Ramaswamy, Vivek (1985- )

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      Ramaswamy’s Foreign Policy Approach Offers Rivals a Line of Attack

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      As Vivek Ramaswamy rises in the polls, fellow Republican presidential candidates are keying in on a number of policy pronouncements that veer far from the G.O.P. mainstream.Republican presidential rivals, looking to blunt Vivek Ramaswamy’s rise in national primary polls ahead of the first primary debate on Wednesday, have seized on the political arena where the upstart entrepreneur has strayed far afield from his party’s thinkers: foreign policy.Opponents have attacked Mr. Ramaswamy for his assertions that he would leave Taiwan to the Chinese once the United States has sufficiently expanded its domestic semiconductor industry and that he would allow Russia to keep parts of eastern Ukraine in order to entice President Vladimir V. Putin away from his military alliance with China. Most recently, he said he would curtail military aid to Israel after stabilizing the Middle East, perhaps the politically riskiest position yet.“This is part of a concerning pattern with Vivek,” Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations now running for the Republican presidential nomination, said Monday about Mr. Ramaswamy’s Israel comments. “Between abandoning Israel, abolishing the F.B.I., and giving Taiwan to China, his foreign policy proposals have a common theme: They make America less safe.”Candidates have also looked askance at peculiar statements Mr. Ramaswamy made this month suggesting a government cover-up behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; former Vice President Mike Pence said he was “deeply offended.”Mr. Ramaswamy, who has never held elected office or worked in government, expresses supreme confidence in his foreign policy views. He has cited as his models George F. Kennan, the architect of America’s Cold War global reach, and James A. Baker III, the American diplomat most credited for transitioning the world beyond the Cold War. He has vowed as president to go to Moscow the way Richard M. Nixon went to China.But in a political campaign, his positions may come off as naïve or bizarre — and easy to exploit. His tendency to answer any question posed to him has sent him down a rabbit hole of conspiratorial innuendo on Sept. 11. First, he told an interviewer, “I don’t believe the government has told us the truth” about the attacks. In a lengthy post on X, formerly known as Twitter, he subsequently explained that he was suggesting a deeper involvement in the attack by Saudi Arabia’s government.Then in an interview posted Monday in The Atlantic, he plunged deeper, asking, “how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers?”His rivals’ criticisms in some cases have disregarded the broader context of Mr. Ramaswamy’s statements. His pledge to pull back military aid to Israel, made last week in an interview with the actor Russell Brand on the video platform Rumble that’s popular on the right, were part of a larger conversation on expanding Israel’s bilateral peace agreements with its neighbors that would make military aid less necessary.But caveats and context are often sacrificed on the campaign trail, and Mr. Ramaswamy said on Monday that he expected further foreign policy attacks on the debate stage Wednesday night in Milwaukee.“I personally think we should spend a lot of time on it,” he said in an interview, “instead of rehashing pre-canned lines on who is more anti-woke.”Mr. Ramaswamy on Monday framed the blowback from his critics as hostility from “a broken foreign policy establishment that is sanctimoniously steeped in the disastrous mistakes of the last four decades.”But his proposals are pushing the envelope, even for a Republican Party increasingly dominated by isolationism, and open to conspiracy theories.Among those proposals are a quid-pro-quo offer to Mr. Putin: He would promise to block Ukraine from joining NATO and freeze the battle lines in Ukraine, with Russia controlling Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, in exchange for a Putin break with China.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a fellow candidate for the Republican nomination, slammed that position from Ukraine in an interview with The Washington Post this month, calling it “a false choice” and “a ridiculous statement.”Even as Mr. Ramaswamy promises to isolate China, he told the conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt that the United States would continue to defend Taiwan through 2028, when a Ramaswamy administration will have rebuilt the domestic semiconductor industry. After that, Mr. Ramaswamy said, the U.S. commitment to Taiwan would change.“You are saying ‘I will go to war, including attacking the Chinese mainland, if you attack before semiconductor independence. And afterward, you can have Taiwan?’” Mr. Hewitt asked incredulously.“Well, Hugh, I’m running to be the next president, and so I expect to be the president inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025,” Mr. Ramaswamy answered. “So I’m wearing that hat when I’m choosing my words very carefully right now. And I’m being very clear: Xi Jinping should not mess with Taiwan until we have achieved semiconductor independence, until the end of my first term when I will lead us there,” he added, referring to the Chinese president.But his comments on Israel, in the hands of his rivals, could threaten his rising star, considering the centrality of Israel to many conservative voters, especially evangelical Christians. After Jewish and Israeli publications played up his comments on pulling back military aid, the conservative radio host Mark Levin responded on the social media platform X, “Not good. Awful, actually,” adding, “He threw Taiwan under the bus too.”In a lengthy response, released publicly as an open letter to the candidate, Matthew Brooks, the longtime chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that “this is not the time for the U.S. to take an action that would be universally perceived by Israel’s enemies as a weakening of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”On Monday, Mr. Ramaswamy said he was “not surprised at the foreign policy establishment’s anaphylactic response to anyone who challenges the orthodoxy.”“Friends help friends stand on their own feet,” he said of his Israel policy.But for Republican rivals looking for a target who isn’t the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, Mr. Ramaswamy could be an inviting one. Polling averages put him in third place, and gaining on Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is in second. Other than Mr. Christie, Republican candidates have shied away from attacking Mr. Trump, convinced they will ultimately need the former president’s loyal followers.Foreign policy would be a safer line of attack against Mr. Ramaswamy than his domestic proposals, which align closely with Mr. Trump’s.“I’m not surprised they’re throwing the kitchen sink at me,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “They’re threatened by my rise.” More

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      These Aren’t the Darkest Years in American History, but They Are Among the Weirdest

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      Bret Stephens: Before we get to Donald Trump’s indictment in Georgia or the upcoming G.O.P. debate, I want to take note of the appalling tragedy in Hawaii. The images from Maui are just heartbreaking. But I also get a sense that heartbreak will soon turn to outrage as we learn more about the cascade of policy failures that led to the disaster.Gail Collins: Maui is going to be hard for any of us to forget. Or, in some cases, forgive. There are certainly a heck of a lot of serious questions about whether the folks who were supposed to be responsible did their jobs.Bret: There’s a story in The Wall Street Journal that made me want to scream. It seems Hawaiian Electric knew four years ago that it needed to do more to keep power lines from emitting sparks, but it invested only $245,000 to try to do something about it. The state and private owners let old dams fall into disrepair and then allowed for them to be destroyed rather than restoring them, leading to less stored water and more dry land. And then there was the emergency chief who decided not to sound warning sirens. At least he had the good sense to resign.Gail: But let’s look at the way bigger issue, Bret. The weather’s been awful in all sorts of scary ways this summer, all around the planet. Pretty clear it’s because of global warming. You ready to rally around a big push toward environmental revolution?Bret: I’m opposed on principle to all big revolutions, Gail, beginning with the French. But I am in favor of 10,000 evolutions to deal with the climate. In Maui’s case, a push for more solar power plus reforestation of grasslands could have made a difference in managing the fire. I also think simple solutions can do a lot to help — like getting the federal government to finance states and utilities to cover the costs of burying power lines.Gail: Yep. Plus some more effortful projects to address climate change, like President Biden’s crusade to promote electric cars and an evolution away from coal and oil for heat.Bret: The more I read about the vast mineral inputs for electric cars — about 900 pounds of nickel, aluminum, cobalt and other minerals per car battery — the more I wonder about their wisdom. If you don’t believe me, just read Mr. Bean! (Or at least Rowan Atkinson, who studied electrical engineering at Oxford before his career took a … turn.) He made a solid environmental case in The Guardian for keeping your old gas-burning car instead of switching to electric.But I’m a big believer in adopting next-gen nuclear power to produce a larger share of our electric power needs. And I’m with you on moving away from coal.Gail: Hey, if we’ve found a point of consensus, let’s grab it and move on. After all, we’re on the cusp of a Republican presidential debate.Bret: With Trump as the apparent no-show. As a raw political calculation, I guess this makes sense given his commanding lead in the Republican primary polls, a lead that only seems to grow with each successive indictment.Gail: Yeah, I have to admit that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of possible gain for him in debating people who are way, way behind him in the polls and give them a chance to point out all his multitudinous defects.And I believe I speak for at least 90 percent of the population when I say posting a prerecorded interview with Tucker Carlson is not an acceptable substitute.Bret: I’m still going to watch the debate out of lurid fascination. I’m guessing this will devolve mainly into an argument between Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy, with Ron DeSantis spending the time darting between them like a cornered lizard that doesn’t know where to turn. Christie will make the case for why Republicans need to turn against Trump, and Ramaswamy will make the case for why they need to favor him. That’s by way of Ramaswamy ultimately becoming Trump’s veep pick.Gail: You think so? Would that be a good idea? Strategically speaking that is — I can’t imagine you think Ramaswamy would lift the quality of the ticket.Bret: I met Ramaswamy a couple of years ago, when he was pitching a book on corporations going “woke.” He came to my house for lunch, where I made him a credible ratatouille. At the time, I was sympathetic to his message and impressed by his smarts. I’ve become a lot less sympathetic as he’s essentially promised to give Vladimir Putin what he wants in Ukraine, consider Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a potential running mate and reopen the investigation into 9/11. That said, his youth, wealth, verbal acuity, anti-woke message and minority background kinda makes him perfect for Donald, no?Gail: Nah, I don’t think our former president wants anybody that … interesting. Remember, this is the man who made Mike Pence his No. 2 back when he actually needed more attention.Bret: You may be right. In that case, it’s Tim Scott for veep.Gail: By the way, I like your prediction about DeSantis looking like a cornered lizard in this debate. Seems he’s the one who’s got the most to lose — he really does need to show potential Republican backers that he isn’t a dope. That’d be a challenge under any circumstances, but especially when he’s up against someone as capable of crushing the opposition as Christie.Bret: Our news-side colleagues Jonathan Swan, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman had a great scoop last week about memos from a pro-DeSantis PAC urging their man to “take a sledgehammer” to Ramaswamy and “defend Donald Trump” in response to Christie’s attacks. It’s terrible advice, since attacking Ramaswamy will only help elevate him as a serious contender while further diminishing DeSantis’s claim to be the best and most viable alternative to Trump.Gail: My dream scenario, by the way, is for Christie to take the debate crown, then go on to campaign in New Hampshire. If it looks like he could actually win there, sooner or later Trump is going to have to pay him some more attention, right? Just out of pure ego?Bret: Presumably by harping on his weight, as if Trump is a poster boy for SlimFast. I think Christie probably enjoys those attacks, because he parries them so skillfully and it consolidates his position as the only real Republican alternative to Trump. Something that might come in handy on the slight chance that Trump goes to prison.Gail: Amazing we’ve gotten this far without mentioning that the man we all regard as the very, very likely Republican nominee for president is facing multitudinous criminal indictments in Georgia, New York, Florida and at the federal level.Bret: Ninety-one counts in all. You could almost take ’em down and pass ’em around like bottles of beer on the wall.Gail: So far, many of his supporters seem pretty eager to accept his claims that everything is just an anti-Trump political conspiracy. Can that last? It’s still about a year until the Republican presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee. I can’t help feeling that something will come up that even his fans will find impossible to ignore.Bret: Gail, the truest thing Trump ever said is that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his base would stick with him. The proper way to understand his appeal isn’t by studying normal voter behavior. It’s by studying cults. In a cult, the leader is always, simultaneously, a savior of his people and a victim of a vast and shadowy conspiracy. Unfortunately, all of these prosecutions, however merited, do more to reinforce than undermine the thinking of his followers.The only thing that can truly defeat Trump is a thumping electoral defeat. My biggest worry about President Biden is that he is so much more vulnerable politically than many Democrats seem to realize.Gail: Bret, it’s sort of inspiring that you’re the one of us most worried about getting Biden re-elected. Presuming his health holds up, I’m pretty confident. Here’s a man whose biggest political drawback is being boring. Which doesn’t look all that bad when he’s compared with a guy whose biggest defects go beyond the 91 counts arrayed against him. Biden’s been a much, much better president than Trump was. I wish he wasn’t running again, because of the age issue. But as we’ve discussed, Trump is only three years younger and seems to be in much worse physical shape.Bret: I wish I were as sanguine, but my forebears inclined me to fret.Gail: Just for diversion, make believe that Trump drops out of the race. For any of a million reasonable reasons. The other options in his party look pretty appalling to me. Do you think you’d still wind up voting for Joe Biden or would you feel free to go back to your Republican roots?Bret: The only Republicans in the current field I could definitely vote for are Christie and Nikki Haley. Otherwise, I’ll be pulling the lever for Joe and lighting votive candles every night for his health.Gail: OK, one more quick “What if?” Suppose Biden dropped out of the race right now. Who would you vote for, Trump or Kamala Harris?Bret: Gail, I would never, ever vote for Trump. Then again, if that winds up being the choice, God help us.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Loves Eminem. And He Doesn’t Care If the Feeling Is Mutual.

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      The Republican presidential candidate loves rap music, even if critics say his politics are at odds with its spirit. “There’s no such thing as one rap community,” he says.Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur, rapped the song before a largely white crowd at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.Stefani Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor some audiences, Vivek Ramaswamy is a biotech entrepreneur who pushed for pharmaceutical breakthroughs before he tried to break into politics. For others, he is a cultural warrior battling “woke” corporations or a crusader for his definition of “truth,” whether it be the sanctity of two genders or the perpetuation of fossil fuels.The identity that the entrepreneur and Republican candidate for president has kept more or less under wraps since his undergraduate days at Harvard is another thing entirely, Da Vek the Rapper.Yet there it was at the Iowa State Fair this month, the 38-year-old shape-shifting presidential candidate, microphone in hand, spitting Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” before a largely white crowd that appeared somewhere between amused and enthused. Beside him onstage was the Iowa governor, Kim Reynolds, who watched with the look of a mother baffled by her child’s latest science fair project.As breakout moments go, Mr. Ramaswamy’s impromptu performance may not rise to the level of Bill Clinton’s saxophone solo on “The Arsenio Hall Show.” But it did separate him culturally from his generally more awkward and older competitors in the still-early race for the presidency.The lyrics — “He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out” — did not fit the fast-talking, quick-witted candidate in the slightest. The words “he knows when he goes back to this mobile home” do not exactly leap from a wellspring of personal experience for Mr. Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur with a middle-class upbringing, a $2 million mansion in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and a largely self-funded presidential bid.But rap and hip-hop are part of the Ramaswamy story, back to Harvard when his alter ego Da Vek rapped libertarian lyrics in all-black outfits down to a Kangol cap. As a freshman, he performed at an open mic before a Busta Rhymes concert, a moment that has since been exaggerated to make him Busta’s opening act.He told The Harvard Crimson back in 2006 that “Lose Yourself” was his life’s theme song.In an interview on Friday, Mr. Ramaswamy seemed a little sheepish about his return to rap. Theme song? “There are parts of what you say in the past that you recoil from,” he admitted.But he did stick by his identification with Eminem, the unlikely white rapper from working-class Detroit who went on to become, by most measures, the best-selling hip-hop artist of all time.“I did not grow up in the circumstances he did,” said Mr. Ramaswamy, the son of a physician mother and engineer father. “But the idea of being an underdog, people having low expectations of you, that part speaks to me.”Eminem was, Mr. Ramaswamy said, “a guy in every sense who was not supposed to be doing what he did.”The candidate said he did not plan to rap at Iowa’s center stage. Responding to a question that Ms. Reynolds had asked every presidential hopeful at her “fair-side chats,” Mr. Ramaswamy said his favorite “walkout” song for the campaign trail would have to be “Lose Yourself,” an unusual answer in this Republican field but hardly counterculture.“Lose Yourself” was the centerpiece of “8 Mile,” the semi-autobiographical film in which Eminem plays an aspiring rapper struggling to prove himself in a largely Black subculture. The track took best original song at the Academy Awards in 2003, and the next year it won two Grammys, including for best rap song.After his chat with Ms. Reynolds ended, Mr. Ramaswamy was signing autographs when an enterprising sound technician put the song over the loud speaker. The candidate raised his fist, lifted the mic to his mouth, and the rest is, well, not quite history but a nice moment.Mr. Ramaswamy’s venture into hip-hop, a culture synonymous with Black struggle and triumphs, carried risks. Rhymefest, a Chicago rapper who defeated Eminem at a freestyle contest in 1997, noted that Mr. Ramaswamy had called Juneteenth a “useless” holiday and told CNN’s Don Lemon that Black Americans achieved equality only because they secured the right to bear arms, never mind that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence and armed civil rights leaders like Fred Hampton were gunned down by law enforcement.“It’s the rewriting and manipulation of Black history for Republican talking points that gets me,” Rhymefest said, adding: “Everyone has a right to music. Everyone has a right to express themselves through the culture that helped formulate their passions, and hip-hop is a passionate calling.” But, he said, “he doesn’t understand the words or the meaning.”Soren Baker, a historian of rap, said such conflicts were nothing new for Republican politicians, who have tangled with artists since President Ronald Reagan drew the ire of Bruce Springsteen over “Born in the U.S.A.” in 1984.Mr. Springsteen made clear he didn’t think the president was listening closely to his music’s often bleak portraits of Reagan’s America. Eminem has not commented on Mr. Ramaswamy’s performance. A representative did not respond to a request on Friday.But it’s unlikely the rapper is a Ramaswamy fan. In 2017, Eminem famously performed a freestyle jeremiad against then-President Donald J. Trump, calling him “a kamikaze that’ll probably cause a nuclear holocaust.” Mr. Ramaswamy, in contrast, is steadfastly supportive of Mr. Trump, even as he runs against him for the 2024 G.O.P. nomination.“What Vivek is doing is trying to align himself with the struggle of overcoming adversity,” said Mr. Baker, author of “The History of Gangster Rap.” “From what I know of Vivek’s policies, objectives and goals, they’re not in alignment with Eminem at all.”Mr. Ramaswamy did not shy from the critique. “Is there a risk? There’s a risk in everything we do?” he said. But he added, “There’s no such thing as one rap community,” pointing to Ice Cube, the former leader of N.W.A who worked with the Trump campaign in 2020 on a Contract With Black America.Of course, “Lose Yourself” is hardly a political anthem. It has become more like a frat house pregame rallying cry, or, as Rhymefest put it, “the song that gets the team out on the field.”But Mr. Ramaswamy said it wouldn’t be blasting through his AirPods as he prepares to go onstage Wednesday at the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 cycle.“I’m an adult,” he quipped.Ben Sisario More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Rises in Polls and Draws Attacks From GOP Rivals

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      Surging poll numbers and newly revealed concerns from Ron DeSantis’s super PAC underscore that Vivek Ramaswamy is having a well-timed political moment.For months now, Vivek Ramaswamy has been crisscrossing the early primary states of the 2024 presidential cycle, attracting good crowds with offbeat proposals and a penchant for the media spotlight while gaining little serious attention from his Republican rivals.But after a recent surge in the polls — and a newly revealed debate strategy memo from allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida that singles him out — he is having a well-timed moment, before next week’s first Republican primary debate.The staying power of the Ramaswamy Rise will now be tested by rival candidates loath to see a political novice elevated as the alternative to Donald J. Trump, the front-runner whose legal troubles have snowballed.Polling at this stage of a primary campaign can be fickle, but in polling averages, Mr. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, has grabbed third place, behind Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump, the former president now facing four criminal indictments.More telling, Mr. Ramaswamy’s national poll numbers are rising while Mr. DeSantis’s slide, putting him just behind the candidate most often seen as the strongest Trump challenger. In a new Fox News poll, support for Mr. Ramaswamy more than doubled since the previous poll, to 11 percent, compared with Mr. DeSantis’s 16 percent and Mr. Trump’s 53 percent. And Mr. Ramaswamy closed the gap between himself and Mr. DeSantis from 17 percentage points to 5.“Those numbers, no matter how you weigh polling, speak for themselves,” said Fred Doucette, a member of the New Hampshire State House and Mr. Ramaswamy’s state party chairman.The DeSantis campaign dismisses those numbers, saying that Mr. DeSantis has weathered more attack advertising than any other candidate, but is still standing in second place. “This primary is a two-man race,” said Bryan Griffin, the DeSantis campaign press secretary, “but only Ron DeSantis can beat Joe Biden.”But documents posted by Axiom Strategies, a company owned by Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, make clear that Mr. Ramaswamy is viewed as a threat. The memos detail how Mr. Ramaswamy has attacked Mr. DeSantis and outline key vulnerabilities for Mr. Ramaswamy now that he is gaining prominence.Some of those attack lines focus on his past: support in his 2022 book for “very high” inheritance taxes with “real teeth”; a business partnership in 2018 with a Chinese state-owned firm; and economic and social positions no longer in favor with most Republican voters, including free trade and transgender rights. His business ventures, which made him a wealthy man but left others financially smarting, are only now beginning to garner attention.Other vulnerabilities are more current. Mr. Ramaswamy raised eyebrows this week by saying to Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio host, that under a Ramaswamy presidency, the United States would defend Taiwan militarily against Chinese aggression, but “only as far as 2028” when the United States is less reliant on Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing.It is not unusual for political newcomers to have their moments early in primary campaigns. In the 2012 Republican primary cycle, then-Representative Michele Bachmann traded polling leads with the pizza executive Herman Cain before Republican voters settled on the safest choice, Mitt Romney.Mr. Ramaswamy did not mention the DeSantis memos during a nearly hourlong foreign policy speech at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Thursday evening. But he emphasized his age — 38 — and pointed out that he is the youngest Republican to run for president.“What’s going on with the millennials? We are hungry for a cause. We are starved for purpose and meaning and identity,” Mr. Ramaswamy said, adding, “That is our opportunity to step up and to fill that void with a vision of what it means to be an American.”Mr. Ramaswamy’s youth, creativity and enthusiasm are making an impression, especially in the early states. Internal polling by Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC had him at 1 percent in New Hampshire in April — and 11 percent in an early August survey.Debbie O’Leary, a 66-year-old from Des Moines, said at the Iowa State Fair that she had voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 but would “prefer someone more gracious” as the Republican nominee. Mr. Ramaswamy is top of mind.“He’s refreshing, he’s articulate, he’s obviously smart and he’s not tied to any political machine,” she said.But Mr. Ramaswamy has a potential liability that the DeSantis campaign appears ready to exploit with the heavily white, Christian conservative voting base of the G.O.P. — his background. His parents are immigrants from India. He maintains his Hindu faith, and as the DeSantis super PAC memo put it, he “was very much ingrained in India’s caste system” — his family is Brahmin, the highest caste in the Hindu hierarchy.Even voters who like him sometimes find his name a mouthful. At the Iowa State Fair this week, Pete Dallman of Iowa City said he was interested in “that Indian guy,” and paused for a moment, before adding, “I can’t say his name even.”Anjali Huynh More

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      DeSantis Super PAC Memo Singles Out Ramaswamy’s Hindu Faith

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      An opposition research memo suggests that Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been gaining on Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in some polls, “was very much ingrained in India’s caste system.”An opposition research memo about the Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy that was written by the super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida invokes the entrepreneur’s Hindu faith and family visits to India.The document’s first paragraph, addressing Mr. Ramaswamy’s past support for inheritance taxes, draws a link between that policy position and his Hindu upbringing as the son of Indian immigrants. “Ramaswamy — a Hindu who grew up visiting relatives in India and was very much ingrained in India’s caste system — supports this as a mechanism to preserve a meritocracy in America and ensure everyone starts on a level playing field,” the document states.Mr. Ramaswamy is the only candidate joining Mr. DeSantis on the debate stage whose national or religious backgrounds were mentioned in any of the documents posted on the Axiom Strategies website. Highlighting a minority candidate’s ethnicity or faith is historically a dog whistle in politics, a way to signify the person is somehow different from other Americans.The documents suggest that Mr. DeSantis’s allies view Mr. Ramaswamy as a threat as the Florida governor fights to remain in second place behind former President Donald J. Trump. With six months until the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Ramaswamy has been gaining on Mr. DeSantis in some public polls. In a separate debate strategy memo, Never Back Down officials advised Mr. DeSantis to take a “sledgehammer” to Mr. Ramaswamy in the debate as a way to create a “moment” for media coverage. They suggested that Mr. DeSantis call him “Fake Vivek” or “Vivek the Fake.”Mr. Ramaswamy’s 2022 book, which the super PAC document quotes, makes a brief mention of Indian’s caste system in a passage about inheritance taxes: “India’s ancient caste system — at least the pre-British form of it — contains a similar vision.” He also refers to the economist Thomas Piketty, the philosopher John Rawls, Plato and ancient Rome.The document was part of an extensive trove published on the company website of a political consulting firm working for the super PAC, Never Back Down, advising Mr. DeSantis of strategy that he could use in the debate in Milwaukee on August 23.Asked to comment on the reason for highlighting Mr. Ramaswamy’s religion and background, the super PAC’S chief executive, Chris Jankowski, said in a statement: “We are highlighting that his philosophy of government is a direct reflection of his life experience. When his parents moved here from India, they had an 85 percent inheritance tax. In fact, his support of the inheritance tax is connected to the argument he makes in his book against meritocracy.”A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy, Tricia McLaughlin, said: “Vivek has traveled this country and is very grateful for the warm support he has received from Christian voters across the country. The one-off attacks on his faith do not represent the views of most Christians who respect Vivek’s forthrightness and honesty about his own faith.”She added, “When they get to know him, they see that Vivek shares and lives by the same Judeo-Christian values that this nation was founded on — and that the way Vivek lives his family life offers a positive example for their own children and grandchildren.” More

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      A Majority of Americans Support Trump Indictments, Polls Show

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      Recent polls conducted before the Georgia indictment showed that most believed that the prosecutions of the former president were warranted.Former President Donald J. Trump’s blistering attacks on prosecutors and the federal government over the cascade of indictments he faces do not appear to be resonating much with voters in the latest polls, yet his grip on Republicans is further tightening.A majority of Americans, in four recent polls, said Mr. Trump’s criminal cases were warranted. Most were surveyed before a grand jury in Georgia indicted him over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election, but after the federal indictment related to Jan. 6.At the same time, Mr. Trump still holds a dominant lead over the crowded field of Republicans who are challenging him for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who continues to slide.The polls — conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, ABC News/Ipsos and Fox News — showed that Americans remain divided along party lines over the dozens of criminal charges facing Mr. Trump.The takeaways aligned with the findings of a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, in which 22 percent of voters who believed that Mr. Trump had committed serious federal crimes said they still planned to support him in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Mr. DeSantis.Here are key findings from the recent polling:Most say a felony conviction should be disqualifying.In the Quinnipiac poll, 54 percent of registered voters said Mr. Trump should be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election. And seven out of 10 voters said that anyone convicted of a felony should no longer be eligible to be president.Half of Americans, but only 20 percent of Republicans, said that Mr. Trump should suspend his presidential campaign, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll. This poll, which surveyed American adults, was the only one of the four surveys conducted entirely after Mr. Trump’s indictment in Georgia.When specifically asked by ABC about the Georgia case, 63 percent said the latest criminal charges against Mr. Trump were “serious.”Republicans, by and large, haven’t wavered.The trends were mixed for Mr. Trump, who is a voracious consumer of polls and often mentions them on social media and during campaign speeches. He has continually argued that the indictments were politically motivated and intended to short-circuit his candidacy.In a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 election, Mr. Trump trailed President Biden by a single percentage point in the latest Quinnipiac poll, 47 to 46 percent. Mr. Biden’s advantage was 5 percentage points in July.At his campaign rallies, Mr. Trump has frequently boasted how the indictments have been a boon for his polling numbers — and that rang true when Republicans were surveyed about the primary race.In those polls that tracked the G.O.P. nominating contest, Mr. Trump widened his lead over his challengers, beating them by nearly 40 points. His nearest competitor, Mr. DeSantis, had fallen below 20 percent in both the Fox and Quinnipiac polls.Mr. DeSantis, who earlier this month replaced his campaign manager as he shifts his strategy, dropped by 6 to 7 percentage points in recent months in both polls.Trump participated in criminal conduct, Americans say.About half of Americans said that Mr. Trump’s interference in the election in Georgia was illegal, according to the AP/NORC poll.A similar share of Americans felt the same way after Mr. Trump’s indictments in the classified documents and the Jan. 6 cases, but the percentage was much lower when he was charged in New York in a case related to a hush-money payment to a porn star.Fewer than one in five Republicans said that Mr. Trump had committed a crime in Georgia or that he broke any laws in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.When asked by Fox News whether Mr. Trump had engaged in illegal activity to overturn the 2020 election, 53 percent of registered voters said yes.But just 13 percent of Republicans shared that view.A plurality of those surveyed by ABC (49 percent) believed that Mr. Trump should be charged with a crime in Georgia.Support for the Justice Department’s charges.Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults said that they approved of the Justice Department’s decision to bring charges against Mr. Trump for his attempts to reverse his electoral defeat in 2020, The A.P. found.At the same time, the public’s confidence in the Justice Department registered at 17 percent in the same poll. More

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      The 6 Kinds of Republican Voters

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      The Traditional Conservatives 26% of Republicans The Right Wing 26% of Republicans The Libertarian Conservatives 14% of Republicans The Moderate Establishment 14% of Republicans The Blue Collar Populists 12% of Republicans The Newcomers 8% of Republicans After eight years of Republican fealty to Donald J. Trump, few would argue that the party is still defined […] More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Projects Outsize Confidence at Iowa State Fair

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      Vivek Ramaswamy is not a man who wants for confidence.A long-shot candidate who remains at best in the mid-single digits in Republican primary polling, Mr. Ramaswamy said the odds he would become president were “over 50 percent.”Mr. Ramaswamy, a wealthy biotech mogul, made this prediction while riding in a Ferris wheel high above the Iowa State Fair with two reporters and a photographer. Former President Donald J. Trump was in view below, waving goodbye to a throng of supporters who had packed a beer hall to hear him speak for less than 10 minutes.“My crowd — was actually — might have been a little bigger,” said Mr. Ramaswamy, referring to when he spoke at the same spot the night before. “Usually he’ll pull multiples of what I brought, but hey, not bad this time.”He doesn’t try to be like a traditional politician. Earlier in the day, at the end of his chat with Gov. Kim Reynolds, Mr. Ramaswamy took the mic and the opportunity to rap along to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”The 38-year-old businessman presents himself as a true Trump acolyte — after all, bragging about crowd size is a trademark of the former president’s. The only gentle contrast he offered with Mr. Trump during the Ferris wheel interview was that he had “fresh legs.”“I’m very pro-Trump,” he said. “Not as a candidate, but just as a citizen.”Mr. Ramaswamy even dismissed the standard criticism of Trump for Republicans who want to avoid saying anything mean about him: that Mr. Trump can’t win the general election. Mr. Trump would win, he argues, but it would be a close race.“I’m the only candidate who can win in a landslide,” he said. More