Vivek Ramaswamy Full Episode 8.4.23 Firing Line with Margaret Hoover PBS Transcript
Margaret Hoover 00:00
An entrepreneur turned political newcomer and on the rise in the GOP presidential field, this week on Firing Line.
Vivek Ramaswamy 00:09
This is the American Revolution. This is 1776.
Margaret Hoover 00:14
He’s just 37 years old. Vivek Ramaswamy is the son of Indian immigrants, who became a biotech entrepreneur before making a name for himself with a book Woke Inc. about why he believes corporations and social causes shouldn’t mix.
Vivek Ramaswamy 00:31
Coca-Cola was among those companies that has mastered the art of blowing woke smoke.
Margaret Hoover 00:36
Ramaswamy has earned a prized place on the August GOP debate stage.
Vivek Ramaswamy 00:40
Trump was actually a very good president, but he fell short of the level that I would want to see us go to.
Margaret Hoover 00:46
Among Ramaswamy’s policy ideas that would transform the US government: eliminate the Department of Education, the FBI, and the IRS.
Vivek Ramaswamy 00:55
I will not promise you to reform those agencies. We will shut them down.
Margaret Hoover 01:01
And US military support to Ukraine and require young people to pass a civics test if they want to vote before they’re 25. What does Vivek Ramaswamy say now?
Video 1 01:13
Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, the Asness Family Foundation, the McKenna Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab, and by the Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, and Damon Button.
Margaret Hoover 01:36
Vivek Ramaswamy. Welcome to ‘Firing Line’.
Vivek Ramaswamy 01:38
Thanks. I’m glad to be here.
Margaret Hoover 01:40
Why do you want to be the next president of the United States?
Vivek Ramaswamy 01:44
I am worried, Margaret, that we are in the middle of this national identity crisis, where my generation, in particular, our generation, we’re hungry for purpose and meaning and identity. And yet we hunger to be part of something bigger than ourselves yet we can’t even answer what it means to be an American. I think that loss of identity is responsible for a lot of our economic stagnation. It’s part of what’s actually even behind the loss of our fortitude on the global stage. And I think that I actually have a vision of what it means to be a citizen of this country because I have lived the true American dream. And I am worried that will not exist for the next generation unless we do something about it.
Margaret Hoover 02:26
What qualifies you to be the next president of the United States?
Vivek Ramaswamy 02:30
So the fact that I am an outsider is I think an important qualification, but I bring a unique combination. I do think it will take an outsider who has executive experience, who’s been a successful CEO. But to combine that and, I think, this is where, for example, Trump left short, combine that with a deep, first personal understanding of the Constitution itself. A deep understanding of the laws that actually empower a US president to shut down the administrative state and the federal bureaucracy that gets in the way of prosperity and liberty in this country. That’s a rare combination. I bring that combination to the table. I think that’s going to be required to reach the next generation of Americans and I feel a sense of obligation to do it.
Margaret Hoover 03:16
You just said Trump fell short. How did Trump fall short?
Vivek Ramaswamy 03:20
I think in many ways, and I’m learning from the foundation that he laid, the advisers that he surrounded himself with did not even allow him really to see through the agenda that he himself said he wanted to come in and see through: “draining the swamp, shutting down the deep state”. Many of the people around him tied his hands.
Margaret Hoover 03:41
So you’re saying Trump wasn’t able to fulfill his promises to the American people?
Vivek Ramaswamy 03:44
I think that he fulfilled some of his promises. To be clear, I think that my view is Trump was actually a very good president, but he fell short of the level that I would want to see us go to. We didn’t solve the border crisis. I’ve said I would use the US military to secure the southern border. Take the Department of Education. He put a good person on top of it, Betsy DeVos. I believe an agency like that is not subject to reform. I’ve said that I would shut down the US Department of Education. So, in many ways, I think Trump did not go far enough with the very agenda that he brought to office in the first place. And that’s a big part of why I’m in this race.
Margaret Hoover 04:21
The first debate is going to be the first time many GOP primary voters have even heard your name.
Vivek Ramaswamy 04:27
Yes.
Margaret Hoover 04:27
They are very quickly going to see that you are well-spoken, that you are energetic, that you have pristine Ivy League credentials, and they’re also going to realize that you have no elective experience at the state or federal level. How do you expect that they will not categorize you as a Republican version of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in his campaign to become president of
Vivek Ramaswamy 04:55
I think that will be easy because Pete Buttigieg and I are fundamentally different people. We’re different human beings. I think what they will see much more naturally is exactly what the Republican base wanted in 2016, which was an outsider untainted by government, independent of the donor class, and that’s me. I think the rest of that debate stage will be populated by–let’s call it what it is–super PAC puppets, people whose campaigns are principally funded by super PACs that are running their ads on television. I’m not bought by the donor class. I have put over $15 million of my own money into this campaign. Hard-earned money on the back of my own success. And I am untainted by the constraints that come with being a career government, really professional politician. The real choice that I think the GOP faces in this primary is, do we want reform? Incremental reform? Or do we want revolution? I stand on the side of revolution. I think the GOP base stands on the side of the American revolution with me and that’s a big part of why it’s going to take an outsider to get that job done.
Margaret Hoover 06:01
I’m going to need you to go into why we need a revolution?
Vivek Ramaswamy 06:04
We need a revival of the American revolution and its ideals
Margaret Hoover 06:06
Which ideals?
Vivek Ramaswamy 06:07
That’s exactly what we need. Ideals like self-governance over aristocracy. The idea that we the people sort out our differences through free speech and open debate in the public square without elite interference. The ideal that it’s not in the back of palace halls or three-letter government agencies that we decide the right answers to questions from climate change to racial injustice, but that the citizens do it in a constitutional republic and we have lost that.
Margaret Hoover 06:34
But are you saying revolution in the context of real violence?
Vivek Ramaswamy 06:37
No. I believe in full peace in this country. My concern, and this is my concern, is if we fail to let people speak freely, that is when they scream. If we fail to let people scream, that is when they turn to tearing things down. So I do not want to see another instance like January 6th, 2021 in this country, but my concern is by failing to reckon with what actually led to events like that, we’re paving the way for far worse in the future.
Margaret Hoover 07:12
How are the GOP self identified Republican primary voters going to look at what you’re offering as a Trump 2.0 version, a more effective approach to delivering on Trump’s original promises? How are they going to not think, You know what, he would be a really effective chief of staff for a Trump 2.0 with Trump as the president? What is going to differentiate you, other than your technocratic ability, to get it done?
Vivek Ramaswamy 07:41
I think that’s an important element of it, but it’s not the whole story. I think I’m the only person in this race, including Trump, who has the power and ability to inspire a new young generation of Americans that I think our voter base cares deeply about. And about 30% of this country became psychiatrically ill when Trump was in office, started agreeing with things they would have never agreed with just because Donald Trump was saying them, started disagreeing with things that they used to agree with just because Trump was in office. And without putting blame on Trump or anybody else I think most people understand that was just a fact from 2016 onward in this country. And for whatever reason, I’m not having that effect on people. To the contrary, we are bringing young people into this movement, new people into our pro American movement who have never come with the GOP before. I was a guy who supported Trump. I am a guy who still respects immensely what he accomplished for this country. But America first does not belong to Trump just as it does not belong to me, just as it didn’t belong to Reagan. It belongs to the people of this country. And the question is who’s going to take that agenda further? I think it’s going to be the guy with fresh legs, a deep understanding of the constitution, the ability to win a landslide and bring young Americans with us.
Margaret Hoover 08:58
Okay, so you want to bring a new generation into politics. That’s a very refreshing approach. And yet, one of your key campaign pillars is raising the voting age to 25, with a civics test or military service in order to maintain the age 18 voting age.
Vivek Ramaswamy 09:20
So my premise is this: every young kid who graduates from high school should be able to pass the same civics test that every immigrant has to pass in order to become a citizen of this country.
Margaret Hoover 09:33
Amen.
Vivek Ramaswamy 09:33
At the age of 18, let’s attach civic duties to civic privileges. And I say that minimal duty is either knowing something about the country, the exact same things an immigrant has to know. Or else, serve the country in some minimal way. First responder role or in the military. Part of reaching young people isn’t just pandering by telling them what in the short term they want to hear, satisfying their moral hunger by saying what the left says, go to Ben and Jerry’s and order a cup of ice cream with some social justice sprinkles on the side. No. That’s not how we satisfy the hunger for purpose and meaning. I think the revival of actual civic duty is a big part of how we feed that hunger for purpose. Citizenship means something to me. And if we make it mean something to young Americans, they’ll be much less drawn to secular cults from wokeism to climatism than they are today because they actually believe that the fact that they’re a citizen of the United States of America actually means something to them and it will unite the country in the process.
Margaret Hoover 10:37
You’ve coined this term climatism.
Vivek Ramaswamy 10:40
Yeah.
Margaret Hoover 10:41
What does it mean?
Vivek Ramaswamy 10:41
I think it refers to an ideology that says we have to abandon fossil fuels and carbon emissions at all cost to stave off existential climate risks for humanity. I think that is a religious conviction, it is not a scientific conviction. So I think we have to reckon with the facts to say that our global surface temperature’s going up. Yes, it appears to, that’s a fact.
Margaret Hoover 11:03
Because of the emission of carbon.
Vivek Ramaswamy 11:06
Because of broadly man made causes including but not limited to the emission of carbon and also non man made causes. Yes. Is that an existential risk for humanity? No, it is not. Does that mean that we should abandon or even abate the use of carbon or carbon dioxide emissions? No, it does not in my book. I think the right question we should be asking is what advances human prosperity? That’s what I care about, that’s what I will care about measuring as the leader of this country rather than obsessing over a cult of carbon.
Margaret Hoover 11:36
When people point to the 101 degree water temperatures in Florida or the heat waves throughout the country or the unparalleled storms and climate events, how do you respond?
Vivek Ramaswamy 11:49
I respond by saying that if the same shoe fit the other foot, and you disagreed with that policy and somebody else who were picking up anecdotal data from the middle of Arkansas who didn’t go to Harvard, you’d be laughing them off the stage as a bunch of [rubs] who didn’t know how to follow data based on anecdotal evidence.
Margaret Hoover 12:04
Approximately half of Republican primary voters favor Donald Trump as their first choice candidate for the nomination. How do you defeat Donald Trump without contrasting yourself and making the case that Republicans should not renominate him?
Vivek Ramaswamy 12:21
Look, I’m not running from something. I am leading us to a vision of what it means to be an American and doing it while authentically respecting what Trump did for this country. But drawing a contrast, I mean, the contrasts are plenty. I’m less than half his age. I am the fresh outsider in this race. I have a clear, detailed vision to take on policy disputes, policy objectives that he was even unwilling to touch. So those are details, but I think they’re important details. But most importantly, I think respecting his legacy and doing it authentically will allow me to be more successful in winning this nomination.
Margaret Hoover 12:58
You’ve called for Republican candidates to pardon Trump in both of the two cases that he has been charged with, the Rag DA from Manhattan case as well as Jack Smith’s documents case from Mar-a-Lago. Recently, new charges have been added to the documents case. What’s clear is that the scope of Trump’s legal liability is not fully known yet, even still. So why plant the flag? Why plant the pardon flag without seeing all of the evidence that prosecutors have against him?
Vivek Ramaswamy 13:33
I’ll give you the narrow answer and I’ll give you the deeper answer. The narrow answer is I would pardon him because I think that his behaviors did not obviously constitute a legal violation even as stated in those indictments. That’s the narrow answer. The deeper answer, and the one that really moves me, is that I think it will set an awful national precedent for us to become a country in which the ruling party, whoever it is, uses police power to indict its political rivals. That is the stuff of Banana Republics, that is not the stuff of the United States of America. I ask the question of, is anything, any step we take as a country; is that going to take us one step closer to a national divorce which I worry deeply about. I do not want a national divorce. I want to lead a national revival. Would this prosecution of a former president who currently is a front runner in a primary to be the next president, would that take us in the right direction or the wrong direction as a country? There is no doubt in my mind that that will take us in not only a wrong but potentially dangerous direction that will make the job of reuniting this country that much more difficult. That is what moves me.
Margaret Hoover 14:43
Is there any scenario in which you believe that the officials at the justice department can put partisanship aside and truly administer the laws of this country apart from politics? If there were a Republican president and a Republican attorney general prosecuting Donald Trump, would that be legitimate and free from politicization in your view?
Vivek Ramaswamy 15:06
I don’t think the real divide in this country is between Republicans and Democrats.
Margaret Hoover 15:09
No, no, but answer my question. So is there any way to prosecute a former president without it being considered politicized in your view?
Vivek Ramaswamy 15:17
The answer would be it wouldn’t be whether it’s a Republican or not, it would come down to the facts and law. I’ll tell you something that would change my mind. If you told me in the documents case there was new evidence that came out that Trump was selling those secrets for private financial gain to our foreign adversaries who are in a position to use that to compromise the US?
Margaret Hoover 15:33
That would change your mind.
Vivek Ramaswamy 15:33
That would absolutely change my position.
Margaret Hoover 15:34
But obstruction is breaking the law.
Vivek Ramaswamy 15:38
Obstruction is breaking the law, but if for the same reason that entrapment. Entrapment would cause someone to
Margaret Hoover 15:44
But we’re not talking about entrapment here. We’re talking about the FBI asked for documents and then he potentially destroyed camera evidence of him not giving over those documents.
Vivek Ramaswamy 15:54
So this gets into deep constitutional doctrine which I’m happy to do. The way you’re supposed to prosecute somebody, deeply ingrained in the legal tradition of this country, is that there is an actual act that breaks the law and then you bring the person who committed it to justice, not that you pick the person and then find the violation.
Margaret Hoover 16:12
I hear your passion and you’ve redirected the question and the answer from actually the circumstances of President Trump’s obstruction. Bill Barr read the same indictment that you read, and that I read, and that America has read, and called it damning. So you two just have a difference of opinion.
Vivek Ramaswamy 16:30
I’m not sure we do. I’d have to talk to Bill on that. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t.
Margaret Hoover 16:35
He called it damning, you don’t think it’s damning?
Vivek Ramaswamy 16:37
I have said it is not the basis for a legal conviction. What I have also said at every step– I’ll remind you, Margaret, I’m in this race for US president, in the same race that Donald Trump is in for a reason. I would have made different judgments than Trump made in each of those instances, very different judgments. But I think there is a fundamental difference between a bad judgment, which is an issue for the voters to take into account as they wish to where we the people decide who leads the country, versus using criminal procedures to eliminate someone from competition in that election and eliminating the ability of the voters to make that decision for themselves.
Margaret Hoover 17:15
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