March 24, 2023 • 19 mins
Vivek Ramaswamy has been wildly successful in his business ventures. In recent years, Vivek has been extremely outspoken on big corporations "woke agendas" highlighting some stories in his best selling book "Woke, Inc." He's now ready to take the next step and run for President of the United States. Tudor and Vivek discuss how and why he made up his mind to run for President and what can be done to turn around the Biden Administration's Economic Titanic that they all have us riding on. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday on iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, TudorDixonPodcast.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast in the Clay
and Book podcast Network. Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
I'm Tutor Dixon, and I'm so happy to have you
joining me. My guest today is a genius when it
comes to dissecting the message and helping people understand what
opportunities are available to them and how those same opportunities
(00:23):
may be threatened by progressive ideology. When we first met,
I had one of those moments where I thought, I
this guy knows so many things. I just want to
dissect his brain and learn everything I can. And so
that's what I want to do today. And since then
you probably have all gotten to know him a little bit.
Vivek Ramaswami has announced his run for President of the
(00:45):
United States, and you've likely had the pleasure of hearing
some of the stories of his ideas. But today we're
going to dig deep into those ideas. Vivek is the
author of two books, Woke Inc. Inside Corporate America's Social
Justice Scam and Nation of Victim's Identity Politics, The Death
of Merit and the Path Back to Excellence, very controversial topics.
(01:06):
Right now, the progressive media is attacking conservatives using the
word woke, claiming they can't define it. And since we
have the nation's expert right here, I want him to
help us define it. Republican presidential candidate Ramaswami Vivek, Welcome
to the podcast. Good to talk to you, dude. It's
a too flattering of an introduction, but thank you for that.
I appreciate it. Well, no, it's really true because when
(01:29):
I was running for governor, I met you and you
were talking to me about messaging and how to talk
about these things, and they really are hard to talk about.
And so you know that the progressive media attacks anybody
that talks about woke, But you've looked at it from
a different angle, and so I want your perspective, especially
as someone who is a part of the minority community.
(01:50):
But oftentimes folks that are in the minority community that
are Indian are not seen as somebody that is necessarily discriminated.
But you say, you know, you look different than other
folks when you were growing up, and your dad said,
take advantage of that, and you certainly have, so tell
us woke from your perspective. Yeah, I mean, I think
it's important that we got to define something before we
(02:12):
tear it down. So let's actually define it in neutral terms,
and then we'll get to criticizing it, you know, shortly thereafter.
Being woke, even amongst its proponents, refers to waking up
to invisible societal injustices, generally based on genetically inherited characteristics
like race, gender, sexual orientation, and then acting to correct
(02:34):
those injustices, be it through the market or any other
means whatever it takes to close those injustices. That's what
proponents of this new secular cult would say. But it
has a religiosity about it which says that we have
to use any means necessary. And so I've got two
issues with it. One is it's inherently divisive because it
causes us to see one another on the basis of
(02:56):
our genetically inherited attributes, forgetting the few things that actually
bind us together across our different shades of melanin. I mean,
tudor you and I are two different genders. We have
two different shades of melanin. So what to me, it's
meaningless if there's nothing greater that actually binds us together
across those differences. So that's my first issue with it,
and the second issue is that workness doesn't believe in
(03:17):
just using politics as a solution. It actually believes in
settling disagreements, not through free speech and open debate in
the political process, but actually through other means, including through
the market, including through the economy. And what that does
is it politicizes every other sphere of our lives, not
just politics, but even say capitalism becomes politicized too. And
(03:38):
so those are the two issues that I have with it.
But I don't think it's important to be able to
see what the other side proposes as even their definition
of work before we take it down. So I love
that you're describing this because when I said that we
were going to have you on the podcast, one of
the young folks in our office said, I really like him.
And what I like about him is that he is
willing to explain everything. Just go through and explain it,
(04:02):
and it makes sense to me. And I think that's
something that we don't necessarily get from politicians today. But
this is new for you. You're going from tech mogul
to presidents, So explain how you come to that decision
and how do you fight back, because sometimes when you're
in the position of becoming a political person, and you
do explain that's easy to attack as well. So it's tough.
(04:23):
It's a new world for you. It is a new world.
I don't think of myself as a politician, at least
not yet hopefully days that way. Part of what draws
me in is, you know what, I actually think the
Republican Party would benefit from a new tradition for the presidency,
which is that we nominate the outsider period. I actually
(04:44):
think that if you want to be a senator or
congressman or whatever, there's a lot of benefit to having
experience in understanding the lawmaking process and how the sauceage
gets made, in understanding how to play the political craft.
I actually think it's probably the other way around if
you're actually a chief executive. The chief executive before I've
built and run companies, multibillion dollar business I built from scratch.
But I think that some of those lessons actually are
(05:07):
the lessons that I intend to bring to the executive office.
Not to say that because I've built a business, then
I'm entitled to run the country. A lot of self
funders have made that mistake before. But I have a
vision for our country that the people who we elect
to run the government to be the people who actually
run the government. That's not the case in the federal
government today. And you know what, I bring a private
(05:27):
sector of view to this to say that if I'm
running the federal government and you work for me and
I can't fire you, that means that you don't work
for me. It means that I work for you, and
I refuse to service President United States captive to a
federal bureaucracy that views the president as its employee. And
I don't think you're going to get that type of
change from an insider from a career politician. I think
(05:48):
you get to be an outsider once we see that
right now. Right we see a career politician in that
position right now, and you can also see how handcuffed
he is by the fact that he's a career politician.
To be honest, I love what you're saying because obviously
that's the same reason I ran for governor. And I
think it's important that the American people hear what you're
saying in this way, because you know how to put
(06:11):
the right people around you. It's not about whether or
not you know exactly how these laws came to be
passed over years and years. It's because you know what
the vision is, you know how to cast the vision,
and you know how to bring the people together. Explain
that to the American people so they totally get why
you think that works. Yeah, And I think especially true
(06:33):
at this moment in our history. We're in the middle
of this national identity crisis where you ask most people
our age, younger, whatever, what does it mean to be
an American today? You get a blank stare in response.
And I think an opportunity for the next US president
is to deliver an answer to that question. Revive the
(06:54):
ideals that define what it means to be American, from
merit to free speech, an open debate, to sell governance
over aristocracy. Let's revive those ideals and then you set
a policy vision for how to implement it, but actually
get that done without an intermediating managerial class and administrative
bureaucracy that stands in the way and in between. And
(07:15):
you made a great point about Joe Biden. I mean,
I think in some ways, I think that we Republicans
criticize Joe Biden too much because that almost gives him
too much credit, as though he is the one running
the government he's not. In fact, I think that if
he continues to persist in running for a reelection, we'll
see what the National Archives does of him. It's the
administrative state that views the elected officials, even in the
(07:35):
Democratic Party for that matter, as an inconvenience. And I
think you need somebody who is not going to apologize
for that vision all the way through. And I think
that there's a good chance that if you're grown up
through that very system, you're exactly the kind of person
that is susceptible to capture by that same administrative bureaucracy.
And so I think that's that's what we really need,
is somebody who has an uncompromising vision at a moment
(07:57):
where most Americans are actually hungry for it, hungry for
this missing American national identity that's the black hole that
woke ism and climate religion and gender ideology prey on.
I think if we can fill that void with the
vision of American national identity kind of like you know,
the way Reagan did that in nineteen eighty in the
back of a national identity crisis in the late seventies,
that's the kind of moment I think we're in now
(08:19):
and That's a big part of what drew me into this.
If you ask me, you know, even a year ago,
was I going to run this race? Wasn't even on
my mind. But I think as of you know, last December,
watching the way this will shaping up, I said, look,
this is an opportunity for the country. That's why I
decided to step into the void. So let me talk
to you a little bit about the things that came
to me when I was running and the things that
(08:39):
I think will be questions the American people have for you.
Because the woke issues are concerning, but the everyday kitchen
table issues are the ones that I hear the most.
And honestly, I will tell you that when you talk
about some of these woke issues, that's the left stream
because they have the best narrative to fight you on that.
(09:02):
But what they don't have a good narrative on is
how they're going to fight Fentnyl, how they're going to
secure the border, how they're going to make sure kids
get back on track. Those are issues that I keep hearing,
But honestly, Fentnyl and the open border, what is the
answer there. So these I mean, these cultural issues are
deeply linked to the issues that affect us in the
daily life. Let's talk about fenyl, and let's talk about
(09:24):
the economy. So my view is, and I'm glad this
is becoming more popular in the Republican Party. I've been
saying this for the better part of the last year.
If you're going to use the US military to secure
someone else's border, it is a perfectly legitimate use of
the US military to secure our own border. It's not
just build the wall. Let's build them all now and
use a military to actually secure it. That is a
legitimate use of the US military. If you actually want
(09:46):
to solve the fentyl crisis, well, you know what you
can do to what we did inn isis if we
could do that in places like Syrian Iroq, we can
do it to the drug cartels south of the border
in Mexico. Use the military to annihilate the cartels. Now,
that's easier said than the NSA, for the longest time,
has actually used its intelligence capacities on the other side
of the world in more challenging terrain. Very little usage
(10:07):
of NSA resources to even light up any intelligence south
of our own border here in Mexico, even though there's
one hundred thousand deaths per year end growing due to
fentanyl that crosses the southern border of the United States
with Mexico. So that's a solvable problem, but it takes resolve.
It takes cutting through the defense establishment's traditional view that
(10:28):
you can only use the military to solve problems that
are far away from the United States. And I'm not
saying the sarcastically tutor. Actually, many people in defense establishments
say that the difficulty of using the military in Mexico
is the fact that Mexico is so close to us
and that we share a border that is back. I'm sure,
I know that's actually crazy, and so I think that
the willingness to cut through and use logic and reason
to solve a problem. I mean, that's really what's at
(10:49):
stake in the wokeness debate. It's not about some cultural
war about what somebody was taught in general ideology and
high school. It's a symptom of a deeper abandonment of
basic logic and basic principles of reason and truth itself.
And I think the same thing goes for the economy.
I mean, you talk about kitchen tableges. I agree with you,
there's an anti growth agenda in the United States. You know,
Republicans the Democrats will debate spending cuts versus tax increases,
(11:13):
as though we forgot that GDP growth itself is a possibility.
In fact, it's the best way to lift us out
of most of our problems. But part of the reason
that we have the trouble of adopting a pro growth
agenda in this country is that there's an anti growth
agenda that stands in the way. I mean, the climate
cult is a big part of that is fundamentally anti growth.
The opposition, you know, I talked about this the first
(11:34):
time we met, to nuclear energy is really hostility to
growth itself. It's not carbon emissions because nuclear energy doesn't
entail carbon emissions. Nuclear energy empowers growth. What we actually
have in this country as strain of this country, so
about twenty percent of the country or less, is fundamentally
opposed to GDP growth. They say that we should actually
live with less and that that's a different worldview and philosophy. Well,
(11:54):
I respect diverse views, but sorry, that's a small enough
minority of the country that it's not going to affect
my policies. We want to pro growth agenda in the country.
You call that woken. This is just a symptom of
the same self hatred and apologism in our country. And
so that's why I think these themes of national identity
go hand and glove with what you call kitchen table issues,
which are really important. But they're not separate. They're deeply linked,
(12:15):
I would say, at their core. Well, and when you
talk about self hate and that kind of stuff, I
mean you really see that when you see the fact
that we lost our energy independence. You talk about nuclear energy.
We just closed a power plant in Michigan last year.
You see what's happening. I mean, obviously I'm very close
to the issues in Michigan, But look at Michigan. You
see this Chinese company coming in building a battery plant.
(12:38):
You see Forward now aligning with a Chinese company. You've
got Virginia saying no way, you're not coming here. Michigan
is welcoming them in. This is also part of the
climate cults, as you say, because you have these are
both companies that are supposedly making these electric batteries for
cars that are going to be so much more efficient,
(12:58):
even though we have no ability to power them because
we are getting fewer and fewer power plants. And we
also know that the way they are making these there's
human rights abuses all across these countries that are making
these batteries. But also, why are we giving this power
to China? Don't you think that China is a massive
danger to the United States. It is the number one
(13:19):
danger to the United States, and I think we need
a foreign policy that wakes up to that reality. But
one of the things that makes it really difficult for
us to take on China is that, unlike the Soviet
Union in the last century, they never provided Soviet which
never provided the shoes on our feet and the phones
in our pockets, China supplies our modern way of life. Okay,
that's what makes it very difficult to take on China.
(13:41):
If that had been a Russian spy balloon flying over
half the United States, we would have shot it down
in an instant and we would have ratcheted up sanctions
on Russia. The reason we didn't do it with China
is that we're fundamentally frightened. We're frightened because we know
we economically depend on them. That is a solvable problem.
It's been actually a lot of details. One of my
briefings earlier this week with the supply chain expert going
through the details of how there are redundancies in the
(14:03):
rest of the world, from India to Brazil, to Western
Europe to Japan. But we fall prey to this fear
that we've gun grown so addicted to China in so
many ways, you know, actual fentanyl, financial fentanyl in the
form of national digital fentanyl in the form of TikTok,
but the broader addiction to buy and cheap stuff through
this game of so called international trade opened up bilateral relations.
(14:24):
By Kissinger, this is a worst version of what was
supposed to be a dream. It's actually become a nightmare
where they're using our own companies as sort of a
sort of damocles to say that you guys are so
reliant on us, that we can do whatever we want,
even militarily or geopolitically, that you're going to stand by
and not do a thing about it. And I think
we have to call that bluff and prove them wrong.
(14:45):
But again, Tuor that takes the leadership, and it's not
going to come from the bipartisan consensus of the last
thirty years. One of the things that we heard in
the twenty sixteen campaign was manufacturing was coming back. A
lot of that manufacturing did come back. But to your point,
there are so many many facturing companies that are now
intertwined with China. I come from the steel foundry industry.
When I was heavily involved in steel foundries ten years ago,
(15:09):
steel foundries were going out of business left and right
and going to China. How do you convince companies to
start these types of corporations back up in the United
States because we do not have iPhone City. I mean,
when you look at iPhone City in China, you're talking
about hundreds of thousands of people that stay there. They
live there, they work their day in and day out,
(15:30):
and they go home for holidays. That's it. How do
we replace that other places? So I think it's a
combination of carrots and sticks. I mean, I think that
it's a good thing when the companies move their supply chains,
either to the United States or even other countries outside
of China, realize the benefits of doing so, it's not
as hard as they think. You know, human beings companies
like them, or creatures of habit, right, it's not all
(15:51):
about economics. Economics and psychology go hand in glove. Once
they realize it's not that hard, they start doing more
of it. Once they're peers demonstrate it's not that hard,
they start doing the same thing. Because China is a
risk for everyone. But I think we've got to be
willing to use the stick too, And this is controversial
even in our party, but I think we have to
be in a position at least if we willing to
ban most US businesses from doing business in China until
(16:13):
the CCP radically reforms its behaviors, and maybe that means
even the CCP until the CCP falls now. I actually
think I'm an optimist that that can happen because Xiji
and Ping shot China in the foot last October is
part of his gambit to keep a third term holding
onto an unprecedented third term of power. Well, now is
a moment where China is actually vulnerable, and if we
(16:35):
pull the economic rug out from under them, I think
we can defeat them economically now so that we never
have to militarily later, and we should never want or
take steps towards a hot war with China if we
can avoid it. I think we have a window to
avoid it and I think it's my understanding of these issues.
First personally, deeply, I've been an exchange student in China,
done business in China. It gives me conviction that this
(16:56):
is actually achievable. But it's going to take some measure
of short term sacrifice, maybe not even sacrifice, but willingness
to make one, because in geopolitics is when you're willing
to make a sacrifice that actually it's most likely you
never actually have to make it. A little bit more Churchill,
a little less Chamberlain. Our foreign policy would do well
with that. That's what I'm planning to deliver. Well. I
think you're right. I think there is a lot that
(17:18):
can be done that is pro America, even if you
are not moving your company into the United States, but
moving your company to an allied country instead of having
them with one of our adversaries. So just quickly, lastly,
I will say you're from Ohio. Many people say, as
Ohio goes goes the nation, do you win Ohio. I'd
(17:38):
like to think that. I think that's something we're I
would say very optimistic about. Iowa. New Hampshire are the
core focus right now. I'd say this, if we're doing
what we do in rooms of one hundred or two
hundred in places like Iowa New Hampshire. I'm very optimistic
about not just the primary, but the general election. I
think twenty twenty four has the opportunity to be a
landslide election. If this about rediscovering a missing national identity
(18:03):
and an economic revival to go along with it. Now,
the key question is can we do what we're doing
with rooms of one hundred two hundred people in Iowa
New Hampshire. Can we take that across the country. I
believe we can. We're going to do some unconventional things
in this campaign. You know, high is my home state,
so I hope and expect to win Ohio both in
the primary and in the general. But you know, I
think that the proof is going to be in the pudding.
(18:23):
We're just three weeks into this and it's going well
so far. But we have a long hill to climb.
But we're ready, ready to climb Mount Everest if Mount
Everest if we have to, and I'm excited for the journey. Well,
I like I'm conventional because I think Republicans have to
start doing unconventional things because we're struggling across the nation.
So I'm anxious to see what unconventional means. But I'm
(18:44):
really excited for you. I think that you are a
fascinating guy. I know that people across the country are
perking their ears up and listening to what you're saying,
and you are definitely getting a lot of tension. So
thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for
I know what it is to run and I can't
imagine what it is to run nationwide, So I think
that is just amazing, and I am so excited that
you are a presidential candidate. Vivek Ramaswami. Thank you for
(19:08):
coming on today. Thank you, and I'm excited to watch
your next steps. To keep up the great work and
keep your voice active. Tutor, I'm incredibly proud to watch
you as well, So keep it up. Thanks a lot. Well,
it's fun calling you a friend. Thank you so much,
and thank you all for joining me on the Tutor
Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go to Tutor
Dixon podcast dot com. You can subscribe right there and
join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have
(19:31):
a great day.
You're listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast in the Clay
and Book podcast Network. Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
I'm Tutor Dixon, and I'm so happy to have you
joining me. My guest today is a genius when it
comes to dissecting the message and helping people understand what
opportunities are available to them and how those same opportunities
(00:23):
may be threatened by progressive ideology. When we first met,
I had one of those moments where I thought, I
this guy knows so many things. I just want to
dissect his brain and learn everything I can. And so
that's what I want to do today. And since then
you probably have all gotten to know him a little bit.
Vivek Ramaswami has announced his run for President of the
(00:45):
United States, and you've likely had the pleasure of hearing
some of the stories of his ideas. But today we're
going to dig deep into those ideas. Vivek is the
author of two books, Woke Inc. Inside Corporate America's Social
Justice Scam and Nation of Victim's Identity Politics, The Death
of Merit and the Path Back to Excellence, very controversial topics.
(01:06):
Right now, the progressive media is attacking conservatives using the
word woke, claiming they can't define it. And since we
have the nation's expert right here, I want him to
help us define it. Republican presidential candidate Ramaswami Vivek, Welcome
to the podcast. Good to talk to you, dude. It's
a too flattering of an introduction, but thank you for that.
I appreciate it. Well, no, it's really true because when
(01:29):
I was running for governor, I met you and you
were talking to me about messaging and how to talk
about these things, and they really are hard to talk about.
And so you know that the progressive media attacks anybody
that talks about woke, But you've looked at it from
a different angle, and so I want your perspective, especially
as someone who is a part of the minority community.
(01:50):
But oftentimes folks that are in the minority community that
are Indian are not seen as somebody that is necessarily discriminated.
But you say, you know, you look different than other
folks when you were growing up, and your dad said,
take advantage of that, and you certainly have, so tell
us woke from your perspective. Yeah, I mean, I think
it's important that we got to define something before we
(02:12):
tear it down. So let's actually define it in neutral terms,
and then we'll get to criticizing it, you know, shortly thereafter.
Being woke, even amongst its proponents, refers to waking up
to invisible societal injustices, generally based on genetically inherited characteristics
like race, gender, sexual orientation, and then acting to correct
(02:34):
those injustices, be it through the market or any other
means whatever it takes to close those injustices. That's what
proponents of this new secular cult would say. But it
has a religiosity about it which says that we have
to use any means necessary. And so I've got two
issues with it. One is it's inherently divisive because it
causes us to see one another on the basis of
(02:56):
our genetically inherited attributes, forgetting the few things that actually
bind us together across our different shades of melanin. I mean,
tudor you and I are two different genders. We have
two different shades of melanin. So what to me, it's
meaningless if there's nothing greater that actually binds us together
across those differences. So that's my first issue with it,
and the second issue is that workness doesn't believe in
(03:17):
just using politics as a solution. It actually believes in
settling disagreements, not through free speech and open debate in
the political process, but actually through other means, including through
the market, including through the economy. And what that does
is it politicizes every other sphere of our lives, not
just politics, but even say capitalism becomes politicized too. And
(03:38):
so those are the two issues that I have with it.
But I don't think it's important to be able to
see what the other side proposes as even their definition
of work before we take it down. So I love
that you're describing this because when I said that we
were going to have you on the podcast, one of
the young folks in our office said, I really like him.
And what I like about him is that he is
willing to explain everything. Just go through and explain it,
(04:02):
and it makes sense to me. And I think that's
something that we don't necessarily get from politicians today. But
this is new for you. You're going from tech mogul
to presidents, So explain how you come to that decision
and how do you fight back, because sometimes when you're
in the position of becoming a political person, and you
do explain that's easy to attack as well. So it's tough.
(04:23):
It's a new world for you. It is a new world.
I don't think of myself as a politician, at least
not yet hopefully days that way. Part of what draws
me in is, you know what, I actually think the
Republican Party would benefit from a new tradition for the presidency,
which is that we nominate the outsider period. I actually
(04:44):
think that if you want to be a senator or
congressman or whatever, there's a lot of benefit to having
experience in understanding the lawmaking process and how the sauceage
gets made, in understanding how to play the political craft.
I actually think it's probably the other way around if
you're actually a chief executive. The chief executive before I've
built and run companies, multibillion dollar business I built from scratch.
But I think that some of those lessons actually are
(05:07):
the lessons that I intend to bring to the executive office.
Not to say that because I've built a business, then
I'm entitled to run the country. A lot of self
funders have made that mistake before. But I have a
vision for our country that the people who we elect
to run the government to be the people who actually
run the government. That's not the case in the federal
government today. And you know what, I bring a private
(05:27):
sector of view to this to say that if I'm
running the federal government and you work for me and
I can't fire you, that means that you don't work
for me. It means that I work for you, and
I refuse to service President United States captive to a
federal bureaucracy that views the president as its employee. And
I don't think you're going to get that type of
change from an insider from a career politician. I think
(05:48):
you get to be an outsider once we see that
right now. Right we see a career politician in that
position right now, and you can also see how handcuffed
he is by the fact that he's a career politician.
To be honest, I love what you're saying because obviously
that's the same reason I ran for governor. And I
think it's important that the American people hear what you're
saying in this way, because you know how to put
(06:11):
the right people around you. It's not about whether or
not you know exactly how these laws came to be
passed over years and years. It's because you know what
the vision is, you know how to cast the vision,
and you know how to bring the people together. Explain
that to the American people so they totally get why
you think that works. Yeah, And I think especially true
(06:33):
at this moment in our history. We're in the middle
of this national identity crisis where you ask most people
our age, younger, whatever, what does it mean to be
an American today? You get a blank stare in response.
And I think an opportunity for the next US president
is to deliver an answer to that question. Revive the
(06:54):
ideals that define what it means to be American, from
merit to free speech, an open debate, to sell governance
over aristocracy. Let's revive those ideals and then you set
a policy vision for how to implement it, but actually
get that done without an intermediating managerial class and administrative
bureaucracy that stands in the way and in between. And
(07:15):
you made a great point about Joe Biden. I mean,
I think in some ways, I think that we Republicans
criticize Joe Biden too much because that almost gives him
too much credit, as though he is the one running
the government he's not. In fact, I think that if
he continues to persist in running for a reelection, we'll
see what the National Archives does of him. It's the
administrative state that views the elected officials, even in the
(07:35):
Democratic Party for that matter, as an inconvenience. And I
think you need somebody who is not going to apologize
for that vision all the way through. And I think
that there's a good chance that if you're grown up
through that very system, you're exactly the kind of person
that is susceptible to capture by that same administrative bureaucracy.
And so I think that's that's what we really need,
is somebody who has an uncompromising vision at a moment
(07:57):
where most Americans are actually hungry for it, hungry for
this missing American national identity that's the black hole that
woke ism and climate religion and gender ideology prey on.
I think if we can fill that void with the
vision of American national identity kind of like you know,
the way Reagan did that in nineteen eighty in the
back of a national identity crisis in the late seventies,
that's the kind of moment I think we're in now
(08:19):
and That's a big part of what drew me into this.
If you ask me, you know, even a year ago,
was I going to run this race? Wasn't even on
my mind. But I think as of you know, last December,
watching the way this will shaping up, I said, look,
this is an opportunity for the country. That's why I
decided to step into the void. So let me talk
to you a little bit about the things that came
to me when I was running and the things that
(08:39):
I think will be questions the American people have for you.
Because the woke issues are concerning, but the everyday kitchen
table issues are the ones that I hear the most.
And honestly, I will tell you that when you talk
about some of these woke issues, that's the left stream
because they have the best narrative to fight you on that.
(09:02):
But what they don't have a good narrative on is
how they're going to fight Fentnyl, how they're going to
secure the border, how they're going to make sure kids
get back on track. Those are issues that I keep hearing,
But honestly, Fentnyl and the open border, what is the
answer there. So these I mean, these cultural issues are
deeply linked to the issues that affect us in the
daily life. Let's talk about fenyl, and let's talk about
(09:24):
the economy. So my view is, and I'm glad this
is becoming more popular in the Republican Party. I've been
saying this for the better part of the last year.
If you're going to use the US military to secure
someone else's border, it is a perfectly legitimate use of
the US military to secure our own border. It's not
just build the wall. Let's build them all now and
use a military to actually secure it. That is a
legitimate use of the US military. If you actually want
(09:46):
to solve the fentyl crisis, well, you know what you
can do to what we did inn isis if we
could do that in places like Syrian Iroq, we can
do it to the drug cartels south of the border
in Mexico. Use the military to annihilate the cartels. Now,
that's easier said than the NSA, for the longest time,
has actually used its intelligence capacities on the other side
of the world in more challenging terrain. Very little usage
(10:07):
of NSA resources to even light up any intelligence south
of our own border here in Mexico, even though there's
one hundred thousand deaths per year end growing due to
fentanyl that crosses the southern border of the United States
with Mexico. So that's a solvable problem, but it takes resolve.
It takes cutting through the defense establishment's traditional view that
(10:28):
you can only use the military to solve problems that
are far away from the United States. And I'm not
saying the sarcastically tutor. Actually, many people in defense establishments
say that the difficulty of using the military in Mexico
is the fact that Mexico is so close to us
and that we share a border that is back. I'm sure,
I know that's actually crazy, and so I think that
the willingness to cut through and use logic and reason
to solve a problem. I mean, that's really what's at
(10:49):
stake in the wokeness debate. It's not about some cultural
war about what somebody was taught in general ideology and
high school. It's a symptom of a deeper abandonment of
basic logic and basic principles of reason and truth itself.
And I think the same thing goes for the economy.
I mean, you talk about kitchen tableges. I agree with you,
there's an anti growth agenda in the United States. You know,
Republicans the Democrats will debate spending cuts versus tax increases,
(11:13):
as though we forgot that GDP growth itself is a possibility.
In fact, it's the best way to lift us out
of most of our problems. But part of the reason
that we have the trouble of adopting a pro growth
agenda in this country is that there's an anti growth
agenda that stands in the way. I mean, the climate
cult is a big part of that is fundamentally anti growth.
The opposition, you know, I talked about this the first
(11:34):
time we met, to nuclear energy is really hostility to
growth itself. It's not carbon emissions because nuclear energy doesn't
entail carbon emissions. Nuclear energy empowers growth. What we actually
have in this country as strain of this country, so
about twenty percent of the country or less, is fundamentally
opposed to GDP growth. They say that we should actually
live with less and that that's a different worldview and philosophy. Well,
(11:54):
I respect diverse views, but sorry, that's a small enough
minority of the country that it's not going to affect
my policies. We want to pro growth agenda in the country.
You call that woken. This is just a symptom of
the same self hatred and apologism in our country. And
so that's why I think these themes of national identity
go hand and glove with what you call kitchen table issues,
which are really important. But they're not separate. They're deeply linked,
(12:15):
I would say, at their core. Well, and when you
talk about self hate and that kind of stuff, I
mean you really see that when you see the fact
that we lost our energy independence. You talk about nuclear energy.
We just closed a power plant in Michigan last year.
You see what's happening. I mean, obviously I'm very close
to the issues in Michigan, But look at Michigan. You
see this Chinese company coming in building a battery plant.
(12:38):
You see Forward now aligning with a Chinese company. You've
got Virginia saying no way, you're not coming here. Michigan
is welcoming them in. This is also part of the
climate cults, as you say, because you have these are
both companies that are supposedly making these electric batteries for
cars that are going to be so much more efficient,
(12:58):
even though we have no ability to power them because
we are getting fewer and fewer power plants. And we
also know that the way they are making these there's
human rights abuses all across these countries that are making
these batteries. But also, why are we giving this power
to China? Don't you think that China is a massive
danger to the United States. It is the number one
(13:19):
danger to the United States, and I think we need
a foreign policy that wakes up to that reality. But
one of the things that makes it really difficult for
us to take on China is that, unlike the Soviet
Union in the last century, they never provided Soviet which
never provided the shoes on our feet and the phones
in our pockets, China supplies our modern way of life. Okay,
that's what makes it very difficult to take on China.
(13:41):
If that had been a Russian spy balloon flying over
half the United States, we would have shot it down
in an instant and we would have ratcheted up sanctions
on Russia. The reason we didn't do it with China
is that we're fundamentally frightened. We're frightened because we know
we economically depend on them. That is a solvable problem.
It's been actually a lot of details. One of my
briefings earlier this week with the supply chain expert going
through the details of how there are redundancies in the
(14:03):
rest of the world, from India to Brazil, to Western
Europe to Japan. But we fall prey to this fear
that we've gun grown so addicted to China in so
many ways, you know, actual fentanyl, financial fentanyl in the
form of national digital fentanyl in the form of TikTok,
but the broader addiction to buy and cheap stuff through
this game of so called international trade opened up bilateral relations.
(14:24):
By Kissinger, this is a worst version of what was
supposed to be a dream. It's actually become a nightmare
where they're using our own companies as sort of a
sort of damocles to say that you guys are so
reliant on us, that we can do whatever we want,
even militarily or geopolitically, that you're going to stand by
and not do a thing about it. And I think
we have to call that bluff and prove them wrong.
(14:45):
But again, Tuor that takes the leadership, and it's not
going to come from the bipartisan consensus of the last
thirty years. One of the things that we heard in
the twenty sixteen campaign was manufacturing was coming back. A
lot of that manufacturing did come back. But to your point,
there are so many many facturing companies that are now
intertwined with China. I come from the steel foundry industry.
When I was heavily involved in steel foundries ten years ago,
(15:09):
steel foundries were going out of business left and right
and going to China. How do you convince companies to
start these types of corporations back up in the United
States because we do not have iPhone City. I mean,
when you look at iPhone City in China, you're talking
about hundreds of thousands of people that stay there. They
live there, they work their day in and day out,
(15:30):
and they go home for holidays. That's it. How do
we replace that other places? So I think it's a
combination of carrots and sticks. I mean, I think that
it's a good thing when the companies move their supply chains,
either to the United States or even other countries outside
of China, realize the benefits of doing so, it's not
as hard as they think. You know, human beings companies
like them, or creatures of habit, right, it's not all
(15:51):
about economics. Economics and psychology go hand in glove. Once
they realize it's not that hard, they start doing more
of it. Once they're peers demonstrate it's not that hard,
they start doing the same thing. Because China is a
risk for everyone. But I think we've got to be
willing to use the stick too, And this is controversial
even in our party, but I think we have to
be in a position at least if we willing to
ban most US businesses from doing business in China until
(16:13):
the CCP radically reforms its behaviors, and maybe that means
even the CCP until the CCP falls now. I actually
think I'm an optimist that that can happen because Xiji
and Ping shot China in the foot last October is
part of his gambit to keep a third term holding
onto an unprecedented third term of power. Well, now is
a moment where China is actually vulnerable, and if we
(16:35):
pull the economic rug out from under them, I think
we can defeat them economically now so that we never
have to militarily later, and we should never want or
take steps towards a hot war with China if we
can avoid it. I think we have a window to
avoid it and I think it's my understanding of these issues.
First personally, deeply, I've been an exchange student in China,
done business in China. It gives me conviction that this
(16:56):
is actually achievable. But it's going to take some measure
of short term sacrifice, maybe not even sacrifice, but willingness
to make one, because in geopolitics is when you're willing
to make a sacrifice that actually it's most likely you
never actually have to make it. A little bit more Churchill,
a little less Chamberlain. Our foreign policy would do well
with that. That's what I'm planning to deliver. Well. I
think you're right. I think there is a lot that
(17:18):
can be done that is pro America, even if you
are not moving your company into the United States, but
moving your company to an allied country instead of having
them with one of our adversaries. So just quickly, lastly,
I will say you're from Ohio. Many people say, as
Ohio goes goes the nation, do you win Ohio. I'd
(17:38):
like to think that. I think that's something we're I
would say very optimistic about. Iowa. New Hampshire are the
core focus right now. I'd say this, if we're doing
what we do in rooms of one hundred or two
hundred in places like Iowa New Hampshire. I'm very optimistic
about not just the primary, but the general election. I
think twenty twenty four has the opportunity to be a
landslide election. If this about rediscovering a missing national identity
(18:03):
and an economic revival to go along with it. Now,
the key question is can we do what we're doing
with rooms of one hundred two hundred people in Iowa
New Hampshire. Can we take that across the country. I
believe we can. We're going to do some unconventional things
in this campaign. You know, high is my home state,
so I hope and expect to win Ohio both in
the primary and in the general. But you know, I
think that the proof is going to be in the pudding.
(18:23):
We're just three weeks into this and it's going well
so far. But we have a long hill to climb.
But we're ready, ready to climb Mount Everest if Mount
Everest if we have to, and I'm excited for the journey. Well,
I like I'm conventional because I think Republicans have to
start doing unconventional things because we're struggling across the nation.
So I'm anxious to see what unconventional means. But I'm
(18:44):
really excited for you. I think that you are a
fascinating guy. I know that people across the country are
perking their ears up and listening to what you're saying,
and you are definitely getting a lot of tension. So
thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for
I know what it is to run and I can't
imagine what it is to run nationwide, So I think
that is just amazing, and I am so excited that
you are a presidential candidate. Vivek Ramaswami. Thank you for
(19:08):
coming on today. Thank you, and I'm excited to watch
your next steps. To keep up the great work and
keep your voice active. Tutor, I'm incredibly proud to watch
you as well, So keep it up. Thanks a lot. Well,
it's fun calling you a friend. Thank you so much,
and thank you all for joining me on the Tutor
Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go to Tutor
Dixon podcast dot com. You can subscribe right there and
join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have
(19:31):
a great day.
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