Ramaswamy, Vivek (1985- )

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      Who Will Attend the First Republican Debate? What We Know About Trump and His Rivals.

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      Republican presidential candidates are supposed to face off in Milwaukee on Aug. 23. But Donald Trump, the field’s front-runner, may not show up, and others have yet to make the cut.With a month to go before the first Republican presidential debate, the stage in Milwaukee remains remarkably unsettled, with the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, waffling on his attendance and the rest of the participants far from certain.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is in. So are Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and author. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and scourge of Mr. Trump, said he would be on the stage as well.But the Republican National Committee’s complicated criteria to qualify for the Aug. 23 gathering — based on candidates’ donors and polling numbers — have also created real problems for others in the field.Former Vice President Mike Pence, who would be a serious candidate for the Republican nomination by most measures, may not be invited to debate because of the R.N.C.’s measures: Candidates must have at least 40,000 individual donors, and 1 percent in three national polls of Republican voters, or 1 percent in two national polls and two polls in the early primary states.The debate in Milwaukee — the first of three scheduled so far — has been billed by the party and the candidates as an inflection point in a race that has remained in stasis, even with its front-runner under state and federal indictment, with more charges expected soon. Mr. Trump is likely to face charges next month stemming from his efforts to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, and has been notified that he could be indicted soon on federal charges for clinging to power after his electoral defeat.Yet he remains the prohibitive leader in state and national polling, with Mr. DeSantis a distant second and the rest of the field clustered in single digits.The debate will offer the dark horses perhaps their last shot at making an impression, if they can qualify, and all candidates not named Trump a chance to present themselves as the true alternative to the legally challenged former president. Over the next month, political observers will see a steady taunting of the front-runner by candidates who see a no-lose scenario. Either they goad Mr. Trump to share the stage with them, giving them equal billing with the front-runner and a chance to take a shot at him, or they paint him as too scared to show up, denting his tough-guy image.“As Governor DeSantis has already said, he looks forward to participating in the debates and believes Trump should as well — nobody is entitled to this nomination; they must earn it,” said Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for the DeSantis campaign.On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Mr. Christie promised, “I’ll be on this stage for all of the debates, and I will hold Donald Trump personally responsible for failing us.”For his part, Mr. Trump has stayed noncommittal. Senior advisers have counseled him against showing up and validating his challengers, but his rivals believe they can prick his ego and shame him to the stage.“You’re leading people by 50 or 60 points, you say, why would you be doing a debate?” Mr. Trump said on Fox News last weekend. “It’s actually not fair. Why would you let someone who’s at zero or one or two or three be popping you with questions?”The Republican Party has chosen Milwaukee to host two key events as it chooses its 2024 presidential nominee.Morry Gash/Associated PressIn some sense, the Milwaukee debate is haunted by the circuslike atmosphere that pervaded the Republican debates of 2015 and 2016, when Mr. Trump ran roughshod over crowded stages with insulting nicknames and constant interruptions. At one point, the discussion devolved into lewd references to the significance of the size of Mr. Trump’s hands.The Republican National Committee’s thresholds were intended to keep the number of participants down and ensure that only serious candidates made the stage. The final roster will not be set until 48 hours before debate night, when the last polls come in and the candidates must pledge that they will back the eventual Republican nominee.But with a month to go, the polling and donor thresholds — imperfect as they may be — are already narrowing the field.Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the R.N.C., said Friday on Fox Business that a candidate who cannot win over “40,000 different small dollar donations” is “not going to be competitive against Joe Biden.”Candidates like Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Scott have used the donor rules to tout the power of their campaigns beyond the single digits they have garnered in national polling.“Tim will be on the debate stage for months to come thanks to over 145,000 donations from over 53,000 unique donors across all 50 states,” said Nathan Brand, a spokesman for the Scott campaign.Long-shot candidates like the Los Angeles commentator Larry Elder, Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, former Representative Will Hurd of Texas and the businessman Perry Johnson are not likely to make the cut.In an interview on Friday, Mr. Elder said he was only about halfway to the donor threshold, and because his name is often omitted from Republican polling, reaching 1 percent could be impossible. For candidates like him, he conceded, making the stage is existential for his campaign.“It’s crucial for me to get on that debate stage; that’s Plan A, and Plan B is to make Plan A work,” he said, suggesting there is no other option.Some candidates, like Mr. Pence and Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, could also fall short of qualifying. Mr. Pence, who has easily cleared the polling threshold but has badly lagged in fund-raising, launched an email blitz on Wednesday, pleading for 40,000 people to send his campaign $1. Mr. Hutchinson is still short of 40,000 but did reach 1 percent in a qualifying national poll this month.Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, may still qualify, in part because Mr. Burgum, a wealthy former software executive, is offering $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. He is also pumping up his standing in early-state polls with a well-financed ad blitz.“Gov. Burgum will absolutely be on the debate stage next month,” said his spokesman, Lance Trover.Mr. Burgum is not alone in his creative fund-raising strategies. Mr. Ramaswamy, who like Mr. Burgum is wealthy enough to self-fund his presidential bid, is offering donors a 10 percent cut of the donations they get from those they convince to give to the Ramaswamy campaign. Mr. Suarez last week said he would enter anyone who sends his campaign $1 into a raffle for Lionel Messi’s first game with Inter Miami, the South Florida Major League Soccer club.“It corrupts the process. It makes us look foolish. It makes us look silly,” said Mr. Elder, who accused the R.N.C. of stacking the deck for elected officials and the super rich.A super PAC for Chris Christie, who has staked his campaign on criticizing Mr. Trump, has been running advertisements mocking the former president’s reluctance to debate.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMr. Christie is making something of a mockery of another R.N.C. demand — that every candidate sign a pledge to back the eventual nominee. Mr. Christie, who was once a confidant of Mr. Trump’s and is now his sworn enemy, has said he will sign the pledge, but he has added that he will take the promise as seriously as Mr. Trump takes his promises — that is to say, not seriously at all. In the spring of 2016, Mr. Trump reneged on a similar pledge, though it became moot when he secured the nomination.Karl Rickett, a spokesman for Mr. Christie, said on Friday that the former governor had not swerved from that stand.Mr. Hurd has said flat out that he will not sign the pledge, but there is little indication he can make the debate stage anyway.For his part, Mr. Trump may make a mockery of the debate itself. In 2016, he skipped a Republican primary debate over his feud with the Fox New host Megyn Kelly and “counterprogrammed” a benefit for veterans in Des Moines. On his Truth Social media site on Sunday, Mr. Trump said “so many people have suggested” that he debate the former Fox News star Tucker Carlson on the night of the first Republican debate.Aides to rival campaigns last week said the Republican National Committee should place sanctions on Mr. Trump if he pulls a similar stunt in August.Whether Mr. Trump shows up or not, he will be the target of his rivals for the next four weeks. And if the former president does not show, he still could attend the debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., in September, or the one in Alabama in October.Mr. Christie’s super PAC, Tell It Like It Is, is already running advertisements mocking Mr. Trump’s reluctance. And others are jumping in.“We can’t complain about Biden not debating R.F.K. if Trump is not going to get on the debate stage and stand next to us,” Ms. Haley said last week, referring to the president and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has challenged Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination.“I have never known him to be scared of anything,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I certainly don’t expect him to be scared of the debate stage, so I think he’s going to have to get on there.” More

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      Ramaswamy Looks to Supreme Court in Effort to Appeal to Conservatives

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      The long-shot Republican presidential candidate is releasing a list of potential justices to highlight his bona fides with key voters.Vivek Ramsawamy, an entrepreneur running for the Republican presidential nomination, on Monday will release a list of potential choices for the U.S. Supreme Court, in an effort to highlight his conservative credentials to early-state voters who may be skeptical of a candidate without a political background.The move echoes one made by Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, at a time when he was still facing questions from Republican voters about his past as a Democrat from New York who had once supported abortion rights and had appeared more moderate on certain issues.Mr. Ramaswamy’s list, reported earlier by Axios, includes jurists who have ruled on various aspects of the Republican culture wars, including religious issues, free speech, vaccine mandates and transgender rights. In a statement, Mr. Ramaswamy sought to contrast his approach to that of President Biden, who vowed during his campaign to appoint the first Black woman to the highest court, which he did when he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson. Mr. Ramaswamy dismissed that move as “purely skin-deep diversity.”“What each of the individuals I would appoint share is their unwavering dedication to the principles of originalism and commitment to a constitutionalist judicial philosophy,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “Our courts are the last line of defense against an administrative state that rules by fiat, legislates from the bench, stifling freedom and truth.”Mr. Ramaswamy said he, his staff and what aides describe as “third-party organizations” went over all the writings and decisions of the nine judges on his list, focusing on originalism — the judicial philosophy that relies on the words of the Constitution when it was written as opposed to an interpretation based on current views — and a “commitment to a constitutionalist judicial philosophy.”Mr. Ramaswamy is polling well behind Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in national surveys and early-state polls. But Mr. Ramaswamy has devoted extensive time to Iowa, where his list of judges for a potential open Supreme Court seat could matter.His list includes Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas. Mr. Lee was on Mr. Trump’s initial list in 2016. Mr. Cruz has been mentioned on lists of prospective conservative jurists, but his decision to object to certifying the 2020 election’s Electoral College outcome would raise hackles among Democrats, who may cite other objections as well.Judge James Ho, who serves on the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which includes Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, is also on the list. A member of the conservative Federalist Society and a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Ho has been a vocal opponent of the right to an abortion.Another jurist, Judge Lawrence Van Dyke of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was nominated for that position by Mr. Trump in 2019. At the time, the American Bar Association said in a letter that it had concerns that he would not be fair to L.G.B.T.Q. people.Others on the list include Judge Lisa Branch, a member of the Federalist Society who sits on the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit; Paul D. Clement, a former solicitor general; Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who was on Mr. Trump’s initial short list to replace Justice Antonin Scalia; Judge Justin R. Walker of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; and Judge John K. Bush of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. More

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      Which Presidential Candidates Are Leading the 2024 Money Race?

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      Federal disclosures on Saturday provided a first glimpse of the money race between the presidential candidates for 2024, showing who has amassed the most campaign cash so far. Cash on Hand on June 30 (in millions) Donald J. Trump $22.5 Tim Scott 21.1 Joseph R. Biden Jr. 20.1 Ron DeSantis 12.2 Vivek Ramaswamy 9.0 + […] More

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      Warning Signs for DeSantis and Poor Showing by Pence in 2024 Campaign Filings

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      Warning signs for Ron DeSantis were among the biggest developments of the latest campaign filings, which created a fuller financial picture of the 2024 field.As a fuller financial picture of the 2024 presidential race emerged with Saturday’s campaign filing deadline, trouble appeared to lurk below the surface for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Despite a strong overall fund-raising total of $20 million, Mr. DeSantis is spending hand over fist, and his dependence on large donors suggests a lack of grass-roots support. Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign recorded $17.7 million in fund-raising, nearly all of which was transferred from another committee that will not report its donors until later this month.In the meantime, President Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised almost as much money as all of the Republican candidates for president combined.Some of the more modest Republican earners — such as Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador — appear to have solid support and lean campaign operations built for the long haul. About a third of the $1.6 million haul by former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey came from smaller donors, which is high for Republicans and could speak to relatively broad appeal. Warning signs emerged for Republicans beyond Mr. DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence brought in a paltry $1.2 million in contributions, raising questions about whether he can draw meaningful backing among Republicans.Then there are the self-funded candidates, whose campaigns will last as long as they are willing to spend their own fortunes — and for now at least, they are certainly spending a lot.Here are some initial takeaways from the filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 to June 30.DeSantis is reliant on big money … and he’s spending it fast.In the six weeks between his entry into the race and the end of the quarter, Mr. DeSantis raised $19.7 million for his campaign, $16.9 million of which came from contributions over $200, a sign of his dependence on big-dollar contributions.He is also spending that money — quickly.His filings Saturday showed that his campaign spent nearly $7.9 million in those six weeks. Top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel (several vendors appear to be private jet rental services); more than $1 million for payroll; and more than $800,000 apiece for digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage.It is a “burn rate” of about 40 percent, which is on the high end compared with the other Republican candidates. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina reported raising nearly $5.9 million in the second quarter, and spent $6.7 million. But he had more of a cushion: He carried $22 million from his Senate campaign into his presidential run.Mr. DeSantis reported $12.2 million in cash on hand at the end of June; Mr. Scott had $21 million.A full picture of Trump’s war chest is not yet clear.Mr. Trump is the runaway leader in polls of Republican candidates, and he has ample financial resources and fund-raising ability. But his exact cash situation is complicated.This month, the Trump campaign said the former president had raised more than $35 million in the second quarter through his joint fund-raising committee, which then transfers the money to his campaign and to a political action committee.His campaign’s filing on Saturday reported a total of $17.7 million in receipts — which includes contributions, transfers and refunds — almost all of which came in transfers from the joint fund-raising committee.Where is the rest of the reported $35 million? The joint fund-raising committee is not required to file its report until the end of the month. The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump has in recent months steered more of the money from the joint committee into the PAC, which he has used to pay his legal bills.Pence joins the stragglers.Bringing up the rear of the Republican pack are former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who raised about $500,000 in the second quarter, and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, who raised just $270,000.While these long-shot candidates were not expected to raise tons of money, observers might have expected more from former Vice President Mike Pence, who reported just $1.2 million in contributions.Mr. Pence has also spent very little — just $74,000, his filing shows. His campaign has not said whether he has reached the threshold of 40,000 unique donors, one of the requirements to appear on the Republican debate stage on Aug. 23.Self-funding candidates are also burning through cash.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign.Mr. Burgum’s campaign spent more than $8.1 million last quarter, including an eye-popping $6 million in advertising, the filings show. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, reported $2.3 million in contributions last quarter, as well as $5 million in loans from himself. Mr. Ramaswamy has lent his campaign $15.25 million since he entered the race in February; he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid.He may need to if he keeps up the spending. He spent more than $8 million from April through June, including $1.5 million on media placement and hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Takes Aim at Political Fund-raising Oligopoly

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      The longshot Republican candidate is seeking to raise an army of fund-raisers — by giving them a cut of any money they collect for his campaign.The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to disrupt the “oligopoly” of political fund-raising.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesRamaswamy rethinks political giving As a biotech entrepreneur, investor and conservative activist, Vivek Ramaswamy cuts a different profile from the veteran politicians who are also seeking the Republican presidential nomination.With the plan that he announced on Monday — in which fund-raisers will get 10 percent of what they drum up for him — Mr. Ramaswamy told DealBook that he’s trying to shake up the business of politics now, too.How it works: Called “Vivek’s Kitchen Cabinet,” the system will give participants a personal link they can share with others, and the campaign will pay them as independent contractors.Mr. Ramaswamy said he’s taking aim at a political norm. After announcing his candidacy in February, he said he had met with professional fund-raisers who promised that they could find wealthy donors in Palm Beach, Fla., in Silicon Valley, and on Wall Street.He wasn’t impressed with their work, he said, but he found their fee structure, in which they are paid up to 20 percent of what donors give, interesting. That got him thinking about disrupting the model: “Anytime there’s an oligopoly, there’s a need and an opportunity to break it up,” he said.It’s a novel way of attracting support, since it goes against how candidates traditionally spend money to get donors. (Most campaigns will spend heavily on marketing to draw donors, though the Republican hopeful Doug Burgum is trying something different by doling out $20 gift cards.) News coverage of the plan could also help bump up awareness of Ramaswamy, who’s currently polling at about 4 percent.Drawing more donors isn’t necessary for Mr. Ramaswamy to qualify for the first Republican presidential debate — he told DealBook that he had amassed about 65,000 already, more than the 40,000 minimum. But it could help alleviate his need to self-fund his campaign, to which he has given more than $10.5 million in loans and contributions as of the first quarter.Is it legal? Campaign finance experts told DealBook that the plan didn’t appear to raise any legal issues. Ramaswamy said that it had been vetted by the Federal Election Commission.But some experts see other problems. For instance, supporters may pressure and coerce others in their networks to give to the candidate, according to Saurav Ghosh, director of campaign finance reform at the advocacy group Campaign Legal Center and a former F.E.C. enforcement attorney. (Some on social media have jokingly compared it to a multilevel marketing campaign.)HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING China reportedly plans tighter rules for artificial intelligence. Beijing officials will compel companies developing A.I. services to obtain a license before releasing their products to the public, according to The Financial Times. Regulators are seeking a balance between controlling content while allowing domestic tech companies to innovate.Foxconn withdraws from a $19.5 billion chip venture in India. The electronic components giant said it wouldn’t move forward with plans to partner with the conglomerate Vedanta to build factories in Gujarat. The decision is a blow to India’s efforts to become a hub for chip making and to seize on desires by Apple and others to diversify their supply chains away from China.Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show isn’t holding onto its audience. Views of his broadcasts on the social network have fallen as much as 85 percent since their debut last month. It’s bad news for Carlson, who had counted on his strong viewership at Fox News to carry over to his Twitter show after the network fired him this spring.Hollywood faces the prospect of a second strike. Actors are set to join writers on the picket lines if their union, SAG-AFTRA, doesn’t reach a deal with studios by midnight on Wednesday. Another strike could completely shut down Hollywood, disrupting local communities depending on movie and TV production. At issue are disagreements over streaming payments and the use of artificial intelligence.The heat grows on Twitter’s chief Just a month into the job as the social media platform’s C.E.O., Linda Yaccarino has had to deal with a major new competitor, unpopular limits placed on power users and the unpredictability of Elon Musk. It hasn’t been a smooth debut by any means.She has set herself a tough task. Ms. Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal aims to repair relations with Madison Avenue, no small feat in the middle of a global ad slump. In her favor is her strong reputation: “Linda was a good hire and the right hire as long as she has the freedom to do what’s necessary,” Martin Sorrell, an advertising mogul, told DealBook last week.But many suspect that Twitter’s owner will be reluctant to relinquish control. Indeed, Mr. Musk hasn’t made things easier for Ms. Yaccarino, tweeting juvenile content and apparently neglecting to copy her on his threat to sue Threads, Meta’s rival short-messaging platform. (Referring to Ms. Yaccarino, Bill Grueskin, a Columbia Journalism School professor, tweeted that he was “trying to think of a worse career decision.”)A request for comment to Twitter’s P.R. team was answered with an auto-reply of a poop emoji.And Threads keeps growing. The Twitter competitor has now surpassed 100 million users, setting a record for an app to reach that milestone. Analysts at Evercore ISI have estimated that Threads could add $8 billion to Meta’s annual revenue by 2025. It’s worth noting that Threads currently doesn’t feature any advertising.Its rise appears to be hurting Twitter: Traf­fic to Twit­ter’s web­site fell 5 percent week-on-week in the first two days of Thread’s existence, ac­cord­ing to The Wall Street Journal, citing Sim­i­lar­Web.Ms. Yaccarino sought to rally the Twitter faithful. “Twitter, you really outdid yourselves!” she posted on Monday. “Last week we had our largest usage day since February. There’s only ONE Twitter. You know it. I know it. 🎤” (That said, the tech journalist Casey Newton expressed skepticism of her claim.)Inflation nation Americans’ spending spree on cars, airline tickets and hotel stays appears to be cooling off. Markets are anxiously waiting to see if that restraint will be born out in Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index reading.What to watch: Economists polled by Bloomberg expect the headline inflation number to drop to 3.1 percent, a huge decline from last July’s reading of 9 percent. (That said, more frugal consumers could crimp Amazon’s annual Prime Day shopping bonanza, which starts today.)But progress from here is expected to be tough. Core inflation, which excludes more volatile food and fuel prices, is predicted to drop to 5 percent, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target. In an investor note on Monday co-written by Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs’s chief economist, the firm said that it expected further gradual progress in the inflation fight in the coming months, but didn’t see core inflation dipping below 3 percent until 2025.The Fed is also still worried about inflation. On Monday, three officials said that more interest rate increases were needed to bring down prices. “Inflation is our No. 1 problem,” said Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Fed and a nonvoting member of the central bank. She added that she believed two more rate raises were needed this year.The futures market is betting on that as well, pricing in a quarter-percentage-point increase at this month’s Fed rate-setting meeting and, increasingly, anticipating another raise this fall.But that uncertainty over inflation, as well as worries about recession and a slowing labor market, has led some on Wall Street to warn that the S&P 500 is overvalued and that a stock sell-off is coming. (Investors will keep an eye on corporate earning reports, which begin this week, for more clues on how businesses are faring.)“It’s also important to set the record straight: This is not a merger. The PGA Tour remains intact.” — Ron Price, the C.O.O. of the PGA Tour, in a preview of his testimony today before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations about the proposed tie-up with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit. Price added that there would be no changes to the PGA Tour’s C.E.O. or on the board level should the framework deal move forward.A fight over banking rules draws closerThe Fed’s top banking overseer, Michael Barr, outlined on Monday major parts of his plan to update regulations in the wake of the regional lender crisis that was prompted by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this spring.Among them are tougher capital requirements meant to make banks more resilient in turbulent times — but the financial industry is warning that the proposals go too far.Mr. Barr wants banks to hold more in capital reserves, to the tune of an additional $2 for every $100 of risk-weighted assets, he said in a speech. He also wants to extend his stricter rules to all institutions with $100 billion or more in assets; the toughest requirements currently apply only to lenders that are internationally active or have at least $700 billion in assets.It’s a recognition of “gaps in the current rules,” he said, since even midsize lenders — which are more lightly regulated — can pose dangers to the American financial system.Banks are threatening a fight. Washington and Wall Street appear to have been surprised by how tough Mr. Barr is being: “It’s definitely meaty,” Ian Katz, an analyst at Capital Alpha, told The Times. But industry figures said that tougher restrictions would come at a price. “Further capital requirements on the largest U.S. banks will lead to higher borrowing costs and fewer loans for consumers and businesses,” said Kevin Fromer, head of the banking group Financial Services Forum.The rules aren’t a done deal yet. Up next is the public comment period. If the Fed’s board approves, it will still take time to implement the rules.THE SPEED READ DealsBerkshire Hathaway will buy control of a liquefied natural gas export project in Maryland for $3.3 billion. (Bloomberg)Banks including Citigroup, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase are said to be seeking potential investors for the seed giant Syngenta’s $9 billion I.P.O. in China, which is expected to be the biggest market debut this year. (Bloomberg)Morgan Stanley has reportedly hired Marco Caggiano, JPMorgan’s head of North American mergers, as a vice chairman of M.&A. (Reuters)PolicyThe United States and the European Union reached a deal to let tech giants continue sharing user data between their jurisdictions. (NYT)Jay Clayton, former head of the S.E.C., and Tim Massad, former chair of the C.F.T.C., offered a road map to regulating the crypto markets. (WSJ)Best of the restEuropean regulators are investigating whether the popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Saxenda increase the risk of suicidal thoughts among users. (WSJ)India’s economy could surpass that of the United States in size by 2075, Goldman Sachs predicts — though high taxes and bureaucracy could stand in the way. (Insider)“Disney World Hasn’t Felt This Empty in Years” (WSJ)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Leans Into His Hindu Faith to Court Christian Voters

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      Bristol Smith, a manager at a McDonald’s in Maryville, Tenn., came across Vivek Ramaswamy’s name this spring, shortly after Mr. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, announced he was running for president. Mr. Smith was intrigued. He liked the way Mr. Ramaswamy “stands up against the wokeness” and his plan to send the military to the southern border to combat drug cartels. He respected Mr. Ramaswamy’s acumen as a businessman worth hundreds of millions of dollars.Then Mr. Smith, 25, searched for Mr. Ramaswamy’s faith. Mr. Smith is an evangelical Christian who recently started a small church that meets at his parents’ house.“I looked up his religion and saw he’s Hindu,” he recalled. “I was going to vote for him until that came up.” What the country needs is to be “put back under God,” as Mr. Smith sees it, and he doesn’t want to take a chance on someone who is not a Christian.At that point, he said, “I got back on President Trump’s train.”Mr. Ramaswamy, 37, was raised by Indian immigrants and is a practicing Hindu. That poses a dilemma for some of the conservative Christian voters who make up a significant share of the Republican primary electorate and are accustomed to evaluating candidates not just on their policy proposals but also on their biographies and personal beliefs, including religious faith. For many conservative voters, a candidate’s faith is a signifier of his or her values, lifestyle, loyalties and priorities as a leader. It’s the Sunday-morning version of the classic question of which candidate you would most enjoy having a beer with: Who would fit in at your church? “It’s another hurdle people need to cross to go to him,” Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa, said of Mr. Ramaswamy.Mr. Ramaswamy stood for a prayer at the Veterans Freedom Center during a morning pancake breakfast in Dubuque, Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Vander Plaats recently had Mr. Ramaswamy’s family over for Sunday supper at his house, where the meal opened with a prayer and the reading of a passage from the Bible. He came away impressed with Mr. Ramaswamy and said that his message aligned with the priorities of many evangelical voters. He mentioned Mr. Ramaswamy’s list of 10 core “truths,” the first of which is: “God is real.” (The second: “There are two genders.”)“I think he’s really connecting with the audiences in Iowa,” said Mr. Vander Plaats, who has not endorsed a candidate. “He welcomes the deeper questions.” Mr. Ramaswamy is polling under 5 percent in most recent national polls.Mr. Ramaswamy’s approach has been to confront the issue directly and argue that he has more in common with observant Christians than they might think.“I’m not Christian. I was not raised in a Christian household,” he told Mr. Vander Plaats in June in front of a small audience at the headquarters of his organization, the Family Leader. “But we do share the same Christian values that this nation was founded on.”In an interview in late June, after leaving a meeting with a few dozen pastors in New Hampshire, Mr. Ramaswamy said his faith taught him that Jesus was “a son of God, absolutely.” (That “a” is a sharp distinction from the central Christian belief that Jesus is the son of God. Hinduism is a fluid and expansive tradition, and many believers embrace scores of deities, with some seeing Jesus as one teacher or god.)Although he is not a Christian, Mr. Ramaswamy pointed out, he speaks openly about why belief in God matters and why rising secularism in America is bad for the country, and about values like marital fidelity, duty, religious liberty and self-sacrifice.“I don’t have a quick pitch to say, ‘No, no, that doesn’t matter,’” he said of the theological differences between Hinduism and Christianity. “It’s that I understand exactly why that would matter to you.”At campaign stops, Mr. Ramaswamy refers to Bible stories, including the crucifixion of Jesus, and quotes Thomas Aquinas. He frequently mentions his experience attending a “Christian school” in Cincinnati (St. Xavier High School, a Catholic school). And he contrasts “religions like ours,” which have stood the test of time, with the competing worldviews of “wokeism, climatism, transgenderism, gender ideology, Covidism,” as he put it to an audience in New Hampshire.Iowa voters asked questions to Mr. Ramaswamy in Dubuque.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy’s campaign has disseminated clips of an Iowa pastor comparing him to the biblical figure of King David, and of his lengthy answer to a New Hampshire man who asked about his “spiritual beliefs” at a town hall. In Iowa, a woman pressed her hand to Mr. Ramaswamy’s chest and blessed him in the name of Jesus Christ.“Amen,” Mr. Ramaswamy said as she concluded her prayer.If Mr. Ramaswamy comes to have a chance with evangelical primary voters in the crowded Republican field, it will be thanks in part to forces beyond his campaign. Many conservative voters for whom a shared faith might have once been a litmus test now say they are looking not for a “pastor-in-chief” but for someone who shares their political and cultural goals, and who will fight on their behalf.“Theology matters, but the culture has changed. America has changed,” said David Brody, the chief political analyst for the Christian Broadcasting Network, who has interviewed Mr. Ramaswamy. The biggest objective now, Mr. Brody said, is combating “cultural Marxism” and correcting the course of “a country gone haywire.”He contrasted evangelical priorities in next year’s Iowa caucuses with those in 2008 and 2012, when Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum won on the strength of their conservative Christian bona fides.“The lazy narrative that he’s Hindu so he can’t appeal to evangelicals, I don’t buy it at all,” Mr. Brody said.In recent years, theological lines have blurred as political divides have hardened. Few churches split these days over old debates like the exact timing of the end times or the role of free will in salvation. About half of American Protestants now say they prefer to attend a church with people who share their political views, according to polling from Lifeway Research.Mr. Ramaswamy taking a question at a campaign event in Windham, N.H.John Tully for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy’s emphasis on his belief in one God has a long history for Hindus in the United States, especially those speaking to white Christian audiences, said Michael Altman, a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama.Swami Vivekananda, who represented Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893, took pains to depict his faith as monotheistic, in contrast to the stereotypes of its followers as “heathen” polytheists. Although the faith has many deities, they are generally subordinate to one ultimate “reality.” Many Hindus and scholars say its theology is too complex to be described as either wholly monotheistic or wholly polytheistic.“The polytheism hurdle is the first thing that has to be addressed” for many American Christian audiences, Mr. Altman said. He sees Mr. Ramaswamy’s pitch against “wokeism” as a way to counter stereotypes associating Hinduism with hippies, yoga and vegetarianism.Some evangelical observers say it was former President Donald J. Trump who opened up a new lane for Republican candidates who were not necessarily people that voters would expect to sit next to in church on Sunday morning. Many evangelical voters embraced the crude, thrice-married casino magnate not because he was one of them but because they believed he would fight in the public square on their behalf.Most Indian Americans, including Hindus, are Democrats. But some conservatives see an opening with a population that prioritizes family life, marriage and education. As president, Mr. Trump hosted Diwali celebrations at the White House, and in April the Republican National Committee announced a new Republican Hindu and Indian American Coalition. Prime minister Narendra Modi of India is a popular figure among a rising cohort of right-wing Indian Americans, attracting a crowd of 50,000 when he appeared with Mr. Trump in Houston in 2019. Mr. Ramaswamy spoke last year at a gala organized by the right-wing U.S. group HinduPACT, which is aligned with Mr. Modi’s style of nationalism.President Donald J. Trump lit the ceremonial diya lamp during Diwali celebrations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in 2018.Doug Mills/The New York TimesNikki Haley, another Indian American contender in the 2024 primary, has similarly emphasized her background as the daughter of immigrants. But although Ms. Haley was raised Sikh, she converted to Christianity and now attends a large Methodist church in South Carolina. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican who ran for president in 2016, was raised Hindu but has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.”Mr. Ramaswamy attends the same temple in Dayton, Ohio, that he did as a child and that his parents still do.One of the temple’s priests officiated his wedding in New York City in 2015. He and his wife and their two young sons attend temple on holidays and to mark special occasions, including the younger son’s first birthday in early July, his wife, Dr. Apoorva Ramaswamy, said. Dr. Ramaswamy, who has publicly discussed the family’s faith on the campaign trail, said there were more similarities among committed believers across traditions than between serious and nominal adherents within the same faith.“The fact that we are believers, that we have that sense of humility, that we raise our children with true respect and fear and love of God — that’s so much more unifying than the name of the God people pray to,” Dr. Ramaswamy said.The question for her husband’s campaign is whether enough Christian voters will agree.Ken Bosse, the pastor of New Life Church in Raymond, N.H., described himself as “an extreme follower of Jesus Christ” who would prefer to have a Christian in the White House, all things considered. But he would be open to the right candidate who is not a Christian, noting that “we have had some professing Christians in that position who didn’t follow biblical principles.”Mr. Bosse invited Mr. Ramaswamy to deliver a brief speech at his church on a Sunday morning in April. He liked the candidate’s emphasis on reclaiming a positive American identity, he said, and on his story as a self-made millionaire who is the child of immigrants.At the moment, however, Mr. Bosse is leaning toward supporting Mr. Trump. More

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      Ramaswamy Investments Seem at Odds With His Position on ‘Woke’ Culture

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      The billionaire biotech mogul has railed against socially conscious companies. But his financial disclosure shows he has a stake in some of the leaders in the field.Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate who made a fortune in the biotech industry, has caught the interest of primary voters with fiery critiques of the socially conscious practices of U.S. corporations, which he laid out in a book, “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.”But Mr. Ramaswamy himself owns valuable investments in many companies that have embraced environmental, social and governance principles, known as E.S.G. — the kinds of “woke” corporate practices he decries — according to a financial disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission that was released on Friday.While many of the companies in which Mr. Ramaswamy holds an interest are household names, they are also leaders in the corporate movement to address social and environmental issues.Among the companies that Mr. Ramaswamy is invested in are Microsoft (his holdings are valued from $1 million to $5 million), Home Depot ($250,000 to $500,000), Lockheed Martin ($500,000 to $1 million) and Waste Management ($500,000 to $1 million). All adhere to various E.S.G. principles, according to reports posted on their websites.Mr. Ramaswamy has argued that such goals are a distraction from earning a profit, and that social objectives should be left to elected officials.Tricia McLaughlin, a senior adviser to Mr. Ramaswamy, said that he did not manage his own stock portfolio. “The first time Vivek learned of these positions was when he saw this financial disclosure report,” Ms. McLaughlin said on Friday. “Vivek’s stock portfolio is independently managed by a third party. The filer has authority to make trades and invest in stocks without his expressed consent or knowledge.”Mr. Ramaswamy, a long-shot candidate who has said that he would go further than the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, on conservative issues, has been unusually transparent about his wealth, earlier releasing 20 years of his tax returns.But until he filed his financial disclosure with election officials, there were few details. The filing reported that Mr. Ramaswamy owned up to a $25 million investment in Rumble, the video platform that styles itself a refuge for right-wing commentators shunned elsewhere. He owns up to $300,000 in cryptocurrency, primarily Bitcoin, and an investment worth up to $100,000 in a cryptocurrency app named MoonPay. He also has interests in three private planes.Mr. Ramaswamy, 37, is a Cincinnati native who holds degrees from Harvard and Yale. He founded Roivant Sciences in 2014, a company that develops and markets drugs, and that is the primary source of his wealth. Though he stepped down as chairman in February when he announced his candidacy, earlier reporting showed that he remained one of the largest shareholders. On the federal disclosure, the value of his Roivant holdings is listed as “over $50 million,” which is the largest category used on the form.According to Ms. McLaughlin, Mr. Ramaswamy’s total worth is more than $1 billion.Besides Roivant, Mr. Ramaswamy’s portfolio has diversified into investments in major U.S. companies that many Americans would recognize from their own retirement accounts. These holdings are valued between $39.6 million and $125 million. (The amounts on the form are reported within a range.) In addition, he reported over $50 million in holdings in Strive Enterprises, an investment company he created to manage funds that invest in companies without regard to social objectives.Sales of Mr. Ramaswamy’s book “Woke, Inc.,” which lays out his case against corporations attempting to factor in social goals, earned its author $203,860 in royalties.The report suggests one area in which Mr. Ramaswamy is more modest than other members of his ultrawealthy cohort: He owns just a single residence, in Columbus, Ohio. Its value was pegged between $1 million and $5 million. More

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      Trump Won’t Campaign at a July 4 Parade, but Other Republican Hopefuls Will

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      But for early-state G.O.P. voters hoping for more attention on Independence Day, the pickings will be plentiful: Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and others will be on the trail.It’s the final Fourth of July before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — still more than six months away, yes. But all the same, the Republicans vying for their party’s presidential nomination will be on the trail, waving to supporters from parades, shaking hands with voters and taking selfies.But not the front-runner: Donald J. Trump will be conspicuously absent on the 247th anniversary of the nation’s independence.Mike Pence is headed to Iowa, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida will do double duty with two parades in New Hampshire, the state that is also drawing Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, a dark-horse candidate, among others.The former president has upended the traditional expectations of Iowa and New Hampshire voters. For decades they have prided themselves on their discernment of presidential candidates and have demanded to get to know them personally before casting the first ballots in the nation.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, objected to the notion that the former president is avoiding retail politics over the Fourth of July holiday, pointing to Mr. Trump’s rally in South Carolina on Saturday, which, he said, counted as Independence Day weekend. Mr. Trump also appeared at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, and he even dropped by Pat’s King of Steaks, a cheese steak palace that has been a mainstay for politicians in Philly for decades.And this Friday the former president will be in Council Bluffs, Iowa.But on the actual anniversary of the nation’s birth?“His campaign will have an overwhelming presence in various parades and patriotic events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, engaging with voters and Americans who are sick of Joe Biden’s failed leadership,” Mr. Cheung said.But Mr. Trump himself will be spending the day with his family, Mr. Cheung said.“I’m sure people are thankful he’s not out,” former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, a recent entrant in the Republican primary race, quipped outside a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H. “He comes with a lot of baggage.”Former President Donald J. Trump during a rally on Saturday in Pickens, S.C.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor early-state Republican voters hoping for more personal attention on the Fourth, the pickings will be plentiful — just not Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence, the former vice president, will walk the parade route in Urbandale, Iowa, then meet voters 35 miles north in Boone, Iowa, on Tuesday.Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott will be at the July 4 parade in Merrimack, as will several other Republican presidential hopefuls: Mr. Burgum, Mr. Hurd, the entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy, and Perry Johnson, a Michigan businessman. Marianne Williamson, a long-shot challenger of President Biden for the Democratic nomination, will be there too, as well as at an earlier parade in Wolfeboro — where Mr. DeSantis will also be.Mr. Biden will be using a bit of presidential prerogative to host active-duty military families for barbecue at the White House. He will also have military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors on the White House lawn for Washington’s traditional fireworks — but not before some politicking at an event with the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association.Mr. Trump’s campaign evinces no concern that his absence from the stage will give his rivals any room to make up ground in the Republican primaries. After queries about his July 4 plans, his team released a memo Monday afternoon highlighting his campaign’s plans to celebrate the holiday in Iowa and New Hampshire — and calling out his dominant position in Republican primary polling.Republican veterans don’t see much of an opening for Mr. Trump’s rivals either.“He definitely plays by a different set of rules,” said David Kochel, a longtime Republican adviser and strategist in Iowa. Mr. Trump has made some recent adjustments with unscheduled stops at restaurants like Pat’s and, after his arraignment on the first federal felony charges ever levied on a former president, at Versailles, Miami’s beloved Cuban restaurant. He will be appearing with virtually the entire G.O.P. field at the Republican Party of Iowa’s biggest fund-raiser, the Lincoln Dinner, on July 28.“But,” Mr. Kochel said, “his celebrity and the fact that he was president gives him more flexibility.”The retail politics tradition in Iowa and New Hampshire may well be overrated, an artifact of a time before super PACs saturated airwaves, social media reached voters’ phones and celebrity pervaded the zeitgeist, regardless of who was in the diners and pizza joints.“Retail has always been mostly theater, but now it’s all a performance for the cameras, not about meeting regular people and listening to their concerns,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.Mr. Burgum got a taste of the hill he has to climb on Tuesday when Nelson Disco, 88, a retired engineer, asked him at a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H., what he was running for and which party he was registered with.“You’ve got some competition,” Mr. Disco exclaimed, as the North Dakota governor told him he was running for president.For someone like Mr. DeSantis, who joined the primary campaign relatively late, appearances like his two July 4 parades do demonstrate that he is putting in the effort and taking New Hampshire seriously, said Mr. Cullen, who is now a Republican consultant in the state.As for the former president, “Can you imagine Trump walking in the Wolfeboro Fourth of July parade?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”Limiting Mr. Trump’s public appearances and emphasizing large rallies over glad-handing with a few dozen supporters may help to preserve the former president’s celebrity and mystique among his faithful while projecting confidence. And Republican primary voters already know how they feel about the former president. His fate in the primary contest may depend more on external factors — like his indictments in two cases and the trials that may ensue, as well as other inquiries he is facing — than on his power of persuasion at an Iowa Pizza Ranch.Mr. Cheung insisted, even as he outlined a relatively sparse schedule for Mr. Trump,“It would be incorrect to write that he will be sparing retail politics and limiting public appearances.” But the rest of the Republican field, with weaker field operations and later starts, do not have that luxury, said Dave Carney, another New Hampshire Republican consultant and veteran organizer.For those laboring to break out of the pack, Mr. Trump’s absence on July 4 presented a moment to introduce themselves to at least a few voters in person.“Today is about meeting people, right?” Mr. Hurd said. “Not everybody is doom scrolling on social media or consuming cable news.” More