarian in my first election, and I sat it out for McCain and Obama and even Romney and Obama.”

“But I actually came to this in 2020 when, as I said, I was a biotech CEO. What we saw with the Black Lives Matter protests across this country. That was also the year that I brought my first son into this world,” he said. “That’s what gives me a deeper conviction. I don’t think of myself as a standard political partisan.”

Making the slow transition from the left to the right, he claimed, only makes him more dedicated to his current “pro-American” convictions.

“I think of myself as standing for this pro-American agenda. And when your experiences bring you to your views, you hold them that much more strongly,” he said. “And over the last three years, there has been no more powerful advocate in this country against woke capitalism, against the toxic ESG agenda, and also somebody who’s not just writing books about it, but doing something about it.”

Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy likened his political journey to those of a couple of other notable Republicans.

Well, you wouldn’t be the first Republican candidate for president — or president — who was a Democrat or not a Republican for many years before,” she said. “That would be Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump himself, so…”

On X, however, voters remain unconvinced.

“‘Sometime later’ = immediately after his book failed, and he needed another vaulting point,” stated one user.

“This dude will say anything…” said another.

“His face oozes glib condescension and narcissism,” wrote a third. “It is a small wonder that he seeks to be a politician.”

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Melissa Fine
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