Entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy signaled he's inching towards a presidential run, hoping that his vision for the country would separate himself from what will likely be a crowded GOP primary field.
Ramaswamy, who told Fox News Digital in an interview that he'll make his decision whether to run for president before the end of February, says his vision is about restoring the "national identity in America," decrying the "vacuum" in younger generations who fill the void with "the poison of wokeism, and climatism, and transgenderism, and COVIDism for that matter."
"Yes, I've accomplished things but so has everyone else who would be running in this race too. I think I am running on a vision that I believe I can articulate what it means to be an American in 2023," Ramaswamy said.
The 37-year-old Ohio native warned the "real threat" to liberty in the year 2023 is the "merger of state power and corporate power" while knocking Republicans who "want to go back to 1980" and tout "Reaganite solutions."
"The thing that distinguished Reagan is he did what he needed to do in his era. He stood up to the orthodoxies of his party and led a national revival at a time when America was in the middle of its last national identity crisis in the late 1970s. I think we're in a late 1970s moment now," Ramaswamy said. "I think 2024 could be a landslide election if we actually make it about those basic American ideals of merit, free speech, open debate."
Ramaswamy is calling for a "total decoupling" from Communist China, who argued is "worse" of a threat to America today than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War since China makes the "shoes on our feet and the phones in our pockets."
He acknowledged though that taking off the economic Band-Aid from the CCP is "not going to be easy," admitting "it will require some sacrifice of short-term conveniences" but stressed the ends would justify the means.
As the son of Indian migrants who legally came through America's "front door," Ramaswamy is a strong supporter of merit-based immigration and would not grant leniency for those who broke the law when entering the country.
Other top priorities of his include "restoring free speech," which would involve making political expression a civil right and banning Big Tech censorship that is executed at the behest of the government, as well as "dismantling" affirmative action and the "new climate religion," something he calls a "cancer on the American soul."
An issue that the "Woke, Inc." author has long sounded the alarm on but that is unfamiliar to the broader public is ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance, a corporate movement he says is ultimately doing harm to consumers and business owners by prioritizing social justice and the green agenda. If he hits the campaign trail, he said he'll have to explain to voters how "their own money is being used against them" with the implementation of various woke policies.
"I think there's two things you don't mess with of an American. You don't mess with my kids and you don't mess with my money," the multi-millionaire investor told Fox News Digital.
In 2022, Ramaswamy took matters into his own hands by founding the asset management firm Strive, which aims to be an alternative to what he calls the "woke" investment giant BlackRock, a major force in the ESG movement.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY'S FIRM SAYS ITS PRO-ENERGY FUND EXCEEDED $100 MILLION ONE WEEK AFTER LAUNCH
Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital there are two "top" foreign policy priorities the next president should take on.
The first is the economic "decoupling" of China, urging for Churchill-style action against the CCP while "protecting Taiwan vigorously."
The second is the ongoing fentanyl epidemic coming from the southern border, pointing at the unholy alliance between China as the supplier and its distributors within the Mexican drug cartels, who he considers "terrorists" based on the death toll and the impact on homelessness in the U.S. He said building the wall is part of the solution but "it's not enough."
What should be done? "Unapologetically decimate the cartels."
"Go Mohammed Atta, bin Laden-style, Soleimani-style airstrikes, special forces, you name it. We're taking them out," Ramaswamy said. "I think it's got to be a shock and awe strategy so that they don't have a cycle of adaptation. Again, not something you're supposed to say in polite company."
When it comes to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, Ramaswamy warned that the conflict "cannot be a permanent money-suck for the United States" while refraining from offering details as to what he would do differently as president, insisting his foreign policy "north star" would be prioritizing "actual threats" to the country like China and the drug cartels.
Regarding how he'd tackle Big Tech as president, Ramaswamy says transparency would be the "first step" and suggested he would take a page from Elon Musk's playbook with the Twitter Files by releasing what he dubs the "state action files."
"It means any time a government actor in the last five years has pressured a private actor, a private company, to do something that the government couldn't do directly, we're putting a satellite on that," he said. "We would be rolling that log over and seeing what crawls out, and I can assure you it will not be pretty. But sometimes you have to see the ugly before you get to the solutions."
He would also urge Congress to strip Section 230 C.2., which he says specifically allows tech giants to take down content that is otherwise constitutionally protected without any liability, something he believes has been weaponized to silence political speech.
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If Ramaswamy enters the race, he may stand out as one of the youngest and richest candidates in the entire GOP field. In 2016, Forbes reported his net worth was at a whopping $600 million, which is likely leaps and bounds ahead of most Republican presidential contenders except for former President Trump, who Forbes reported has a net worth of $3.2 billion as of 2022.
At 37 years old, Ramaswamy would almost certainly be the youngest candidate running and if elected the youngest president in U.S. history. Also, his entry would make him the first non-elected official and the second first-generation Indian American seeking the White House in the 2024 election cycle, the first being former ambassador to the U.N. and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who launched her candidacy last week.
