YouSaid · the spoken record

Vivek Ramaswamy

lines on the record: 214
first: 2024-09-25
most recent: 2024-09-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“On both sides. People who are going to make those contributions to the United States and pledge allegiance to the United States and speak our language and assimilate, we should have a path for them to be able to add value to the United States. Yet they're not the ones who are getting in. It's actually the people, our immigration system selects for people who are willing to lie. That's what it does. Selects for people who are willing to see they're seeking refugee status or seeking asylum when in fact they're not. And then we have policymakers who lie after the fact using economic justifications to keep them here. But if it was an economic justification, that should have been the criteria you used to bring them in the first place, not this illusion of asylum or refugee status. There was a case actually even the New York Times reported on this, believe it or not, of a woman who came from Russia.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“System actually is. I think we do need dramatic reforms to the legal immigration system to select purposely for the people who are going to actually improve the United States of America. I think there are many people. I know some of them, right? I gave a story of one guy who I met who is educated at our best universities or among our best universities. He went to Princeton. He went to Harvard Business School. He has a great job in the investment community. He was a professional tennis player. He was a concert pianist. He could do a Rubik's Cuban less than a minute. I'm not making this stuff up. These are hard facts. He can't get a green card in the United States. He's been here for 10 years or something like this. He asked me for the best advice I could give him. I unfortunately could not give him the actual best advice, which would be to just take a flight to Mexico and cross the border. and claim to be somebody who is seeking asylum in the United States. That would have been morally wrong advice, so I didn't give it to him. But practically, if you were giving him advice, that would be the best advice that you actually could give somebody, which is a broken system.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have been all kinds of lawsuits. There have been all kinds of lawsuits for people who even ate, 10, 12, 14 years after the earthquake in Haiti where many of them came when they're going to be removed. There are allegations of racial discrimination or otherwise. No, temporary protective status means it's temporary. And we're not abandoning the rule of law when we send them back. We're abandoning the rule of law when we let them stay. Now, if that has a true benefit to the United States of America economically or otherwise, go through the paths that allow somebody to enter this country for economic reasons. But don't do it through asylum-based claims or temporary protected status. I think one of the features of our immigration system right now is it is built on a lie and it incentivizes lying. The reason is the arguments for keeping people in the country, if those are economic reasons, but the people actually entered using claims of asylum or refugee status, those two things don't match up. So just be honest about what I'm immigrants.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I gave with the Haitian case in Springfield, town that I spent a lot of time in growing up in Ohio. I live that an hour from there today. I don't blame the individual Haitians who came here. I'm not saying that they're bad people because in that particular case, those weren't even people who broke the law in coming here. They came as part of a program called temporary protective status. Now, the operative word there is the first one, temporary.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that in some ways people make this sound much bigger and scarier than it is. What's that policy? Clearly, that's going to be a policy that includes a large number of deportations. I think by definition, it's going to be the largest mass deportation in American history. Sounds like a punchline at a campaign rally, but actually it's just a factual statement that says if we've had the by far largest influx of illegal immigrants in American history, it just stands to reason. It's logic that, okay, if we're going to fix that, we're going to have the largest mass deportation in American history. And we can be rational, start with people who are breaking the law in other ways here in the United States, start with people who are already in detention or entering detention now. That comes at no cost and strict benefit. There isn't even a little bit of an economic trade-off. Then you get to areas where you would say, okay, the costs actually continued outweigh the benefits. And that's exactly the way our policy should be guided here. I want to do it in as respectful and as humane of a manner as possible. I mean, the reality is, I think one of the things we got to remember, give the example.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very practically, there's ways to do this, starting with people who've already broken the law, people who have not just broken the law of entering, but are committing other crimes while already here in the United States. That's a clear case for an instant mass deportation. You have a lot of people who haven't integrated into their communities. Think about the economic impact of this. A lot of people are in detention already. A lot of those people should be immediately returned to their country of origin, or at least what is called a safe third country. So safe third country means even if somebody's claiming to seek asylum from political persecution, We'll move them to another country that doesn't have to be the United States of America that they passed through, say Mexico, before actually coming here. Other countries around the world are doing this. Australia is detaining people. They don't let them out and live a normal, joyful life because they came to the country. They detain them until their case is adjudicated. Well, the rates of fraud in Australia of what people lie about, what their conditions are, is way lower now than in the United States because people respond to those incentives.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is that bad? Is it undesirable for kids to grow up without those 350,000 mothers? It is. But it's a difficult situation created by people who violated the law and face the consequences of it, which is also a competing and important priority in the country. So that's in the domestic context. As it relates to this question of mass deportations, let's just get very practical, because all that was theoretical.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are 350,000 mothers who are in prison in the United States today who committed crimes and were convicted of them. They didn't take their kids with them to those prisons either, right? So we face difficult trade-offs in all kinds of contexts as it relates to the enforcement of law. And I just want to make that basic observation against the backdrop of if we're a nation founder on the rule of law, we acknowledge that there are trade-offs to enforcing the law. And we've acknowledged that in other contexts, I don't think that we should have a special exemption for saying that somehow we weigh the other way when it comes to the issue of the border. We're a nation founded under the rule of law, we enforce laws that has costs, that has trade-offs, but it's who we are. So that backdrop is the easiest fact I can cite is $350,000 or so mothers who are in prison and did not take their kids to prison with them.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fair enough. And I would call those, even not even criticisms, but just thoughtful questions, right? Even if somebody who's really aligned with doing this, those are thoughtful questions to ask. So I do want to say something about this point on how we think about the breakage of the rule of law in other contexts.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mass deportations of millions of illegals who are in this country and should not be. And then the mass deportation of millions of unelected federal bureaucrats out of Washington, D.C. Now, all sequel, you could say that those are intention, but I think that the reality is anything outside of the scope of what the core function of the government is, which is protecting borders and protecting private property rights, that's really where I think the predominant cuts need to be. And if you look at the number of people who are looking after the border, it's not even 0.1% of the federal employee base today. So 75% isn't 99.99%. It's 75%, which still leaves that it would still be a tiny fraction of the remaining 25%, which I actually think needs to be more rather than less. So it's a good question, but that's sort of where I land on when it's a proper role of the federal government. Great. Act and actually do your job. The irony is 99.999999999% of those resources are going to functions other than the protection of private property.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. And so it goes back to that original discussion we had is what are the few proper roles of the federal government? I gave you two. One is of the government period. One is to protect the national borders and sovereignty of the United States. And two is to protect private property rights. There's a lot else. Most of what the government's doing today, both at the federal and state level, is something other than those two things. But in my book, those are the two things that are the proper function of government. So for everything else the federal government should not be doing, The one thing they should be doing is to protect the homeland of the United States of America and the sovereignty and sanctity of our national borders. So in that domain, that's mission aligned with a proper purpose for the federal government. I think we're a nation founded on the rule of law. I say this is the kid of legal immigrants. That means your first act of entering this country cannot break the law. And in some ways, if I was to summarize a formula for saving the country over the next four years, it would be a tale of two mass deportations.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have to have the spine of steel to cut through what that short-term advice is you're getting. And I'll tell you, I intend to do whatever I can for this country, both in the next four years and beyond, but my voice on this will be crystal clear, and President Trump knows that's my view on it, and I believe he shares it deeply, is that all else equal getting there and shut down as much of the excess bureaucracy as we can, do it as quickly as possible. And that's a big part of how we save our country. Okay.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Subsidies on favored industries while keeping them away from disfavored industries and new bureaucracies to administer them. And, you know, I don't come from that school of thought. I don't want to see the bureaucracy expand in a pro-conservative direction. I want to see the bureaucracy shrink in every direction. And, you know, I do think that from my conversation with Donald Trump, I believe that he is well aligned with this vision of shrinking bureaucracy. But that's a long-term project.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We share the same priority with respect to the southern border, and those are near term fixes that we can hit out of the park in the first year. But at the same time, I think we got to think also on decade-long time horizons. So my own view is I think that I think that it is my conviction and belief that he does care about dismantling that federal bureaucracy, certainly more so than any Republican nominee we have had in certainly in my lifetime. But I do think that there are going to be competing schools of thought where some will say, okay, well, we want to create a right-wing entitlement state, right?”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We got two candidates, right? People face a choice. This is a relevant election. One of my goals is to speak to people who may not agree with 100% of what Donald, who do not agree with 100% of what Donald Trump says. And I can tell them, you know what? I don't agree with 100% of what he says. And I can tell you as somebody who ran against him for U.S. president, that right now he is, when I say the last best hope, I mean in this cycle, the last best hope that we have for dismantling that bureaucratic class. And, you know, I think that I'm also open about the fact that it's going to take, this is a long-run project, but we have the next step to actually, the next step to actually take over the next few years. That's kind of where I land on it. I mean, you talk to him, I guess, a few weeks ago. I saw you had a podcast with him, right? What was your impression about his preparedness to do it?”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That ball forward, but I think that the vision I'm laying out here is one that hopefully goes even beyond just the next two or four years of really fixing a century's worth of mistakes. I think we're going to fix a lot of them in the next four years of Donald Trump's president. But if you have a century's worth of mistakes that have accumulated with the overgrowth of the entitlement state in the U.S., I think it's going to take probably the better part of a decade at least to actually fix them.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there's one other factor. So you're right to point. I mean, the legal backdrop is a valid, understandable excuse and reason. I think there are other factors at play too. So I think there's something to be said for never having been in government showing up there the first time and you're having to understand the rules of the road as you're operating within them and also having to depend on people who actually aren't aligned with your policy vision but tell you to your face that they are. And so I think that's one of the things that I've admired about President Trump is he's actually been very open about that, very humble about that to say that there's a million learnings from that first term that make him ambitious and more ambitious in that second term. But everything I'm talking to you about, this is what needs to happen in the country. It's not specific to Donald Trump. It lays out what needs to be done in the country. There's the next four years Donald Trump is our last best hope and chance for moving.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now takes advantage of that backdrop the Supreme Court has given us to actually gut the regulatory state, we'll find out. I'm optimistic. I certainly think it's the best chance that we've had in a generation in this country. That's a big part of why I'm supporting Donald Trump and why I'm going to do everything in my power to help him. But I do think it is going to take a spine of steel to see that through. And then after we've taken on the regulatory stage, I think that's the next step. But I do think there's this broader project of dismantling the nanny state in all of its forms, the entitlement state, the regulatory state, and the foreign policy in any state. Three-word answer, if I was to summarize my worldview and my presidential campaign in three words, shut it down.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Courts have now said that their own behaviors actually break the law. So the very agencies entrusted with supposedly enforcing the law are actually behaving with utter blatant disregard for the law itself. That's unAmerican. It's not tenable in the United States of America, but thankfully, we now have a Supreme Court that recognizes that. So, you know, whether or not we have a second Trump term, well, that's up to the voters, but even whether or not that”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't make sense. With if you believe in separation of powers in the United States, so the Supreme Court put an end to that and said that that practice at the SEC is unconstitutional. Actually, as a side note, the Supreme Court has said countless practices and rules written by the SEC, the EPA, the FTC in recent years were outright unconstitutional. Think about what that means for a constitutional republic. That supposedly these law enforcement agencies, the courts have now said, especially this year,”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They now toss that out the window and said, No, no, no, the federal courts no longer have to defer to an agency's interpretation of what the law actually is. The combination of those two cases is seismic in its impact for the regulatory state. There's also another great case that came down was SEC versus Jarkessee in the SEC is one of these agencies that embodies everything we're talking about here. The SEC, among other agencies, has tribunals inside that Not only do they write the rules, not only do they enforce those rules, they also have these judges inside the agency that also interpret the rules and determine in dolat punishments.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That quite literally means most federal regulations today are unconstitutional. Then this year comes down a different big one, another big one from the Supreme Court in Loper Bright case, which held that historically for the last 50 years in this country, The doctrine has been, it's called Chevron Deference. It's a doctrine that says that federal courts have to defer to an agency's interpretation of the law.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say a word about the conditions he was operating in? Because I think this is why I'm far more excited for this time around, is that a lot has changed in the legal landscape. So Donald Trump did not have the Supreme Court backdrop in 2016 that he does today. So there are some really important cases that have come down from the Supreme Court. One is West Virginia versus EPA. I think it's probably the most important case of our generation. In 2022, that came down and said that if Congress has not passed a rule into law itself through the halls of Congress and it relates to what they call a major question, a major policy or economic question, it can't be done by the stroke of a pen by a regulator, an unelected bureaucrat either.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was a core focus of my candidacy. One of the things that I wish, and this is on me, not anybody else, that I should have done better, was to make that more crystal clear as a focus without getting distracted by a lot of the shenanigans, let's just say, that happen at sideshows during a presidential campaign, but call that a lesson learned because I do think it's what the country needs now more than ever. That's a really, really”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'm sympathetic to all of those goals. But I don't think that the right way to do it is to create a conservative regulatory state that replaces a liberal regulatory state. I think the right answer is actually to get in there and shut it down. I don't want to replace the left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state. I want to get in there and actually dismantle the nanny state. And I think it has been a long time in the United States, maybe ever in modern history that we've had. Conservative leader at the national level who makes it their principal objective to dismantle the nanny state in all of its forms. The entitlement state, the regulatory state, and the foreign policy in any state.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe a little bit spicy for some Republicans to sort of swallow right now. And my top focus is making sure that we win the election. But let's just move the ball forward a little bit and skate to where the puck is going here. Yes, let's say we win the election. All is well and dandy. Okay, what's the philosophy that determines how we govern? There's a little bit of a fork in the road amongst conservatives where there are those who believe that the right answer now is to use that regulatory state and use those levers of power to advance our own pro-conservative, pro-American pro-worker goals.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wrong with not just the way that our Department of Defense is run and our foreign policy establishment is run, but I think it applies to a lot of the domestic policy establishment as well. And to come back to the core point, how are we going to save this republic? This is the debate in the conservative movement right now. This is a little bit.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, we're bringing back to the more contentious terrain. I think that's basically how things have worked in the executive branch of the federal government of the United States of America. You have these so-called civil service protections on the books. Now, if you really read them carefully, I think that there are areas to provide daylight for a truly constitutionally well-trained president to act. But apart from those, that's a contrarian view that I have that bucks conventional wisdom. But apart from that caveat, In general, the conventional view has been the U.S. president can't fire these people. There's 4 million federal bureaucrats, 99.9% of them can't be touched by the person who the people who elected to run the executive branch can't even fire those people. It's like the equivalent of that Japanese CEO. And so that culture exists every bit as much in the federal bureaucracy of the United States of America as it did in Japanese corporate culture through the 1990s. And that's a lot of what's”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Means they don't actually work for you. It means in some deeper, perverse sense you work for them because you're responsible for what they do without any authority to actually change it. So I think most people who have traveled in Japan and Japanese corporate culture through the 1990s and 2000s and 2010s and maybe even some vestiges in the 2020s wouldn't really dispute what I just told you.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I could go and find the head of a research unit and tell him, okay, this is a project we're no longer working on as a company. We don't want to spend money on it. We're going to spend money somewhere else. And he'll look me in the eye and he'll say, yes, sir, yes, sir. I'll come back six months later and find that they're spending exactly the same amount of money on those exact same projects. And I'll tell them, no, we agreed. I told you that you're not going to spend money on this project. And we have to stop now. Should have stopped six months ago. Get a slap on the wrist for it. He says, yes, sir. I'm sorry. Yes. No, no, of course, that's correct. Come back six months later. Same person is spending the same money on the same project. And here's why. Historically in Japan, and I should say in Japan this is changing now. It's changing now, but historically until very recently and even to an extent now, it's near impossible to fire people. So if somebody works for you and you can't fire them.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was traveling Japan. I was having a late night dinner with a CEO of a Japanese pharmaceutical company. And it takes a while to really get him to open up, culturally speaking, in Japan, a couple nights of karaoke and whatnot, maybe late night restaurant, whatever it is. We built a good enough relationship where he was very candid with me. He said, I'm the CEO of the company.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've done business in a number of places. I've traveled to Japan. There's an interesting corporate analogy. Sometimes if you get outside of politics, people can, I find, listen and pay attention a little bit more because of politics. It's so fraught right now that if you start talking to somebody who disagrees with you about the politics of it, you're just butting heads but not really making progress. So let's just make the same point but go outside of politics for a second.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good question. I would say, in his case, it's particularly accentuated because it's both. In his case, I don't think anybody in America anymore believes that Joe Biden is the functioning president of the United States of America. How could he be? He wasn't even sufficiently functioning to be the candidate after a debate that was held in June. There's no way he's going to be in a position to make the most important decisions on a daily and demanding basis to protect the leading nation in the world. Now, more generally, though, I think we have a deeper problem that even when it's not Joe Biden, In general, the people we elect to run the government haven't really been the ones running the government. It's been the unelected bureaucrats and the bureaucratic deep state underneath that's really been making the decisions.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But at least in theory, we're supposed to have civilian control of the U.S. military. And I think that one of the things that that leader needs to do is to ask the question of, again, the mission. What's the purpose of this U.S. military in the first place? At the top of the list should be to protect the homeland and the people who actually live here, which we're failing to do. So that's where I land on that question.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And one of the beauties of the United States, is, at least in principle, we have civilian control of the military, the person who we elect to be the U.S. president is the one that actually is the true commander-in-chief. I have my doubts of whether it operates that way. I think it is quite obvious that Joe Biden is not a functioning commander-in-chief of the United States of America. Yet on paper, supposedly we still are supposed to call him that.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think predicting our own physical homeland. And I think we actually need an increase in spending on protecting our own homeland. But that is different from the agenda of foreign interventionism and foreign nanny-stateism. So that's what I believe. And I think this process has been corrupted by what Dwight Eisenhower famously in his farewell address called the military-industrial complex in the United States. But I think it's bigger than just the, you know, I think it's easy to tell the tales of the financial corruption. It's a kind of cultural corruption and conceit that just because certain number of people in that expert class have a belief that their belief happens to be the right one because they can scare you with what the consequence would be if you don't follow their advice.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Could even be from solar flares, cause significant mass casualty in the United States of America. The electric grid's gone. It's not an exaggeration to say if that happened, planes would be falling out of the sky because our chips really depend on those electromagnetic, well, would be affected by those electromagnetic pulses. More vulnerable to cyber attacks. I know this, oh, people, okay, start yawning and say, okay, boring stuff, super EMP cyber, whatever. No, actually, it's pretty relevant to whether or not you actually are facing the risk of not getting your insulin because your refrigerator doesn't work anymore or your food can't be stored or your car or your ability to fly on an airplane is impaired. So I think that these are serious risks where our own national defense spending has been wholly inadequate. So I'm not one of these people that says, oh, we decreased versus increased national defense spending. We're not spending it in the right places. The number one place we need to be spending it is actually in protecting our national defense.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So now let's bring this film to the Department of Defense. I think the top goal of the U.S. defense policy establishment should be to provide for the national defense of the United States of America. And the irony is that's what we're actually doing most poorly. We're not really using other than the Coast Guard. We're not really using the U.S. military to prevent crossings at our own southern border and crossings at our other borders. In fact, the United States of America, our homeland, I believe is less secure today than it has been in a very long time. Vulnerable to threats from hypersonic missiles where China and Russia, Russia certainly has capabilities in excess of that of the United States. Missiles, hypersonic means faster than the speed of sound that could hit the United States. including those carrying nuclear warheads. We are more vulnerable to super EMP attacks, electromagnetic pulse attacks that could, you know, without exaggeration, some of this could be from other nations.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Shrill voice here saying, So, therefore, we should not be supporting any allies or providing security blankets. No, I'm not going in that direction. What I would say is you got to pay for it, right? Pay for your fisher. A, because we're not swimming in excess money ourselves. But B, as it tells us that you actually have skin in the game for your own defense, which actually then makes nations far more prudent in the risks that they take, whether or not they enter war. Versus if somebody else is paying for it and somebody else is providing our security guarantee, hey, might as well, you know, take the gamble and see where I end up at the end of a war versus the restraint that that imposes on the decision making of those allies.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have actual skin in the game to not have skewed incentives to actually enter conflicts where they're not actually bearing the full cost of those conflicts. So take NATO, for example. Most NATO countries, literally a majority of NATO countries today do not pay or contribute 2% of their GDP to their own national defense, which is supposedly a requirement to be in NATO. So majority of NATO countries are failing to meet their basic commitment to be in NATO in the first place. Germany particularly is, I think, arbitraging the hell out of the United States of America. And I don't think that I'm not going to be some sort of...”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it's in the interest of the United States of America to provide certain levels of protection to U.S. allies, we can do that as long as those allies actually pay for it. And I think that's important for two reasons. The less important reason, still important reason, the less important reason is it's still money for us, right? It's not like we're swimming in a cash surplus right now. We're a $34 trillion national debt and growing. And I think pretty soon the interest payments are going to be the largest line item in our own federal budget. So it's not like we have money willy-nilly to just hand over for free. That's the less important reason, though. The more important reason is that it makes sure that our allies”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think the Hanni State, I'm against it overall, I'm against the foreign policy in Nanny State as well. Let me start from that as the starting off point, and then I'll tell you about my views on the DOD and our defense. First of all, I think that, and I think that it was easy for many people from the neocon school of thought to caricature my views with the media at their side. But actually, my own view is.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an assault and a crusade on the nanny state itself. And that nanny state presents itself in several forms. There's the entitlement state, that's the welfare state, presents itself in the form of the regulatory state. That's what we're talking about. And then there's the foreign nanny state, where effectively we are subsidizing other countries that aren't paying their fair share of protection or other resources we provide them. If I was to summarize my ideology in a nutshell, it is to terminate the nanny state in the United States of America in all of its forms. The entitlement state, the regulatory state, and the foreign policy in any state. Once we've done that, we've revived the republic that I think would make George Washington proud.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would be even clearer about, because I talked about a lot of things in the campaign and we can cover a lot of that too. But if there's one thing that I care about more than anything else is dismantling that bureaucracy and moreover, it is a”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that only happens if that's your top priority. You could do it at a smaller scale, but at that scale, it only happens if that's your top priority because then as president, you're in a position to say, I know in the super short run, that might even make it a little bit harder for me to do this other thing that I want to do and use the regulatory state to do it. But I'm going to pass on that. I'm going to pass that up. I'm going to bear that hardship and inconvenience because I know this other goal is more important on the scale of decades and centuries for the country. So it's a question of prioritization and certainly my own view is that now is a moment where that needs to be a top priority for saving this country. And if there's one thing about my campaign, if I was to do it again.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where does it rank on our prioritization list? Because there's always going to be a trade-off. If you have a different policy objective that you want to achieve, a good policy objective, whatever that is, right? You could talk about immigration policy. You could talk about economic policy. There are other policy objectives. You're going to trade off a little bit in the short run the effectiveness of your ability to carry out that policy goal if you're also committed to actually thinning out the federal government by 75% because there's just going to be some clunkiness, right? And there's just going to be frictional costs for that level of cut. So the question is, where does that rank on your prioritization list? To pull that off, to pull off a 75% reduction in the size and scale of the federal government, the regulatory state, and the headcount.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Willingness to take the risk and see what happens. I mean, the sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. That much I guarantee you. Is there going to be some broken glass and some damage? Yes, there is. There's no way around that. But once you're willing to take that risk, then it doesn't become so scary anymore. And here's the thing, Lex, so it's easy to say this. Let's talk about what the rubber hits the road here, even in Second Trump term. This would be the discussion. President Trump and I've had this conversation, but I think we...”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Elon's pretty hardcore I said 75% of the federal bureaucrats and while I was running for president he said you need to put at least 75% so I agree with him I think it'd be a fun competition to see who ends up who ends up more hardcore. I think that he and I don't think there's someone out there who's going to be more hardcore than here I would be. And the reason is... I think we're both, we share in common.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm, of course, biased because Illino and I had discussed that for the better part of the last year and a half. And so I think it's a great idea. It's something that's very consistent with the core premise of my presidential candidacy. I got to know him as I was running for U.S. president in a couple of events that he came to, and then we built a friendship after that. So obviously, I think it's a great idea.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it goes closer to municipalities and to states, I'm fine with that being a locus for people determining, as for example, let's just say school districts are taxed at the local level for that to be a matter for municipalities and townships to actually decide democratically how they actually want that govern, whether it's balance between a public school district versus making that same money available to families in the form of vouchers or other forms of ability to educational savings accounts or whichever mechanism it is to opt out of that. If that's done locally, I'll have views on that that tend to go further in the direction of true educational choice and diversity of choice, the implementation of charter schools, the granting of state charters or even lowering the barriers to granting one. I favor those kinds of policies. But if we've gotten the federal government out of it, that's achieved 75% of what I think we need to achieve that I'm focused on solving other problems and leave that to the states.”
2024-09-25 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #445 – Vivek Ramaswamy: Trump, Conservatism, Nationalism, Immigration, and War · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source