Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy quickly emerged Wednesday night as both the scapegoat of the first Republican debate and the darling of former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Standing near center stage with a swagger, Ramaswamy, 38, beamed as his rivals attacked him, appearing surprised by his stances on issues ranging from supporting amnesty for the 45th president to allowing Russia to keep parts of Ukraine it has conquered. in the 18-month-old Eastern European war.
The Milwaukee match came six months and two days after Ramaswamy announced his candidacy and was immediately and widely dismissed as a long shot, or hopeless.
But rising from obscurity is nothing new for the man who will become the youngest president – ever – if he wins the White House next year.
Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?
Here’s a brief look at Vivek Ramaswamy’s journey from libertarian rapper to GOP superstar.REUTERS
Ramaswamy, a father of two, was born in Cincinnati to immigrants from southern India. His mother worked as a geriatric psychiatrist, while his father worked as an engineer and patent attorney.
Raised in Hinduism, Ramaswamy was sent to a Catholic high school and credits his conservative Christian piano teacher with spurring his political awakening. After high school, he attended Harvard College, where he earned a degree in biology and moonlighted as a rapper – stage name “Da Vek.”
While attending Yale Law School, Ramaswamy worked as a hedge fund investor and claimed to have a net worth of around $15 million by the time he earned his JD in 2013. The following year, he founded the biotech company Roivant Sciences.
Ramaswamy’s estimated net worth is at least $630 million, according to Forbes, making him the second-richest person on the debate stage Wednesday after North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
How did he get into politics?
Vivek Ramaswamy is married to Apoorva, the mother of their two children.Getty Images
Some call Vivek Ramaswamy the Trump 2.0 candidate. Getty Images
Like many Americans, Ramaswamy was shocked by the rise of Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
“If he hadn’t done what he did, I’ll give him full credit here, I wouldn’t have thought of doing this in such a serious way,” Ramaswamy told Newsmax in February.
Although Ramaswamy would be the youngest president ever – surpassing Theodore Roosevelt, who ascended to the White House at the age of 42 after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 – as well as the first American Indian president, the first Hindu president and the second minority president after Barack Obama, he showed no interest in identity politics.
A piece of niche media has catalyzed his rise to prominence, much like Donald Trump did in 2016. AFP via Getty Images
Instead, he claims to be on a quest for “America’s renaissance.”
“It’s not morning in America, we live in dark times and we have to face the fact that we are in a cold cultural civil war and we have to realize that,” Ramaswamy told former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday night.
What happened at the first debate?
Vivek Ramaswamy stands next to Ron DeSantis in the middle of the first debate stage.AP
Ramaswamy does not shy away from any unconventional policy positions.
He dismissed the “climate change agenda” as a hoax, argued against US aid for Ukraine, and promised to pardon Trump on his first day in office.
Taking a page from the 45th president, Ramaswamy knocked his rival for cleaning up the “ready and ready slogans” against him and promised he was “the only person on stage who wasn’t bought and paid for.”
Foes like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each took turns throwing out rhetoric, but Ramaswamy didn’t want to back down.
“Wait, I’ve had enough tonight with a guy who sounds like ChatGPT,” Christie glared at one point before noting Ramaswamy had stolen a line from Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech during his opening remarks: “Who the hell is this skinny guy with a funny last name and what is he doing in the middle of this stage of debate?”
Vivek Ramaswamy appears to have flipped on several issues throughout his campaign.AFP via Getty Images
“Give me a hug! Give me a hug like you gave Obama,” Ramaswamy responded, referring to Christie’s embrace of the 43rd president after Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Haley drew cheers from the debate audience when she told Ramaswamy: “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the only candidate on stage who polled consistently over Ramaswamy, remained above the fray, while Trump went the extra mile to crown him the debate winner.
“This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of the thing called TRUTH. Thank you Vivek!” Trump posted on Truth Social, posting a clip of Ramaswamy arguing he was “the best president of the 21st century.”
Georgia radio host Erick Erickson summed up the views of Ramaswamy’s many skeptics who saw him as a horse stalking the former president.
“Vivek just said Donald Trump is the best president of the 21st century,” he tweeted. “So why is she running against him?”
What’s wrong with a strongly held view?
Eight Republicans gathered on the stage of the first GOP debate. AFP via Getty Images
Ramaswamy’s crusade to overhaul the establishment has been fraught with controversy.
This week, he was accused of peddling 9/11 conspiracy theories for questioning whether there might have been federal agents on board the hijacked plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.
Audio from an interview with Atlantic magazine confirmed the quote, but Ramaswamy still insisted it was misleading — claiming that he didn’t actually believe federal agents were on the plane, but only stating why he wanted more information about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.
Additionally, Ramaswamy has repeatedly implied in interviews that the first election he ever voted for was in 2020, when he pulled the lever for Trump. However, he admitted last month that he also voted for the Libertarian Party candidate in 2004 at the age of 19.
Ramaswamy has also faced accusations of flip-flopping.
Earlier this month, he told The Post that he would be “willing to consider a pardon for members of the Biden family in the interest of advancing the country,” but quickly backward.
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After Wednesday night’s debate, National Review quotes Ramaswamy as saying he would have behaved “very differently” from Pence if he had been asked to throw out the results of the Jan. 6 election.
“I think there’s a missed historic opportunity to settle the score in this country, to say that we’re actually going to have a national compromise on this — a one-day vote on Election Day as a federal holiday, which I think Congress should have acted on in that window between November and January to say: ballot paper, ID issued by the government,” said the candidate. “And if that happens, then we will not complain about the stolen election. And if I were there, I would declare on January 7, saying, ‘Now I will win in a free and fair election.’”
Aside from the dubious constitutionality, Ramaswamy’s response cuts across what he wrote in his 2021 book, “Woke, Inc.”
“Mike Pence, a man I greatly respect, decided it was his constitutional duty to resist the president’s attempt to force him to unilaterally overturn the election results, even in the face of Capitol riots January 6,” Ramaswamy said at the time. “Our institutions do survive, in the end, but they should not be tested.”
Another issue recently came about the issue of Israel. Earlier this year, Ramaswamy denied he was open to cutting military support to Israel, but later insisted he might do so after asking Arab countries to mend fences with the Jewish state – something he believed could be achieved in one term.
“I didn’t know much of this six months ago. But the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m the only one who’s really willing to admit it,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt last week during a discussion on Taiwan.
What else does Ramaswamy believe?
Vivek Ramaswamy has a penchant for slamming doors and doubling down in the midst of controversies. AFP via Getty Images
While the candidate has gone further than Trump in questioning American foreign policy, publicly mulling aid cuts to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Ramaswamy has broken with the former president on issues such as trade.
“I think we should go into it again,” Ramaswamy told Elon Musk last month during a conversation on X, formerly Twitter, about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“I think this is a little bit different than what, you know, the actions taken by Trump in exiting the TPP. I think that was actually a bad decision.”
He did emphasize that he wanted to modify the TPP agreement, asking for “fairer” terms.
During that same conversation, Ramaswamy also echoed Musk’s call for more immigration.
“I agree with that. I actually completely agree with that,” he said, implying that illegal immigration is where the problem lies. “Merit-based immigration is one of the fixes to economic growth in this country.”
Another issue where Ramaswamy is somewhat against the conservative base is on abortion.
“I don’t believe the federal abortion ban makes sense,” Ramaswamy told CNN, “and I say that as someone who is pro-life.”
However, at the state level, Ramaswamy has taken an aggressive anti-abortion stance.
“Life ends exactly when … brain waves end — that’s how we determine when life ends at the back end,” he told Fox News in April. “I think we should use a consistent principle on the front end, it’s around the six-week mark that the brain waves start.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
