Ramaswamy, Vivek (1985- )

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      Ramaswamy Pushes Fringe Idea About Jan. 6 at Town Hall in Iowa

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      The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy repeated his claim, without specific evidence, that the attack on the Capitol was an “inside job.”In the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate, is pressing an unusual strategy: leaning into conspiracy theories.At a CNN town hall on Wednesday evening in Des Moines, Abby Phillip, the CNN anchor, asked Mr. Ramaswamy about previous comments in which he had said that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was an “inside job” — a claim for which there is no evidence, and which has been refuted by numerous criminal indictments and bipartisan congressional investigations.Instead of walking back his remarks, he dug in.“The reality is, we know that there were federal law enforcement agents in the field. We don’t know how many,” Mr. Ramaswamy told the audience at Grand View University, at which point Ms. Phillip interrupted him to clarify. “There’s no evidence that there were federal agents in the crowd,” she said. Mr. Ramaswamy suggested, without providing specific details, that he had seen “multiple informants suggesting that they were.”He turned to another conspiracy theory — involving the kidnapping plot against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat of Michigan. He claimed, of some defendants in that case, that “government agents put them up to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done.” (That claim also has no evidence to support it.)“I don’t want to have to interrupt you, I really don’t, but I don’t want you to mislead the audience here —” Ms. Phillip began, before Mr. Ramaswamy redirected and claimed that it was “mainstream media” outlets that were misleading.Mr. Ramaswamy, who has continued to praise former President Donald J. Trump while competing against him for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has slipped in polls. At the same time, on the campaign trail, during debates and at the CNN event, he has pushed conspiracy theories, including ones on the origin of Covid-19 as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Ms. Phillip’s question on Wednesday referred to Alan Hostetter, a Jan. 6 defendant who invoked Mr. Ramaswamy’s debate remarks during his sentencing hearing last week in claiming that conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen “are no longer fringe.”Mr. Ramaswamy did not address Mr. Hostetter’s remarks and instead reiterated false claims, to favorable responses from the crowd.Mr. Ramaswamy’s combative demeanor in public appearances was brought up by Rylee Miller, a law student who said that Mr. Ramaswamy seemed to have “somewhat abandoned the tact and diplomacy that I would look for in a president.” He then asked a question about how Mr. Ramaswamy would balance authenticity with a “presidential demeanor.”Mr. Ramaswamy, in answering, referred to his role as a parent who would strive to “make our children proud” as president. But, he continued, voters should not “want a wilting flower in the White House.”Mr. Ramaswamy also repeated several disputed proposals he has called for on the campaign trail. He said he would end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, effective from January 2025 onward. He reiterated his call to end aid to Ukraine and to back a deal “with some territorial concessions” for the country.He also said that he would support the Supreme Court if it ruled to take mifepristone, a commonly used abortion pill facing a legal challenge, “off the market.” More

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      Man Accused of Sending Death Threats to Vivek Ramaswamy Is Arrested in New Hampshire

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      Tyler Anderson of Dover was jailed and the authorities seized firearms after tracking the threatening texts to his phone and home address, officials said.Federal authorities arrested a New Hampshire man, charging him with threatening to kill Vivek Ramaswamy and his supporters, the Justice Department said on Monday.Prosecutors said Tyler Anderson, a 30-year-old from Dover, threatened to kill Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman and Republican presidential candidate, and attendees of a campaign event planned on Monday in nearby Portsmouth. The threats were made as replies to an automated campaign message inviting Mr. Anderson to attend the event, according to images of the texts included in court documents. His messages implied that the threat would be carried out with a firearm.Mr. Anderson was arrested on Saturday after federal agents tracked the texts to his phone and his home address, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in New Hampshire. The police also seized several firearms and recovered the threatening text messages from a deleted folder on Mr. Anderson’s phone.In an interview with an F.B.I. agent after his arrest, the affidavit continued, Mr. Anderson acknowledged sending the threats, adding that he had also sent similar messages to other campaigns. Another federal agent discovered such texts sent to another presidential campaign. Mr. Anderson was charged with one count of transmitting threats.The Dover Police Department also told federal agents that they “had an interaction with Anderson on Oct. 20,” and reported other encounters in 2022 and 2011. The department declined to provide more information on these episodes, referring questions to federal prosecutors.In a statement on Monday, the Ramaswamy campaign thanked law enforcement “for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter.”The statement then criticized the news media, “deranged voices” and “left-wing cranks,” accusing the groups of inciting violence against Republicans.Mr. Anderson faces a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 if convicted. He appeared in federal court on Monday in Concord, the state capital, before returning to temporary detention. Additional hearings in the case are scheduled for Thursday.Alain Delaquérière More

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      Trump Gains in Iowa Poll, and DeSantis Holds Off Haley for a Distant Second

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      Mr. Trump has a commanding lead over his rivals five weeks before the first-in-the-nation caucuses.Multiple Republicans have ended their presidential campaigns over the past two months, narrowing the field against former President Donald J. Trump — but the only person who has gained much ground in the first voting state is Mr. Trump, according to a new poll.Mr. Trump has the support of 51 percent of likely caucusgoers in a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll released Monday, up from 43 percent in the last Iowa Poll from October.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is in a distant second place at 19 percent, up slightly from 16 percent in October. Nikki Haley, who had surged in the October poll, has made no further progress, according to the poll: Her support is unchanged at 16 percent.The poll, conducted by J. Ann Selzer from Dec. 2 to 7, does not necessarily show that Mr. DeSantis is truly ahead of Ms. Haley; a three-percentage-point gap is not significant, given that the poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. But it indicates at a minimum that Ms. Haley is not leaping ahead of him as she tries to make the argument that she is the strongest contender against Mr. Trump and that Mr. DeSantis is fading.It also indicates that Mr. Trump’s increasingly authoritarian rhetoric on the campaign trail — including calling his opponents “vermin” last month — and radical policy proposals have not turned Republican voters against him. (An interview in which he said he wouldn’t be a dictator “other than Day 1” came while the poll was underway.) Nor has he been hurt politically by the ongoing criminal and civil cases against him.No other candidate cracks double digits in the poll. The entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy, who has campaigned fiercely in Iowa, is at 5 percent — essentially tied with former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who has all but ignored the state and sits at 4 percent. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas has just 1 percent support, and Ryan Binkley, a little-known pastor, has 0 percent.Just under half of likely caucusgoers — 46 percent — said they could change their minds before the caucuses on Jan. 15. More

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      Days After Heated Debate, G.O.P. Candidates Take a Gentler Tone in Iowa

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      The rivals for the Republican presidential nomination — minus Donald Trump — appeared at a “faith and family” event and talked in more personal terms.Casey DeSantis recounted a few humorous interactions between her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and their children. Then she spoke in more sober tones about her fight against cancer.Vivek Ramaswamy brought his 3-year-old son, Karthik, onstage and discussed his Hindu faith.And Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, sitting beside her daughter, Rena, who recently married, said she still remembered her as a little girl “in pigtails.”The Republican presidential candidates who spoke at a “faith and family” event on Saturday at Dordt University, an evangelical Christian school in Sioux Center, Iowa, sought to present a kinder, gentler side of themselves, just days after an acrimonious debate and little more than a month before the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest.The candidates came to this town of just over 8,000 people on a snow-dusted plain in rural northwestern Iowa, fewer than 40 miles from South Dakota, to pitch themselves to the area’s conservative voters and to seek the endorsement of Representative Randy Feenstra, the region’s popular Republican congressman. Mr. Feenstra and his wife interviewed each candidate in front of about 400 community members and college students at the B.J. Haan Auditorium, where banners read “Glory to God Alone.”Mr. Feenstra said the more uplifting tone of the event was purposeful.“We didn’t want bickering,” he said. “People just wanted to hear an honest answer to some of these questions, without people interrupting, without having a 90-second little segment.”Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and author, traded in his barbs for a kinder tone — until after the event.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressThen, away from the crowd and the religious symbols, the candidates went right back to attacking each other — at least mildly.The switch in rhetoric underscored the tenuous position of any candidate not named Donald J. Trump. The former president, who was not at the event, has maintained a commanding lead over his rivals, and even Ms. Haley, who has gained ground as Mr. DeSantis has slipped, trails far behind.Mr. Ramaswamy, who is even further behind in most national polls, made a bold forecast for a come-from-behind upset victory.“Our strategy is to shock the expectations on Jan. 15,” Mr. Ramaswamy told reporters outside the auditorium, moments after doing 30 push-ups on the cold concrete with a member of Dordt’s football team, which had come out to support him.Addressing the contentious debate in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Wednesday, where he accused Ms. Haley of being “corrupt” and a “fascist,” Mr. Ramaswamy suggested that Ms. Haley had stooped even lower.“She called me ‘scum’ and ‘dumb’ in the two debates. I didn’t call her dumb. I did reveal that neither she nor Chris Christie know the first thing about the countries that they supposedly want to send our resources to go fight for,” he said, referring to the former governor of New Jersey who is also running for the Republican nomination.And while Mr. DeSantis struck a bipartisan tone onstage, saying that he would seek common ground with his political opponents, he also went on the offensive in a conversation after the event, criticizing the donation Ms. Haley recently received from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire Democratic donor who co-founded LinkedIn.Linda Kreykes, 63, said that she was leaning toward supporting Mr. DeSantis but that she appreciated the comments that Mr. Ramaswamy, who is of Indian descent, made onstage about the shared teachings of Christianity and Hinduism.“He shared similarities between the two faiths,” she said. “We’re ultimately not so different from each other.”When it was her turn, Ms. Haley discussed the shooting at a historic Black church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, when a white gunman killed nine Black worshipers. Ms. Haley talked about her decision to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse after the shooter was seen in photos posing proudly with the flag and a racist manifesto he had written was uncovered.Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina discussed her decision to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse. Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressBut Ms. Haley, in recounting her decision to call for the flag’s removal, criticized the national news media, asserting that they had “wanted to make it about race.”“Half of South Carolinians saw the Confederate flag as tradition and heritage,” Ms. Haley said. “The other half of South Carolinians saw slavery and hate. This wasn’t about me judging either side.”A majority of Iowa’s statewide politicians have stayed neutral in the Republican primary, though Gov. Kim Reynolds has endorsed Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Feenstra has indicated that he is considering making an endorsement as well, though he declined to do so on Saturday.Still, the congeniality of the event left an impression on voters, who said they were sick of the rancor of the debates.Rather than allowing them to squabble onstage, said Steve Rehder, 59, who is deciding between Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis, “tell the candidates to answer the question and move on.” More

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      In Iowa, Nikki Haley Looks Beyond Her Rivals’ Attacks

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      In her first campaign stop since Wednesday’s heated Republican debate, Ms. Haley suggested that fierce criticism from her opponents continued to not be worth her time.In her first campaign stop since Wednesday’s contentious Republican debate, Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and former governor of South Carolina, largely ignored the many attacks that her fellow candidates, aware of her rise in the polls, had lobbed at her. What she did discuss suggested she continued to feel that the criticism wasn’t, as she said on Wednesday night, “worth my time.”Speaking to about 100 people in a convention center conference room in Sioux City, Iowa, on Friday, Ms. Haley stuck to the topics that have become the cornerstones of her campaign — her foreign policy experience and her willingness to tell “hard truths.” She railed against China, pledged to be a fiscally responsible president and even answered a question about fears that Venezuela could invade its South American neighbor, Guyana.Despite her growing rivalry with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to become the chief alternative to former President Donald J. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, Ms. Haley did not mention Mr. DeSantis by name, nor did she mention the debate — where she was in the line of fire for much of the evening — until the final minutes of the event.Responding to a voter’s question about her standing in the race, Ms. Haley said she did not think she needed to win the Iowa caucus to be successful.“The momentum is on our side,” she said. “The way I look at it is, we just need to have a good showing in Iowa. I don’t think that means we have to win, necessarily, but I think that we have to have a good showing.”Ms. Haley also appeared to indicate that she would not accept an offer to be Mr. Trump’s running mate, if he were to win the nomination and ask her. “I’ve never played for second,” she said.Ms. Haley’s campaign has gained prominence in recent weeks. Many national polls now put her in a heated race for second place with Mr. DeSantis, and she is running at a similar level in Iowa, at roughly 17.5 percent. (Mr. Trump is well ahead of them both, at more than 45 percent.)Late last month, Americans for Prosperity Action, the conservative political network founded by the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, endorsed Ms. Haley, which gave her campaign access to the network’s financial might and to a pool of staff members to knock on doors and make phone calls.During the Republican debate in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Wednesday, Ms. Haley’s increasing prominence made her the target of frequent attacks from Mr. DeSantis and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Mr. Ramaswamy in particular assailed her, calling her a “fascist,” asserting that she was in the pocket of business interests and at one point holding up a notepad on which he had written, “Nikki = Corrupt.”“I love all the attention, fellas,” Ms. Haley quipped at one point, even as she appeared, at least at moments, to fade into the debate’s background. Some analysts suggested afterward that Ms. Haley had not mounted a strong enough defense of herself.Unlike former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who rehashed his debate zingers during his campaign stops in New Hampshire on Thursday, Ms. Haley appeared to have moved on. She said the debates had served to winnow the field, and she predicted that another candidate — evidently Mr. DeSantis, though she did not name him — would drop out of the race after the Iowa caucuses.“We’ve got three major people that are going to go into Iowa, and I think after Iowa, one’s going to drop,” Ms. Haley said. “And then I think you’re going to have a play with me and Trump in New Hampshire, and then we’re going to go to my home state in South Carolina, and then we’re going to take it.”Many in attendance in Sioux City appeared to agree with Ms. Haley’s decision to largely ignore the attacks from her opponents, saying they had admired her debate performance on Wednesday.“She did so well at the debate,” said Adrienne Dunn, a 48-year-old Sioux City resident who is leaning toward voting for Ms. Haley but has not made a final decision. “She was prepared. She had good answers.” More

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      Likening Nikki Haley to Clinton, Ads From Pro-DeSantis Super PAC Fall Short

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      The claims by a super PAC that backs Gov. Ron DeSantis comparing Nikki Haley to Hillary Clinton are misleading.In Republican politics, being likened to a prominent Democrat like Hillary Clinton may well be among the highest of insults.Some G.O.P. presidential hopefuls and their allies are seizing on that comparison to denounce Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who has gained momentum in the primary race. During the Republican debate in Alabama on Wednesday, for example, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy criticized Ms. Haley for giving “foreign multinational speeches like Hillary Clinton.”In particular, though, supporters of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have leveraged that line of attack, including in advertisements by a pro-DeSantis super PAC, Fight Right. But the ads trying to tie Ms. Haley to Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, make claims that are misleading.Here’s a fact-check of some of those claims.WHAT WAS SAID“We know her as Crooked Hillary, but to Nikki Haley, she’s her role model, the reason she ran for office.”— Fight Right in an advertisementWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Winners and Losers From the Fourth Republican Debate

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      Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the fourth Republican presidential debate, held at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday night. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers and contributors rate the candidates on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the candidate didn’t belong on the stage and should have dropped out before […] More