Ramaswamy vows to take Trump’s agenda ‘even further’

Biotech entrepreneur and conservative commentator Vivek Ramaswamy is vowing to take Donald Trump’s agenda “even further” as he takes on the former president for the 2024 GOP nomination. 

“I’m doing what Trump set up to do in 2015,” Ramaswamy said Thursday on Meet the Press NOW. “But my commitment to those [Trump] voters is I’m going to take that same America first agenda, and actually take it even further,” Ramaswamy said.

“What I tell audiences in Iowa, New Hampshire is I’m all for putting America first but to put America first we have to rediscover what America is,” Ramaswamy added.

Full 2024 candidate Ramaswamy: ‘What we really need is a courageous leader,’ not Trump or DeSantis

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Ramaswamy’s appearance came shortly before news broke that a Manhattan grand jury has indicted Trump as part of its investigation into alleged hush money paid during his 2016 campaign to an adult film star who claimed she had an affair with Trump. Trump is also facing investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents.

Asked broadly if Trump should stay in the race if he is indicted, Ramaswamy said Trump will need to decide that for himself. 

“If the Constitution permits you to run for president of the United States, and would in that case, I think that is his decision to make and he’s free to do it,” Ramaswamy said.

Ramaswamy said the nation needs “a courageous leader,” in 2024, noting Trump and “certainly” Florida Gov. DeSantis are not such leaders, and cast himself as a political outsider.

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“The Republican base, I can tell you this on firsthand experience, is hungry for a tradition in this party of putting a true outsider in the White House. Now, you get to be an outsider once. And I think I’m doing now what Trump did in ‘15,” Ramaswamy said.

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Ramaswamy has previously called out Trump for his false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election and for influencing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. 

Ramaswamy also laid out some of his controversial positions, including abolishing the Department of Education and opposing affirmative action, which he said is “a form of anti-white and anti-Asian racism.”

“It is actually a form of psychological slavery that has held Black Americans back and which is fueling more anti Black racism in our country. It leaves us even more divided in the end,” Ramaswamy said. 

On the issue of abortion, Ramaswamy said he identifies as “pro-life,” but would oppose a federal abortion ban. He said abortion is a “states rights issue.”