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      Wednesday briefing: How ‘anti-woke’ tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy shook up the Republican race

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      Good morning. It’s more than a year until Americans choose their next president, but the race to be the Republican nominee is well under way. Their frontrunner is some guy called Donald Trump – you’ve probably heard of him. The one with the mugshot.But today we are looking at the 38-year-old “anti-woke” tech bro who could end up being Trump’s greatest rival. Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, was widely viewed as the “winner” of the first Republican TV debate last week. Selling himself as “a patriot who speaks the truth”, he called the climate change agenda a “hoax” and promised “revolution” rather than “incremental reform”. Oh, and he vowed that one of his first acts as president would be to pardon Trump for whatever he may have been convicted of by then. Lovely stuff.So does this bumptious upstart stand a chance at getting the Republican nomination? And could youth win over experience if he ends up going head-to-head with Joe Biden in 2024? In today’s newsletter, I discuss all this and more with Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas programme at the thinktank Chatham House.In depth: ‘Is Trump’s base really going to grab on to someone who doesn’t look like them?’Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?Born in Ohio in 1985, Ramaswamy is the son of Indian Hindu immigrants, just like the UK’s own Rishi Sunak. Ramaswamy’s mother worked as a geriatric psychiatrist; his father was an engineer and a patent lawyer at General Electric.Unlike the UK prime minister, “Ramaswamy made his own money – he didn’t marry into it”, says Dr Leslie Vinjamuri. He founded the biotechnology firm Roivant Sciences, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars with bold claims about an Alzheimer’s drug which, well, ultimately failed its clinical trial. Ramaswamy still got rich, though, taking out at least $200m (£159m) from the company, according to the New York Times.Remind you of anyone? Like Elizabeth Holmes, the Stanford dropout in jail for defrauding investors with her useless blood-testing company, Ramaswamy has also featured on the cover of Forbes magazine. They called him “The 30-year-old CEO conjuring drug companies from thin air.” To be clear: First Edition is not suggesting the presidential hopeful is guilty of criminal fraud, just that he shares the same talent for self-publicity as Holmes.Despite styling himself as an anti-establishment outsider, he went to Harvard, where he studied biology and performed libertarian-themed rap music under the alter ego “Da Vek”. Like Kendall at Logan’s birthday party, Ramaswamy is prone to spitting bars in public – often by Eminem, who has asked him to cease and desist using his music on the campaign trail.What does Ramaswamy believe in?These are Ramaswamy’s “10 truths”, according to his campaign website: “God is real. There are two genders. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels. Reverse racism is racism. An open border is no border. Parents determine the education of their children. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind. Capitalism lifts people up from poverty. There are three branches of the US government, not four. The US constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.”Ramaswamy, the bestselling author of 2021’s Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, wants to see a much smaller state, and has promised to abolish most federal agencies, including the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has called the climate crisis agenda a “hoax”, saying that while he accepts the climate is changing (which he says was ever thus), policies to address it “have little to do with climate change and more to do with penalising the west as a way to achieve global ‘equity’”.Does he have a chance?“He is certainly a contender,” says Vinjamuri. “I mean, right now, nobody’s a serious contender because Trump is sailing so far ahead. But any number of things could happen to Trump, and if one of those things happens, then Vivek Ramaswamy is the person who has captured front and centre of the GOP debates. He was the one everyone on stage wanted to put down. And that usually happens when somebody looks like a real threat.”Will Trump ultimately secure the Republican nomination? “There’s nothing self evident that would rule him out,” she says. There are not many eligibility requirements for US presidents and a criminal record doesn’t disqualify someone from the race, so in theory, yes. But it’d be pretty difficult to campaign from prison.If Trump is stopped it will not be “because someone says it’s illegal for him to stand, but because somebody makes the calculation that the public opinion is moving against him – too many indictments, trials, all these legal proceedings – and he is becoming less interesting and somebody else is taking the stage.”Could Ramaswamy be that somebody? He is currently third in the polls, with Trump flying higher than ever on 49.2%. Meanwhile, Trump’s onetime nearest rival – Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who was polling 40% in January – loses support almost every time he opens his mouth. He is now down to 14.19%, with Ramaswamy next on 10.1%.“A lot of it is going to come down to: where do people put their money?” says Vinjamuri. Ramaswamy has high-profile support from rightwing billionaires including PayPal founder Peter Thiel, as my colleague Martin Pengelly has reported.Vinjamuri is not convinced that Ramaswamy, as the “dark-skinned son of an immigrant”, will be able to appeal to Trump’s base. “They’ll like his anti-climate, anti-woke rhetoric,” she says. “But are they really going to grab on to someone who doesn’t looks like them? The Republican party has been so dominated by a man who has peddled white nationalism, who has been racist in his rhetoric.”Can he beat Biden?“General elections are won in the swing states,” says Vinjamuri. “And the Democrats are not gonna swing to Ramaswamy because on every issue he is just so far away from them.”Joe Biden has declared his candidacy, despite more than three-quarters of respondents in a new US poll saying he would be too old to be effective if re-elected president next year, when he will be 81.“The view in the Democratic camp is that if it’s going to be Trump, it needs to be Biden. But if it’s Ramaswamy, what about Pete Buttigieg?” she says, referring to Biden’s 41-year-old secretary of state for transport, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020. “If Trump exits the scene, everything becomes an open question.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhat else we’ve been reading
      Alexandra Topping’s article featuring a family made homeless as a result of the UK’s housing crisis is illuminating: “I never thought this could happen to us,” says Colin, 46. “I knew we wouldn’t be able to afford our own home, but I just thought we’d be renting privately for ever.” Nimo
      An inspiring – and helpful – piece by nonagenarian Joan Bakewell on the joy of giving away your money before you die, which she describes as “one of life’s last pleasures”. Helen
      It’s the last week of the summer holidays and parents everywhere are trying to get their school-age children back to a normal sleep schedule. Zoe Williams chronicles the tiring “long road back to school hours” – her kids are not the only ones who are struggling with it. Nimo
      Crash Bandicoot got his wife through postnatal depression and Championship Manager kept him busy when he moved to the Lake District to escape the millennium bug. Dominik Diamond – yes, him, from GamesMaster – on how video games have kept his family together. Helen
      Maintaining friendships in adulthood can be hard, but it’s important to try. For the Atlantic (£), Rhaina Cohen highlights why not just catching up with friends but scheduling more childlike whimsy and playfulness into platonic relationships can enrich them. Nimo
      The front pages“Britain must take China’s human rights abuses seriously, say MPs” is our Guardian splash this morning. The Financial Times says “Goldman Sachs bought UK and US companies using Chinese state cash”. “Britain isn’t a Christian nation now, say clergy” is the main offering in the Times while the Daily Telegraph has “Khan faces revolt over Ulez”. “Flights hell families £1,000s out of pocket” – that’s the Daily Mirror on airport chaos. “Not a penny to compensate air chaos victims” says the Daily Mail. A comparatively moderate take in the i – “UK airlines accused of abandoning passengers” – while the Metro tots up an “£80 million bill for air IT fiasco”. Top story in the Daily Express today is “PM: our Brexit freedoms will ditch EU rule to build homes”.Today in FocusRats, fires and floods: why the UK parliament is falling downIt is the symbol of Britain’s democracy and it is falling into decay. The Palace of Westminster needs extensive – and expensive – repairs. But are MPs ready to do what it takes to save it?Cartoon of the day | Daniel ChristieThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badTakahē are a large flightless prehistoric bird that were formally declared extinct in 1898 after their already reduced population was devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animals. Five decades later they were rediscovered and, because of conservation efforts, their numbers now stand at about 500, growing at roughly 8% a year. The efforts are part of a wider project in New Zealand to protect the country’s endangered birds.In another landmark moment for the takahē, last week 18 of the birds were released in the Lake Wakatipu Waimāori valley, an alpine area of New Zealand’s South Island. They are now free to roam on slopes for the first time in over a century. It is a particularly significant moment for the Ngāi Tahu, the tribe who faced a long legal battle for the birds’ return to lands they had fought to regain.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
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      Biden privately admitted feeling ‘tired’ amid concerns about his age, book says

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      Amid relentless debate about whether at 80 Joe Biden is too old to be president or to complete an effective second term, an eagerly awaited book on his time in the White House reports that Biden has privately admitted to feeling “tired”, even as it describes his vast political experience as a vital asset.“His advanced years were a hindrance, depriving him of the energy to cast a robust public presence or the ability to easily conjure a name,” Franklin Foer writes in The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future.“It was striking that he took so few morning meetings or presided over so few public events before 10am. His public persona reflected physical decline and time’s dulling of mental faculties that no pill or exercise regime can resist.“In private, he would occasionally admit that he felt tired.”Foer does not cite a source for Biden’s reported private remarks but his book, according to its publisher, Penguin Random House, is based on “unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades”.The Last Politician will be published in the US next week. On Tuesday, as the Atlantic published an excerpt on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Politico noted tight security around the release and anxiety in the White House.The Guardian obtained a copy.Biden’s age has been a constant of coverage since the former senator and vice-president entered the race to face Donald Trump in 2020. At 77, Biden beat Trump convincingly and became the oldest president ever elected. If Biden wins a second term next year, and completes four years in power, he will be 86 when he steps down.Republican candidates to face Biden have relentlessly focused on his age, with rightwing pundits piling in – despite the fact the clear Republican frontrunner, Trump, is 77 years old himself.But public polling has long showed concern about Biden’s age among Democratic voters. This week, the Associated Press and the Norc Center for Public Affairs showed 77% of respondents (89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats) saying Biden was too old to be effective if re-elected.In the same poll, only 51% (and just 29% of Republicans) said Trump’s age would be a problem if he returned to the Oval Office.Foer, a former editor of the New Republic, a progressive magazine, does not shy from the issue. But he does stress how Biden’s massive political experience – he won his US Senate seat in Delaware in 1972, chaired the Senate judiciary and foreign relations committees and was vice-president to Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017 – has given him unique strengths in the White House.Citing the Inflation Reduction Act and other attempts to address the climate crisis, Foer says Biden is not guilty of governing in the short term “because [he] will only inhabit the short term”, a failing of older politicians.In something of a backhanded compliment, Foer writes that Biden has sometimes muffed public remarks not because of the challenges of age, but because of “indiscipline and indecision” seen throughout his career.In the same passage in which he reports Biden’s admission to being tired, meanwhile, Foer says the president’s “wartime leadership”, regarding supporting Ukraine in its fight against the invading Russian army, “drew on his weathered instincts and his robust self-confidence”.Regarding Ukraine, Foer writes, “the advantages of having an older president were on display. He wasn’t just a leader of the coalition, he was the West’s father figure, whom foreign leaders could call for advice and look to for assurance.“It was his calming presence and his strategic clarity that helped lead the alliance to such an aggressive stance, which stymied authoritarianism on its front lines.“He was a man for his age.” More

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      Eminem demands Vivek Ramaswamy cease using his music on campaign trail

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      The rapper Eminem has demanded that Vivek Ramaswamy cease using his music.In a letter reported by the Daily Mail, a representative for the rapper’s publisher told counsel for the Republican presidential hopeful that Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, objected to Ramaswamy’s use of his compositions and was revoking a license to use them.The letter, dated 23 August, became public weeks after Ramaswamy, 38, a financial investor and politics newcomer, mounted an impromptu performance of Lose Yourself by Eminem at the Iowa State Fair, bemusing many Republicans but securing a measure of internet renown.Ramaswamy also grabbed the spotlight last Wednesday, at the first Republican debate in Wisconsin. His angry and blustering performance, including clashes with other candidates and a claim that “the climate change agenda is a hoax”, harvested significant media coverage.The Guardian has reported on how Ramaswamy’s claims to be a political outsider stand in contrast to deep links to rightwing donors and influencers, including Peter Thiel and Leonard Leo.Ramaswamy’s love for rap, and for Eminem in particular, has been widely reported. When he was a Harvard undergraduate, the future biotech entrepreneur rapped under the name “Da Vek”. He also told the Crimson, the Harvard campus newspaper, Lose Yourself by Eminem was his personal theme.“I consider myself a contrarian,” Ramaswamy said then. “I like to argue.”In its letter to the Ramaswamy campaign, Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI) said it “will consider any performance of the Eminem works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies”.In a statement to the Mail, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy referred to another Eminem song: “Vivek just got on the stage and cut loose. To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to The Real Slim Shady.” More

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      Whether or not he is convicted, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president | Lloyd Green

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      Donald Trump’s legal headaches have drawn one step closer to colliding with the Republican nomination calendar.On Monday, the US district judge Tanya Chutkan set 4 March 2024 as the first day of jury selection in the Washington DC election interference and civil rights case. Super Tuesday is one day later. Republican nominating contests in California, Texas, and 14 other jurisdictions will be immediately set against the backdrop of the 45th president’s woes. In the weeks that follow, Ohio, Illinois and New York will be hosting primaries of their own.Talk about split-screen moments. Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley will receive a non-stop barrage of questions about the former guy as they struggle to unfurl their own separate closing messages, assuming they’re still in the hunt.Just hours before the hearing, Trump unloaded on the prosecutors, branding them “fascist thugs”. The contrast between his professed commitment to law and order and his relentless attack on law enforcement grows starker as the possibility of his own conviction is no longer theoretical.Trump’s own lawyers made sure to bring their client’s grievances into court. Twice during their presentation, the judge directed them to “take the temperature down”. Even without TV cameras present, the former guy must be reminded of his legal team’s commitment to his cause.Like Commodus, the deranged Roman emperor, Trump’s wrath needs to be sated. Loyalty is part of survival.In setting an early March date, the court made clear that it was unimpressed by Trump’s efforts to delay. As the hearing began, the judge indicated that his political calendar would not be a factor. Likewise, Judge Chutkan rejected the defendant’s contention that the case posed novel difficulties. “Why is this case complex, other than the historic aspect of it?” she asked.Trump’s team probably shot their client in the foot when they referred to the government’s case as “a regurgitation of the [January 6th] committee report”. In that moment, they tacitly acknowledged that the DC indictment did not cover new ground. Trial preparation was manageable. Key information and documents were already out there.Beyond that, prosecutors pointed to Trump’s daily social media dumps as potentially tainting the jury pool. His need to rile his own political base may have served to hasten his own trial. For the record, this would not be the first time that Trump’s impulses were self-injurious. In its ruling, the court advised that it was “watching carefully” for anything that might affect or “poison” the jury pool.By the numbers, Trump has converted the blizzard of indictments into fundraising gold. His campaign raised $7m on the Fulton county booking late last week. His mugshot now graces coffee mugs and sweatshirts.In that same spirit, since his March 2023 indictment in Manhattan on state charges, Trump has managed to lap the Republican field. DeSantis has lost whatever traction he had hoped for. He remains in retrograde as his likability quotient shrinks.Yet little is unalloyed. Even as doubts grow about Joe Biden and his age, the Trump indictments have left three in five Americans believing that the one-time reality show host ought to be tried. In other words, outside of the Republican party, Democrats and independents refuse to buy that this is simply an endless witch-hunt. Where there is smoke, fire is frequently nearby.Monday’s ruling by Judge Chutkan is also likely to cast a shadow over the other cases that Trump faces. In early October, the lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization is due to begin in Manhattan. When and what comes after that grows iffy.The constitutional imperative of due process and a criminal defendant’s right to help prepare his own defense will probably cause delays in the other Trump trials presently set for next year.For starters, don’t bet on the E Jean Carroll defamation case proceeding as scheduled in mid-January. Even if Trump doesn’t need to be there, his lawyers will seek to convince Judge Lewis Kaplan that a delay is required in favor of the proceedings in Washington.Similarly, the Stormy Daniels hush-money case set for next spring in Manhattan is another candidate for delay. Already, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has signaled his willingness to yield to the feds. In the hierarchy of public interest, it is the dog’s tail, hardly the main event.The 20 May 2024 trial in the special counsel’s documents case, too, is likely to be re-set to sometime during the summer or fall of 2024 at the earliest. To what degree Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed trial judge, again defers to his wishes remains to be seen.Last, when and where the charges brought by Fani Willis, the Fulton county prosecutor, will be heard is an open question. It is possible that they will ultimately be heard in federal court, not a Georgia state court. Already, Mark Meadows and others seek removal. With Trump joined by a posse of co-defendants, don’t count on a quick trial.Rather, bet on Judge Chutkan and Washington DC hosting the Main Event. By extension, if he is acquitted there, expect Trump to be nominated by acclamation. And if convicted, he will still be the Republican presidential nominee. Either way, and for better or worse, he will make history.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Trump’s federal trial in election subversion case set for March 2024

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      Donald Trump’s criminal trial for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results will take place on 4 March 2024, the federal judge presiding over the case in Washington ruled on Monday, marking a sharp repudiation of the former president who had sought to delay the case for years.The schedule set by US district court judge Tanya Chutkan means Trump’s first trial defending himself against prosecutors and the special counsel Jack Smith will be the election subversion case – and it will come during the height of the 2024 Republican primary season.“The events giving rise to this case occurred at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. To propose trying this case over five years later risks the real danger that witnesses become unavailable or their memories may fade,” Chutkan said. “My primary concern here, as it is, in every case, is the interest of justice and that I’ve balanced the defendant’s right to adequately prepare.”Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to charges filed in federal district court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.The former president had asked ahead of the hearing for the trial to take place in April 2026, citing the supposed “median time” of 29.2 months that it took to convict defendants in cases that involved the charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.But prosecutors had argued in response that using the median time as a benchmark was misleading because it included the time it takes for jury selection, trial, verdict and several months of sentencing deliberation, rather than just the duration of pre-trial proceedings.The judge set a trial for 4 March 2024 – hewing to the government’s January 2024 trial date request – explaining that she agreed that the Trump legal team’s statistics were “misleading” adding that one of the cited cases was one she is currently overseeing and delayed because of Covid-19 issues which didn’t apply to Trump.The date means Trump will be in the federal courthouse in Washington starting the day before Super Tuesday of the Republican primaries. Chutkan reiterated that Trump, like any other criminal defendant, would have to “make the trial date work regardless of his schedule”.At the hearing, Chutkan said that to make her determination she would instead consider the volume of discovery materials prosecutors were turning over to the defense and what a reasonable time would be for Trump’s lawyers to review the 12m pages of evidence.The judge also explained that the Speedy Trial Act, which requires criminal cases to go to trial within 70 days of indictment, exists to protect not just Trump but the public interest in ensuring the timely administration of justice.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe theme of Chutkan’s questioning of Trump’s lead lawyer, John Lauro, repeatedly returned to her contention that he did not have to read every one of the 12m pages anew because many of the documents were duplicative and the key facts were made public by the House January 6 select committee.The judge said that she considered the government as having made a considerable effort to produce the discovery in an organized and keyword-searchable manner that should expedite their review. “You are not going to get two years,” she said.Lauro objected to the judge’s characterization that the facts and legal theories were not new and emphasized that the Trump legal team needed extended time to review each of the pages, though he did not address his comments that the indictment was a regurgitation of the committee’s report.The prosecutors seized on Lauro’s prior public comments to argue that the Trump legal team were not looking at the material for the first time. “When Mr Lauro appeared on multiple news programs and podcasts following the indictment, he described a number of defenses he plans to raise.” More

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      Three-quarters of Americans say Biden too old for second term, poll finds

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      More than three-quarters of respondents in a new US poll said Joe Biden would be too old to be effective if re-elected president next year.But as many people in the survey said the 80-year-old Biden was “old” and “confused”, so a similar number saw his 77-year-old likely challenger, Donald Trump, as “corrupt” and “dishonest”.The poll from the Associated Press and Norc Center for Public Affairs said 77% of Americans – 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats – thought age would be a problem if Biden won the White House again. Significantly fewer said Trump’s age would be a problem: 51%, with only 29% of Republicans concerned.Trump skipped the first Republican debate last week. On Monday another national survey showed his whopping primary lead slipping only slightly thereafter.Emerson College Polling showed Trump at 50% support, a six-point drop from a pre-debate poll. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor widely held not to have performed strongly in Milwaukee, was second with a two-point bump to 12%.The investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who barged into the spotlight with an angry debate display, dropped one point to 9%. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador who confronted Ramaswamy, climbed five to 7%.Trump faces 14 more criminal charges than he has years on the calendar, but those 91 counts under four indictments, and other legal problems including being adjudicated a rapist, have not dented his popularity with Republicans or opened him to significant attacks from his main rivals.Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, did note an apparent “softening of support for Trump since last week’s survey, where 82% of Trump voters said they would definitely support him, compared to 71% after the debate”. But on that score there was also worrying news for DeSantis, whose support “softened from 32% who would definitely support to 25%”.Biden won a US Senate seat in 1972, ran for president in 1988 and 2008, and is already the oldest president ever elected. If re-elected, he would be 86 by the end of his second term.Haley has repeatedly said Biden will probably die in office, claiming to warn voters of the dangers of Kamala Harris, the vice-president, rising to power herself.The AP/Norc poll said: “When asked about the first word that comes to mind when they think of each candidate, 26% of all adults cited Biden’s age and 15% mentioned words associated with being slow and confused, while only 1% and 3% did so for Trump.”There was a less welcome sign for Republicans, particularly those threatening to impeach Biden over alleged corruption involving his son Hunter.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“For Trump, nearly a quarter mentioned words associated with corruption, crime, lying, or untrustworthiness, while only 8% mentioned those traits for Biden.”Two-thirds of respondents supported age limits for presidents, members of Congress and supreme court justices.On Sunday, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was asked about Biden’s age.“When people look at a candidate, whether he’s Joe Biden, or Trump, or Bernie Sanders, anybody else, they have to evaluate a whole lot of factors,” the 81-year-old told NBC, adding that when he met Biden recently, “he seemed fine to me”.“But I think at the end of the day, what we have to ask ourselves is, ‘What do people stand for?’ Do you believe that women have a right to control their own bodies? Well, the president has been strong on that.” More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants Elon Musk to be his presidential adviser

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      The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has said that he wants Elon Musk as an adviser if he becomes president.The billionaire biotech entrepreneur was in Newton, Iowa, campaigning at a town hall on Friday when he was asked about whom he would want as advisers for his potential presidency.Ramaswamy said in response that he wanted people with a “blank fresh impression” who do not “come from within” the government.“I’ve enjoyed getting to know better, Elon Musk recently, I expect him to be an interesting adviser of mine because he laid off 75% of the employees at Twitter,” NBC reports. “And then the effectiveness actually went up.”In an earlier interview this month with Fox News, Ramaswamy said of the layoffs: “What [Musk] did at Twitter is a good example of what I want to do with the administrative state … Take out the 75% of the dead weight cost, improve the actual experience of what it’s supposed to do.”Ramaswamy’s response on Friday also doubles down on comments he made in February: “Just as @elonmusk did at Twitter, as president I will release the ‘state action files’ from the federal government – exposing every instance where the feds pressured companies to take constitutionally prohibited actions. Roll that log over & see what crawls out. Won’t be pretty.”Since Ramaswamy joined the campaign trail, he has attracted the attention and praise from Musk, who earlier this month said: “He is a very promising candidate.”In response to another tweet in which Ramaswamy repeated his campaign values including “God is real,” “There are two genders,” “Human flourishing requires fossil fuels,” and “Reverse racism is racism,” Musk wrote: “He states his beliefs clearly.”Despite Ramaswamy positioning himself as an “outsider” and accusing his opponents of being “bought and paid for” by various GOP donors, a recent Guardian investigation found that Ramaswamy has deep ties to influential figures on both ends of the political spectrum including Peter Thiel, a rightwing donor and co-founder of PayPal.Ramaswamy’s other ties include Leonard Leo, a prominent rightwing activist currently under investigation in Washington DC over his efforts to install judges on federal courts including the supreme court.Other investigations by ProPublica and Documented have reported that Ramaswamy has delivered speeches at events staged by Teneo, a group chaired by Leo that seeks to “crush liberal dominance” in American life.Earlier this week, Ramaswamy’s campaign told the Associated Press that he had raised $450,000 in the first hours following the GOP primary debate on Wednesday night. More

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      Rich Men North of Richmond singer condemns Republicans after song used in debate

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      Oliver Anthony, the writer and singer of the mega-hit Rich Men North of Richmond, hit out at Republican candidates for president who discussed his song in the debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday.“It was funny seeing my song at that presidential debate. Because I wrote that song about those people, you know, so for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up. It was funny kind of seeing the response to it,” the Virginian said in a statement on Friday.A stark lament over the plight of the working class, Rich Men North of Richmond is top of the Billboard Hot 100, the first song by an artist with no chart history to make No 1.The song has been championed by many on the political right as a populist anti-big-government hymn and criticized by some on the left for its attacks on welfare recipients.In Wisconsin on Wednesday, an excerpt was played at the start of the Republican debate. One Fox News host, Martha MacCallum, said Anthony’s “lyrics speak of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government and of this country. Washington DC is about 100 miles north of Richmond.”On stage stood seven Republican current or former governors and congressmen and one venture capitalist.McCallum said: “Governor DeSantis, why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now?”Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor running a distant second to Donald Trump, said: “Our country is in decline. This decline is not inevitable. It’s a choice. We need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline.”However, on Friday, Anthony released a 10-minute video, shot in the cab of a truck as heavy rain fell, in which he rejected that answer and denied that he was a conservative figure.“The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up in this. I’m disappointed to see it. Like, it’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me, like I’m one of them.”He added: “That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. You know, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song’s written about the people on that stage and a lot more, not just them.”It was hard, Anthony said, to “get a message out about your political ideology or your belief about the world in three minutes and some change. But I do hate to see that song being weaponized, like I see. I see the right trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me, I guess in retaliation. That’s got to stop.”He said the response to his song had crossed party lines and that he welcomed a diverse audience.“If you watch the response videos on YouTube, it’s not conservative people responding to the song. It’s not even necessarily Americans responding to the song. I don’t know that I’ve seen anything get such positive response from such a diverse group of people. And I think that terrifies the people that I sing about in that song. And they’ve done everything they can in the last two weeks to make me look like a fool. To spin my words. To try to stick me in a political bucket.”Anthony also answered criticism from leftwing sources about lyrics which refer to welfare recipients and depicts some as obese with poor diets.“I do need to address the left as well,” he said, “because they’re sending a message out that … Rich Men North of Richmond is an attack against the poor.”“I do understand there may be some people who misunderstood my words in Rich Men North of Richmond. But I’ve got to be clear that my message … references the inefficiencies of the government because of the politicians within it that are engulfed in bribes and extortion.“The words say that there’s, ‘People on the street with nothing to eat and the obese milking welfare.’ That references a news article I read earlier this summer, that adolescent kids in Richmond [Virginia] are missing meals … because their parents can’t afford to feed them and they’re not in school.“And meanwhile, I think like 30% or 40% of the food bought with welfare EBT money is … like, snack food and soda. I think 10% spent on soda. And I want to say like 20% or 30% spent on junk food.“And that’s not the fault of those people. Welfare only makes up a small percentage of our budget. You know, we can fuel a proxy war in a foreign land” – seemingly a reference to aid to Ukraine – “but we can’t take care of our own. That’s all the song’s trying to say. It’s just saying that the government takes people who are needy and dependent and makes them needy and dependent.” More