Vivek Ramaswamy says DeSantis campaign too sensitive: ‘I hope they grow out of it’
Sarah Bedford
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Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, thinks Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign should toughen up as the primary gets underway.
The former biotechnology executive recounted a recent episode that involved him tweeting about a Florida law on antisemitism.
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“This was an affront to everyone associated with his campaign, it seems, and I hope they grow out of that,” Ramaswamy told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “Because over the course of the next year, if you’re running for U.S. president, as I am, as he is, we’re going to have to be able to talk about legitimate policy differences in the open without resorting to ad hominem attacks as a way to deal with legitimate policy contrasts.”
Ramaswamy had taken aim at a state law DeSantis signed to prevent the distribution of some materials on private property. He characterized the law as a restriction of free speech, something DeSantis’s supporters deny.
“It’s still a hate speech law in effect because it means there are certain kinds of leaflets you can distribute on private property versus certain kinds of leaflets that you can’t, depending on the content of those leaflets,” Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy, who has criticized DeSantis’s positions on a number of fronts, said the Florida governor’s support for the law reflects how differently the two candidates view free speech.
“It’s a stylistic contrast between Gov. DeSantis and myself,” he said. “I said I will talk to NBC News. I’ve gone on set with them multiple times. He says he won’t talk to NBC News because they’re not nice to him. And they’re not nice to me either, or others in the Republican field, but it’s a philosophical difference about commitments to free speech.”
In Iowa, Ramaswamy is polling at an average of 1.7%, according to RealClearPolitics. Nationally, he polls at an average of 2.6%, although some recent polling has him registering slightly higher.
Still, the millennial candidate has made the case that he, like Donald Trump, can cut through a crowded field with an “America first” message and an outsider’s appeal.
“Trump and I share more in common with each other than the rest of the field,” Ramaswamy said. “We’re not professional politicians. We’ve actually had success in the real world. In my case, I did not inherit any of it. I built it from the bottom up.”
Ramaswamy’s success in the biotechnology industry has made him massively wealthy and helped give him the platform to rail against the creep of progressive social causes into corporate America and beyond.
A bestselling author, Ramaswamy made a name for himself in GOP circles by speaking out aggressively against “wokeness,” a cause on which DeSantis is also basing his campaign.
But for Ramaswamy and each of the nine contenders seeking the GOP nomination, Trump remains a seemingly impenetrable obstacle on the path to victory.
Trump polls nationally at an average of 53%, more than 30 points higher than DeSantis and nearly 50 points above the next-highest candidate, Nikki Haley.
DeSantis has begun going after Trump more aggressively, criticizing his temperament and his focus on relitigating the 2020 election.
Other than former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who entered the fray this week, few other contenders have taken direct shots at the former president, whose command over millions of Republican voters will make the path forward difficult for anyone seeking to supplant him as leader of the party.
Ramaswamy denied pulling any punches for Trump. He made some allusions to the importance of character in the race but stopped short of accusing Trump of being unfit for the job.
“I’ve actually purposefully drawn more of a contrast from Trump than DeSantis has drawn from Trump, actually,” he said. “I’ve been very clear about my view that we will go further with the America First agenda if we do it based on first principles and moral authority, not just vengeance and grievance.”
Ramaswamy said the character of the eventual nominee should be among the top considerations of voters.
“I want to be able to look my two sons in the eye and tell them, without holding my nose, that ‘I want you to grow up to be like him.’ Whoever it is that sits in that White House,” he said. ”If we’re being honest, I think that Ronald Reagan is the last president where I would feel on firm footing to actually tell my two sons that.”
With the entry of Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence into the race this week, the 2024 field appears largely set roughly two months before the first primary debate begins.
At this point in June 2015, one poll showed Ben Carson in the lead for the Republican nomination; the next had Jeb Bush in the lead by 5 points.
Both had become essential nonfactors in the race by the time the Iowa caucuses started months later.
Ramaswamy said his path to the nomination rests on a similar scrambling of the dynamics as the primary progresses.
“I’m polling at or ahead of where Trump was at the same time in June 2015,” he said. “My path is going to be very similar to his. Excel on the debate stage, change the conversation, lead the way in defining the debate, place in the top three in Iowa, top two in New Hampshire with a shot at winning in New Hampshire; [that] completely opens up the race to the nomination from there.”
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The Republican National Committee has established criteria for candidates to qualify for the debate stage in August. Those requirements include racking up at least 40,000 individual donations and hitting at least 1% in multiple national polls.
Ramaswamy said his campaign has already hit that threshold, although the polls that will count toward qualifying a candidate to debate have to be conducted after July 1 to count.