Vivek Ramaswamy joins the Charlie Kirk Show to talk about running for President of the United States, what it's like being a first-time politician, and why he decided to run for President in 2016. He also talks about what it was like running for president in 2016 and what he learned from the experience. He also discusses the lessons he took from his experience as a presidential candidate and how he dealt with the media scrutiny that he received after his campaign. Finally, he talks about why he didn't run for president the first time and what it took him to run the second time. This episode is sponsored by Noble Gold Investments, a company that specializes in gold and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investing. That's where I buy all of my gold. It s where I bought all my gold! Go to noblegoldinvestments.com/thecharliekirk and you get 20% off your first month with discount code: CHALLLEKIRKILLERUP! at the checkout machine! Learn more about your ad choices at charliekirk.show.co/theCharlieKirk Show.co.nz/theclarkepp Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts! and become a supporter of the show by clicking the link below. You'll get 10% off the entire month for the month, plus free shipping throughout the rest of the month! If you leave us a review, we'll get a FREE 7-day shipping, plus an ad discount, plus a free shipping, and a FREE VIP membership when you sign up for the next month, and we'll send you an ad on the next week! Thanks for supporting the show, you'll get 7 days early and receive an ad that starts on The Charlie Kirk show! Thank you, Charlie Kirk is a big thank you! - The Charlie Kirker Show is a great place to learn more about the show? - Thank you Charlie Kirk's show is a special offer, you get 5 stars and a discount on the show gets 5-day early & early access to VIP access to the next episode starts next week for the show starts on 7/6/second week, 7/second place gets 7/24/9/27/7/19/19 gets a chance to buy a VIP discount, and 7/27 gets a discount offer only that starts after the first week of the ad goes live!
00:00:51.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:58.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:10.000Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:20.000Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:02:30.000It's the way we raise our sons as well.
00:02:32.000And one of the things I reflect on in the presidential race is you have a lot of people, even some of the competitors, who might be very kind people but aren't maybe ready for the fight.
00:02:41.000I was ready for the fight, but I also think that one of the things that I would have done and would have advised myself to do a better job of is at times also slow down and let people know why you're actually in this and what you're fighting for.
00:02:54.000Do you think you could have done a better job of that?
00:02:57.000I think part of what happens in the first debate, one of the things that shocked me was, I'm on that stage as a first-time politician, presidential candidate, and I think we're going to talk about a bunch of policy stuff, and then I start getting Getting mud right out of the gate.
00:03:22.000And, you know, some of you all in the room may have enjoyed watching some of those debates.
00:03:25.000And I wouldn't do it differently on the debate stage, because that's what that's made for.
00:03:30.000But I think that part of the way we're going to save this country is also remind everybody what we're fighting for.
00:03:37.000And I think that that's something that, were I to do this again, I think it would be something that's even more important to me next time around.
00:03:43.000I've always liked you personally, but when Vivek, you know this, I say this openly, when you first started running for president, I was a skeptic.
00:04:09.000And I don't say that lightly, you know that.
00:04:13.000And I'll tell you what, I mean, I saw this amazing growth, and I mean that in the best possible way, but when you went on stage and you called out Rana to her face, I was like, he's my man.
00:04:26.000That's like Trump 2016 territory, right?
00:04:29.000When you all of a sudden said, it's not the great replacement theory, but the great replacement reality, I said, I have not heard a politician with that kind of courage and conviction.
00:04:38.000And not to mention all sorts of other different things.
00:04:41.000I could see it was genuine and from the heart.
00:04:43.000And you texted me after you're like, yeah, gloves are off.
00:04:47.000And I know that you did not win the primary this time, but I think you really won the hearts and minds of millions of people that I mean, if we're honest, if Trump wins in November, God willing, we're all working towards that end.
00:04:58.000There will be almost an immediate question of like, what comes next?
00:05:15.000But did you grow in any of your beliefs?
00:05:16.000Did you see things on the trail that might have further radicalized you in certain opinions or changed your views?
00:05:22.000Because running for president, if you're an honest person, not just like a weird robot like Pete Buttigieg, should actually clarify your thinking.
00:05:30.000I think one of the areas, so this was an example of an issue that was not a core issue for me at the time I started my campaign, I will admit, but became a core issue by the end, was the fentanyl crisis in this country.
00:05:42.000So I met parents, and by the end of it, we made it, by the time we visited any state, I would meet multiple parents who had lost their kids to fentanyl overdoses.
00:05:50.000And they call them overdoses, but they're not really overdoses, it's poisoning, because if you put in a Big Mac, they wouldn't call that an overdose, they would call that bioterrorism.
00:05:57.000And it's mistaken, meaning they're taking a different substance.
00:06:03.000In many cases these are people who did not sign up to the death sentence that they received.
00:06:08.000And so then that happened over the course of the campaign where there was the other set of issues were also at the start of the campaign I wasn't as focused on, which was U.S.
00:06:16.000I opened up with a domestic policy vision for this country.
00:06:19.000And last year was a year where we really separated Who was on which side of the Republican Party, and who was on which side of this country?
00:06:27.000And to me, those two issues converged.
00:06:29.000To say that our own citizens are suffering of, what, upwards of 80,000 deaths of an illegal chemical created from parts that are provided by synthetic raw materials to the Mexican drug cartels, and yet we're not doing a damn thing about it.
00:06:41.000And yet, at the other side of the world, we're forking over $200 billion to protect somebody else's border, while ours remains as porous as ever.
00:07:23.000Passion for defining—and I have to admit, Charlie, it's maybe a challenge to say this—I don't think we have yet cleanly defined the future of what America First actually is and is going to be.
00:07:36.000And so that's something that I consider an important unfilled role, and I'm going to hopefully play some part in helping define what this movement actually stands for, because that's the direction of the future, but we haven't really pinned it down, and I think we need to in order to succeed.
00:07:56.000Personally, or when you attack my friends and your friend.
00:07:59.000The attack that really bothered me is when people called you stupid.
00:08:02.000Like, no, because you can call Vivek a lot of things, right?
00:08:04.000Stupid is definitely, you're like, you're stupid if you're called, like, he's legitimately very brilliant, started a big company, graduated like first year class of every college you ever went to, right?
00:08:42.000And the attacks against you was not that you're wrong, but Vivek is dumb.
00:08:48.000And I was like, okay, now I'm really upset because where are we as a conservative movement, where people that I really respect and some I don't respect, we're launching those salvos at.
00:09:08.000What did you learn during that when you were the recipient of a lot of friendly fire?
00:09:13.000And instead of going after your positions, they questioned your intelligence.
00:09:17.000Yeah, so what I learned, first of all, is foreign policy has been the third rail for a lot of the Guardian uniparty establishment, pervading both parties.
00:09:26.000And I didn't realize that's what I was walking into, because I treated that the same way as I was treating any other issue, which is candidly stating what I actually believed.
00:09:32.000You might think it's the transgender debate, you might think it's the race relations debate, even the climate debate.
00:09:38.000And the reality is those can be third rails in certain types of university or left-of-center environments.
00:09:44.000But in many ways, what I saw happen in the Republican Party was the use of those issues, where you actually quietly, everyone basically agrees, as a smokescreen to actually avoid touching the real third rail, which is, where are you on the use of American resources to either protect our own citizens or to increased risk for our own citizens and the rubber really
00:10:02.000hit the road on that last year particularly with ukraine
00:10:05.000so the time the presidential debates are not in the debates but the race began
00:10:10.000i think i was the only person who was crystal clear that i was dead set
00:10:14.000against forking over more money to ukraine which was outside the overton
00:10:18.000window at that particular was the only one let's be very i mean
00:10:21.000I mean, Tucker was really at the front end of this, but I'm a candidate.
00:11:38.000Well, I think that also reflects part of the pressure in the Republican Party.
00:11:45.000And this is another big lesson I learned.
00:11:48.000And it's going to be a quandary if I was advising somebody to run for president or if I was
00:11:51.000ever to do it again, how you're going to cross this impasse.
00:11:55.000It's the impact of money in politics, actually.
00:11:58.000I mean, the reality is I can't tell you the number of donors I lost over my position on Ukraine, which was deemed irresponsible.
00:12:04.000Now, the window's shifted on that a little bit.
00:12:06.000A lot of those same people now are more skeptical of aid on Ukraine.
00:12:09.000And that's also one of the things I learned, is that when you're taking heterodox positions, Timing is actually everything, right?
00:12:18.000You could have left-wing comedians, I don't know if it was Jon Stewart or whoever it is now, going back and reflecting on the fact that COVID obviously started in China.
00:12:25.000It's easy to say that now, but there's no impact from actually adopting that position versus actually having adopted that position in the middle of the pandemic.
00:12:34.000We've already forked over $200 billion.
00:12:36.000The outcome is going to be, it looks like, increasingly the same outcome as it would have been if we hadn't.
00:12:40.000In fact, we'd be in a worse place geopolitically versus at least negotiating from a position of strength, which is what we should have done in the first April of the war before Boris Johnson flew over to solve his own problems by goading, of course, to goad them more into war.
00:12:53.000If you had taken that position, then it actually could have changed the outcome.
00:12:56.000So one of the things that I've learned, and the same thing with respect to, you watch, mark my words on this, even when the truth comes out years from now about the total set of facts of what really happened on January 6th, it's going to be long afterwards when there's no consequence from that recognition.
00:13:11.000Saudi Arabia's involvement, 9-11, it's one of the things that I talked about in the campaign that breached a total third rail of American politics.
00:13:17.000This is one step further than that, Charlie.
00:13:49.000And so that was one of my lessons in the campaign as well, is when you're outside of the Overton window, one of the things you do is if you're at the bleeding edge of that, you pave the way for the people who come after you, but at the time you actually do it, That's when it matters most, and timing is everything in a way that you could say COVID started in a lab in China today, and you think of yourself as brave, but you're not really brave at all.
00:14:11.000But you want to talk today about actually questioning the government's narrative on any of these other questions, you know, then you're actually outside the acceptable bounds of receiving donor funds.
00:14:20.000I mean, I raise a lot of money, but I'm not running for president, so they see the mission, and I think we have more agreement.
00:14:25.000And I think some donors don't have to agree with everything I say, but when a presidential candidate, I think it is much more issue-set fitting, especially in a primary.
00:14:41.000But your opinions on very aggressive immigration policy, very clear on trans stuff, of all the strong opinions you could have, the one where donors said we don't want to send you money is because I believe a foreign country should not be given priority over the homeland?
00:14:56.000Yes, I think that was a true third rail of American politics.
00:15:01.000I think it also got under the skin of a lot of the media that serves as a gatekeeper for what the acceptable opinions are.
00:15:06.000See, most people are not inherently leaders.
00:15:09.000Those aren't actually closely held opinions, but they take their cues from the institutionalists who decide what direction that opinion does or doesn't go, and that too was a third rail for much of the media as well.
00:15:20.000Now, I predict, Charlie, this landscape is changing.
00:15:23.000So a few years from now, I am, for better or worse, in some ways it's too bad this will be the case, I think a lot of the views that I adopted will have been vindicated in retrospect.
00:15:40.000The real challenging third rail here, and I say this as somebody who is Actually, staunchly, I believe even more strongly pro-Israel than the standard Republican Party talking point position, was my view that I'm against passing the aid package that just whizzed right through without really much of a second question.
00:16:00.000Which, by the way, doubled overnight, just so we're clear.
00:16:02.000It went from $13 billion to inexcusably nearly $30 billion, and no one asked the question as to why?
00:16:07.000But here's my prediction of what we're actually going to see.
00:16:11.000We're going to see not only leading voices in the United States questioning that decision, but we're already starting to see this leading voices in Israel for Israel's own national position questioning the wisdom of that as well.
00:16:22.000Because part of what we're doing when we're supposedly sending over money to a foreign country is we're actually using it as a set of handcuffs to be able to dictate from here what they do or don't do.
00:16:33.000So, to be clear, I am all in favor of Ukraine pursuing a Ukraine-first policy.
00:16:37.000I'm not rooting for Ukraine to lose this war.
00:17:01.000then assumes implicit responsibility for what Israel does, which then puts Biden in the position for backseat quarterbacking what Israel's own government is supposed to do, which is worse for us, but also worse for Israel.
00:17:11.000And so I think it takes... That's a nuanced position.
00:17:14.000So that lends itself for other candidates on the debate stage to just falsely, and this is false, characterize me as, in this case, anti-Israel.
00:17:33.000Most people don't actually watch the debates.
00:17:35.000Most people watch the distillation or the description or read what actually happened.
00:17:41.000And so these are some of the great learnings.
00:17:43.000It's the gatekeepers of information that determine the public perceptions of not just a general election audience, but even a Republican primary electorate.
00:17:53.000Now, what one does with those lessons is another matter, but I think that with six months of reflection, those are some of my bigger, interesting, unexpected learnings from the race.
00:18:03.000I mean, I'm very pro-Israel, as you guys know, and I have Israel envy.
00:18:07.000Why do they have a border and we don't?
00:18:09.000Well, we should learn from our allies.
00:18:11.000Why is Israel allowed to deport foreigners that commit crimes?
00:18:15.000Do you know right before October 7th in late September, there were a bunch of Etrians,
00:18:18.000you know, the country of, I think it's Etria.
00:19:06.000Again, our identity is different than Israel's identity.
00:19:08.000There is a religious, tribal identity, and that's fine.
00:19:11.000Our identity is one that is rooted in values and one that is passed down in irrefutable divine truths, ethical monotheism, separation of powers.
00:19:21.000But the point I'm getting is that I'm so pro-Israel that I actually want America to look more like Israel in some ways, not every way.
00:19:26.000But what I can understand, though, is why in American dialogue or discourse the only agreed-upon position is it's okay to send money to those countries, but if we start acting like those countries, we're terrible.
00:19:38.000Yeah, it's completely hypocritical and nonsensical, which would explain, frankly, the establishment in both major political parties for much of the last 35 years, which is at least the magnitude of my adult lifetime, which is part of what compelled me to enter politics.
00:19:51.000I mean, I talked about one of the things that allowed me to adopt the positions that I have is the fact that I was able to self-finance and, you know, I didn't enjoy spending 33 million dollars.
00:20:49.000By the end of the campaign, or even midway through it, she didn't historically think of herself as a terribly political person.
00:20:55.000But believed we were on a holy mission for this country and was all in on it for me that the inheritance we wanted—we had this conversation, right?
00:21:03.000Because this is—it might as well go to us.
00:21:07.000Okay, what's the inheritance we actually want to leave for our kids?
00:21:10.000And the thing we decided is it's not a bunch of green pieces of paper.
00:21:13.000Actually, you could argue that that's going to encumber them in a lot of ways.
00:21:17.000I've seen a lot of people I've gone to school with in places like Harvard, as we talk about, who have in some ways been, have had that cross tied to their back, that albatross that they've borne.
00:22:05.000meaning that they made a choice to no longer be in the Aspen, Sun Valley,
00:22:10.000Kenny Bunkport, Cape Cod circles. And they have money. JD Vance has money.
00:22:15.000Favek has money. Trump has money. And if they would have adopted a
00:22:18.000certain issue set, albeit even from center right circles, they would have
00:22:22.000still been a loud and polite society. And so you've been around the ruling
00:22:25.000class and you decided, I don't wanna be part of that anymore.
00:22:27.000I wanna be with the people. I wanna save the country, which I think is amazing. So can you help me understand why
00:22:33.000the current people that are in charge of the society are so
00:22:38.000hell bent on ruining the country that they're tasked to steward?
00:22:42.000Yeah, there's different kinds of them.
00:22:44.000I think that's actually the first distinction to draw.
00:22:46.000Different kinds of people in this ruling class, if we're to use that term.
00:22:51.000I actually think one of the things I tried to do during the campaign is bring many of them with us, actually.
00:22:56.000This is going to have to be both bottom-up and top-down.
00:22:58.000And a lot of these people, what they needed was really liberation.
00:23:01.000I can't tell you on how many different Signal or similar chat groups I am on with, like, anonymized initial-only names, but with some of the big names.
00:23:14.000There's different overlapping groups, many of whom are unable to say in public what they will put into these private chats, and that needle is moving.
00:23:23.000So I think that's a good thing in our direction.
00:23:24.000So every time we see some sort of, you know, part of your first – it happens to me too – part of your first reaction when you see some next billionaire saying something that you were saying two years ago, Now thinking that they're anti-woke and suddenly discovered that DEI was poison for the country, your first reaction should not be as I am tempted for it to be to roll my eyes and be like, come on dude, what were you thinking?
00:23:47.000Thank you for having the consciousness and open-mindedness to revise your prior opinions and now belatedly even still having still what may not seem like us to courage but in their circle still is courage to actually say it.
00:24:00.000That's a trend that I see in this country I think is going to be a requirement if we're realistically talking about actually fixing the system within the boundaries that actually exist where that is part of the donor class that was part of the problem over the last year as I experienced it.
00:24:12.000So I think the changes in that community that became one of the things that I felt that I was able to do and may be able to continue to do
00:25:28.000The reason he governs and does not guarantee liberty to the Americans in the colonies is because they couldn't be trusted to possibly self-govern.
00:25:37.000And that brings us back to the moment we're in, Charlie.
00:25:39.000Once you see it that way, it's actually far more dangerous, far more sinister.
00:25:44.000It's a 1776 moment right now between the citizen and the managerial class.
00:25:50.000And if the citizens can team up with the creators to overthrow the managerial class, that's what success in this country looks like.
00:27:10.000The PMC, the Professional Managerial Class.
00:27:12.000And he diagnosed it, I think it was like 90s he wrote it, if I'm not mistaken, and he saw this coming.
00:27:16.000He said, the death of America will be the growth of mid-level management, MLM.
00:27:22.000And you can see this in corporate America, by the way, where everyone's a manager and no one really knows who does anything, and it's a really bad way to run an organization, a really bad way to run a company, and run a country.
00:27:36.000The problem with the managerial class is that they're huge in number, they're seemingly permanent in position.
00:27:45.000So, Vivek is president day one, and anything you say Trump can also do as president day one.
00:28:24.000I'll sum it down to two important things.
00:28:25.000It's a tale of two mass deportations, okay?
00:28:27.000One is actually sealing our own border and making sure that anybody who's in this country illegally is treated appropriately as an illegal in this country.
00:29:00.000What's left is probably still too big.
00:29:02.000And you know I made progress when I sort of said this, the pushback I got from most people is what you'd expect, but Elon Musk calls me and says, no, no, that's not enough.
00:29:53.000Right, so the Schedule F expansion, that's the part that President Trump took in the late days, and that's what they're talking about starting in the beginning.
00:30:32.000Don't bring the chisel in the first place.
00:30:34.000Mass indiscriminate firings, they can't sue you because they can't say it's because of political discrimination or racial discrimination or disparate outcomes based on race or gender or sexual orientation.
00:30:43.000That's what slows you up in the courts.
00:30:46.000If it's literally, and people got mad when I said this, and I'm not saying I would do it this way, but if you literally said if your social security number ends in an odd number, you're out.
00:31:32.000It was a Carter-era law, but the portions that have expired were actually the ones that required congressional approval.
00:31:37.000The unexpired portions say there are certain conditions under which the U.S.
00:31:41.000president Can unilaterally carry out already permission that Congress has given to shut down agencies.
00:31:48.000If it promotes economy, and what they mean by economy is economy within the administration of government, efficiency of operations in government, or eliminates redundant agencies, then the president already has the power to do it.
00:32:00.000So I believe the Department of Education checks that box to the fullest.
00:32:03.000You want to move the parts that actually administer workforce training?
00:32:26.000Congress chartered the Department of Education, though.
00:32:29.000So, there's a couple of things to say.
00:32:33.000Actually, a lot of these agencies, it will surprise you Charlie, it will surprise me too, were actually never originally chartered by Congress in the first place.
00:32:40.000So, just because they give you a financial appropriation... But the big ones are.
00:33:52.000You cut off one head of an eight-headed hydra, it grows right back, you want to solve the problem, you got it at its core.
00:33:59.000And I think this is the question when we think about the future of America first, Charlie, is, you know, I'm not going to hold President Trump to the standard of believing and having to do everything that I've laid out, because he's got his agenda and he's unapologetic about it, and I'm going to do whatever I can to not only make sure he's successfully elected, but implements a lot of the things that he needs to do that are good for this country that are at the top of his list.
00:34:19.000But these are the things that would be at the top of my list.
00:34:22.000And I think we got the next four years where we got to make sure that we reclaim the direction of this country.
00:34:28.000And then we've got the next 250 years of America First after that.
00:34:32.000And I think that the next four years are a requirement to lay that foundation.
00:34:55.000Which is an oligarchy or a constitutional republic?
00:34:57.000Are you a citizen or are you a subject?
00:35:00.000That's what's on the ballot this year.
00:35:01.000If you're a subject, you know who you vote for.
00:35:04.000Subject of the regime that views you as somebody they need to benevolently take care of.
00:35:09.000If you are a citizen that deserves to hold your elected leaders accountable, if you believe the people we elect to run the government should be the ones who run the government, and that they owe their sole moral duty to you, the citizens of this country and not another one, Then there is one answer for how you vote this November, and that's to put Donald Trump back in the White House so we at least change the direction of this country and lay the foundation for an America First movement that will outlive Donald Trump, that will outlive me, that will outlive you, that didn't start in 2016, it started in 1776, but put back the man who revived it in the 21st century back into the White House.
00:35:46.000Very quickly, then I gotta get you on stage.
00:35:55.000I said this on the Republican debate stage last year, and I think that it becomes less likely by the day, you've got to admit, but I still think that there's a very good chance.
00:36:13.000And the reason why is that this is the final audition before the DNC.
00:36:17.000It's the first ever known debate before the nominating convention of either political party.
00:36:23.000So they've set themselves up for a win-win, which is, if Biden does really well, he exceeds expectations.
00:36:29.000Even if he passes as a coherent human being, he will have exceeded expectations, and that could reset the race.
00:36:35.000But if, as I expect, he doesn't, then that gives them ample time to swap in somebody, which is actually the best scenario of all, because think about this, when you're in the honeymoon phase, then you don't have the time for scrutiny.
00:36:47.000So if they're swapping somebody in July or August, maybe a Michelle Obama, who knows who it is?
00:36:52.000Well, here in Michigan, whatever it is, you initially get the honeymoon phase, but without actually the time for the scrutiny, and I believe that's part of what the backup plan might actually look like.
00:37:14.000But yeah, she's a darling of the Democrat Party.
00:37:17.000Yeah, and I think that here's what I would say in closing is, I worry, I don't mean to be, I don't mean to close on a dark note, but I believe in truth.
00:37:24.000And so I'm going to speak what I believe is a hard truth right now.
00:37:27.000I think there's a lot of optimism, including in our own party, including in the ranks of President Trump and the campaign team for good reason about the poll numbers and everything else.
00:37:36.000I think we are at risk of the same thing that happened in 2022, which is a red wave that never comes.
00:37:43.000And I think complacency right now is not an option.
00:37:46.000And the way we're going to do this isn't just by pinning it against Biden or worrying it's Whitmer or Obama or whoever else.