The truth according to Vivek Ramaswamy

As time winds down for the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, GOP presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy has been making a name for himself but has failed to make much of an impact.

The former biotech executive, who spent considerable time campaigning in New Hampshire, is not mentioned in the narrative that accompanied a Dec. 20 poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center, which said 44% of respondents preferred former President Donald Trump, with former Ambassador Nikki Haley attracting 30% of respondents.

Ramaswamy, who recently halted his spending on cable television advertising, was preferred by 6% of poll respondents, the survey said, tying with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But to find that figure, readers needed to examine the survey data.

Ramaswamy visited the offices of NH Business Review the “Down to Business” podcast on Dec. 11 for an interview with Publisher Ernesto Burden and Editor Mike Cote shortly after appearing at a campaign event in Portsmouth. This interview was edited and condensed for clarity. Listen to the interview at nhbr.com.

NHBR: You just came from Portsmouth. Tell us a little bit about that.

Ramaswamy: I think that a lot of people who were in that room … said that their impression of me in person was very different than what they get from television, and I think we converted many people in that room … Now you’re only going to reach a small number of people that way relative to the overall voting population. But my bet is if you do the grassroots approach that people talk, they spread the message. And I think that both here in New Hampshire and in Iowa, that’s really how it works. And there’s a reason why New Hampshire’s first in the nation, in the primary system. And I think that there’s a good reason to keep it that way.

NHBR: Donald Trump has sat out the debates. He’s by far the frontrunner. How will you or anybody else win the primary?

Ramaswamy: Look, I think that Donald Trump and I are the only two America first candidates in this race. I am a leader from the next generation. And so, yes, I have been the new guy. Many people didn’t know who I was six months ago. So as the new guy, it does take a while to get to know people, to even build name ID, let alone to build trust and conviction, but we are steadily doing that. The way I’m going to do it is by proving to people that I’m a leader who’s going to speak the truth, not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard. Not just to the Democratic Party, but when necessary to the Republican Party as well. I do think there’s a hunger for this right now, a leader from the next generation with fresh legs, who can reach and lead the new generation of Americans. And I think that that’s something that I’m bringing to the table in a way that the Republican Party hasn’t seen in a long time.

NHBR: During the last GOP presidential debate, you stated that the 2020 election was stolen by Big Tech and that the January 6th, 2021 riot at the Capitol looks like it was an inside job. Where’s the evidence for that? Tell me how you get to those conclusions.

Ramaswamy: I was very clear and specific that it was stolen by Big Tech … The Hunter Biden laptop story, OK, that contained a lot of the information about corruption and alleged corruption relating to Hunter Biden’s dealings abroad while Joe Biden was U.S. president. That laptop was recovered; the New York Post reported on it. It was systematically suppressed. Every major tech company suppressed people from seeing that story. Even if you wanted to use the direct messaging feature of, say, Twitter or otherwise, to send the story to someone like the equivalent of email, your account was shut down or you were stopped from doing it. That’s the extent of censorship on the eve of a presidential election, the most damning piece of information about one of the two major candidates was systematically suppressed.

If you had told me three years ago … that Jan. 6th was in any way the product of government entrapment, I would have told you that was crazy talk … Now you look at the actual facts, the video footage that has been released now years later, 2 1/2 years later, video footage released showing Capitol Police firing rubber bullets and tear gas into a peaceful crowd. Then that crowd then comes and attacks and springs on the Capitol. Only that video footage was ever released, and then video footage not released of Capitol Police officers welcoming those protesters into the building. That’s a case of entrapment, the government behavior causing people to do something they otherwise would not have done, using both sticks and carrots to do it.

NHBR: I think you could make an argument that that there are all kinds of things that Big Tech chooses to do that are either good for or bad for society. But at this point, these are things that these private companies are choosing to do. What would you what would you do to fix that problem?

Ramaswamy: I just take one issue with that characterization. You asked it very clearly, but it goes to the heart of the of the matter, which is that it’s not actually private companies choosing to do it on their own. There’s now extensive evidence that the government is pressuring those private companies to do, through the back door, what government could not do through the front door under the Constitution. And I think that that’s the real Big Tech threat of our time is it’s not big tech censorship, it is government tech censorship … And I think it takes a leader who’s been able to get to the essence of what’s going on today — a merger of state power and corporate power that together is more powerful than either one alone. That’s the real threat to liberty today.

NHBR: Along the same theme, you’ve said corporations addressing diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change are basically, um, advancing a government agenda. What role should business play in these things?

Ramaswamy: I think that first of all, let’s start with following the law, OK? I think that many of these DEI agendas, when they’re rammed down the throat of employees, constitute civil rights violations. Now, I’m a person who believes that we don’t need protected classes at all, certainly anymore in this country. Leave it to the market. But you can’t have it both ways to say that as a business, you can’t discriminate based on race or gender or sexuality or sexual orientation or religion or national origin, but somehow you can rampantly discriminate based on the hat that somebody wears of a presidential candidate or a grandmother who wore a red sweater to work on Fridays in celebration of veterans. … The government’s role here is to apply the rules even handedly. And the role of businesses is a familiar one. Sell products and services to your customers to maximize profit for your shareholders.

NHBR: Our next-door neighbor in the Manchester Millyard is United Therapeutics, which is developing 3D printing technology to manufacture human organs. Its CEO is Martine Rothblatt, who began life as a biological male. You’ve referred to transgender as a mental health problem. What would you say to somebody like Martine, or parents who are facing questions of gender with their children?

Ramaswamy: Well, what I’d say to any adult is we live in a free country, right? We’re a free country. And you’re free to live your life as you wish, as long as you’re not harming anybody else. And you know, I admire Martine’s accomplishments … But kids aren’t the same as adults. And I think that just like you can’t get a tattoo by the age of 18, you shouldn’t be able to undergo genital mutilation or chemical castration by the age of 18, either. … We have created a new tyranny of the minority in this country, and I think that that’s something that is the real tyranny. We need to protect against. And it’s going to take a leader at the top with the spine to stand for our national character. We’ve celebrated our diversity and our differences so much that we actually forgot all the ways we’re really the same as Americans, bound by that common set of ideals that I still think unite all of us.

NHBR: For our readers in New Hampshire and across the country, the biggest economic problems are lack of workforce and the lack of housing, price of housing. What would you do to fix those problems?

Ramaswamy: Increase the supply of everything that matters by rolling back the government regulations that are constricting that supply. Let’s start with energy. We have regulations that have impeded drilling and fracking in this country. I’m going to roll those back from the Department of Interior to the EPA to elsewhere — drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear energy … That increases the supply of energy, brings down the cost, grows the economy. For housing, roll back those land use restrictions that are constricting the supply of new home construction. Again, it’s the laws of supply and demand.

The main challenge that most small businesses here and across the country face is finding people to fill those open positions. Stop using our taxpayer money to pay people more, to stay at home instead of to go to work. Increase the supply of labor that’s available. I do think it’s going to take a CEO in the white House to be able to grow this economy … Start with zero based budgeting. Don’t start with last year’s budget as the baseline as they’ve done for years, and that’s based on the prior year’s budget, which is broken. Do it the way I’ve run my business as many CEOs run their businesses, start with zero as the baseline and ask what’s actually necessary. That’s how you tackle the national debt.