On this episode of Newts World, I'm joined by members of my Inner Circle Club for a fascinating conversation about a wide range of issues and topics on their minds. We hold these regular video conference calls so that we can have an honest discussion about what is happening in America today. I find it extraordinarily helpful to me personally and helping think through the issues that are facing us. So I hope you'll find this episode of Newts World informative, and if you'd like to become a member of my Inner Circle Club, please go to newts Inner Circle dot com and sign up for a one or two year membership today. I'm really pleased. This is a guest Vivak Remiswamy, who has actually done several podcasts. He's always interesting. He is now a Republican candidate for president. He is a former biotech CEO and America Business Leader, New York Times bestselling author of two books, Woke Ink and Nation of Victims. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was a nationally ranked tennis player. Valedictorian of his high school. Went to Harvard majored in biology, graduated simonicum laude, and he received his law degree from Yale Law School. While working at a hedge fund, he started the biotech company Royvan Sciences, where he oversaw the development of five drugs that went on to become FDA approved. In twenty twenty two, he founded Strive, an Ohio based asset management firm that directly competes with asset managers like black Rock, State Street, Vanguard, and others companies who used the investment dollars of everyday citizens to advance environmental and social agendas the many citizens and capital owners disagree with. And I should say, he's done all of this, and he is only thirty seven years old, so from my perspective, he has a long career ahead of him. But he's not exactly hanging out doing nothing. His campaign website, which all of you should note, is two two four dot com. Let's v v e K two O two four dot com. And I think you're going to find it a fascinating thing to watch. First of all, VEC welcome. Let me just toss it to you from Ante. I have to confess the two times we were together for a podcasts, you were fascinating. You clearly were critical of the current system, but it didn't quite occur to me that at thirty seven you'd be running for president. So I think you ought to start and tell us why so nude. I just think we're in the middle of this national identity crisis where, yes, most people my age, you brought in my age, but really, ask people any age in this country what does it even mean to be an American? Today? You get a blank stare in response, And I think that is a problem. I think that's actually the vacuum at the heart of our national soul when faith, patriotism, hard work, family, these things have disappeared, and that's what allows vokeism or gender ideology, or climb or covidism to fill the void, because human beings still have a need to believe in something higher. Yet we can't even answer the question of what it means to be a citizen of this nation. And so that's why I decided rather than just doing what even frankly, I'm not going to blame other conservatives, I'll even just blame myself rather than what I've been doing for much of the last several years of just complaining about that problem. And I do think there's a role for identifying a problem that other people don't see and seeing it with clear eyes, that's fine. But we've done that. Now, how do we actually deliver a solution? And I think the right answer isn't just to stamp out the poison one at a time. It's to go upstream and fill that black hole, fill that void with the vision of American national identity that runs so deep that it dilutes this woke agenda to irrelevance. And I want to do it in a way that doesn't drive us to a national divorce, but drives us to a national revival. And so, if I'm being blunt about it, my wife and I did talk about the fact that shouldn't I be more trade and educated and prepared for even a job like this if I wanted to take it on twenty years from now, And in some ways you can't debate that that's almost by definition true. But I think we live in this moment where actually there's room for somebody who comes in from the outside who did what Trump did, by the way, in twenty fifteen, which I respect to say that I'm not going to take the norms of a broken and even in some ways corrupt system for granted, I'm going to actually just bring in my question of what is right, deliver what's right doing a way that's nationally unifying, unifying, Not by showing up in the middle and saying can't we all compromise and hold hands and sing Kumbaya guys. No, No, not that kind of national unity, fake national unity, actual national unity. By embracing the radicalism, the extremism. Dare I say of the ideas that set this nation into motion two hundred and fifty years ago, from meritocracy to excellence, to free speech and open debate, to self governance over aristocracy, to even the rule of law itself. Embrace those basic ideas that bind us together across our different shades of melanin. You know, you have a different skin color than I do, So what who cares about that kind of diversity? If there's nothing greater that binds us together across that diversity. I actually believe those ideals that bind us together still exist. We've forgotten them, we can't see them because we've been taught that we're divided. I believe pretty deep in my bones that those ideals still exist, and I'm running for president to revive them. I'm fascinating, partly because you're obviously really smart. I mean, you didn't get through Harvard and Yale at the level you did without some reasonable like you. But in addition, you're astonishingly successful. I mean it's important for people remember well. And I'm not going to emphasize your youth, because obviously I'm not your age, But I do think it's interesting that you're at a point in your life where you have been so successful scientifically, so successful in founding a company, so successful, and then founding financial investment firm, so you can afford to do this, and you bring to the game all the lessons you've learned of leadership and of managing people and of getting things done. How do you think that changes your approach from normal people. I think it helps me in two ways. I mean, one is, you have a lot of Republicans theorizing about shutting down the administrative state, gutting departments. I've called for the abolition of the Department of Education. Others have joined me. I'm not going to shut down the FBI. Outhers haven't joined me on that one. I didn't go shut down the FBI and replace it with something new, built from scratch. Yes, I went to Yelaw School, so I have a deep understanding of the Constitution. You would think you would hope for how much you pay to go through that education, and I've been a scholar of it afterwards. My books are you know, some of them are certainly legally well grounded. But I combined that not as an academic, but somebody who's been a chief executive. And so I'll explain this view of Article two of the Constitution to you. Okay, I've been a chief executive before. If somebody works for you and you can't fire them, that means they don't work for you. It means you work for them because you're responsible for what they do without having any authority over it whatsoever. That means that a lot of those civil service protections, if they're going to be read so expansively, we don't need to do some sort of schedule F exception. To be cute about this, and I'm referring to, you know, a good step that the Trump administration took it the tail end of its term. We need to take a strong view of article too of the Constitution that says you fire them. And I don't think that article too the meaning says that you can create agencies that don't exist if Congress hasn't budgeted. But it's a one way ratchet that says that if you do run the federal government, you know that's going to be waste, fraud, and abuse, or somebody that works for you that's going to undermine the objectives of effectuating the laws of the United States. You absolutely have constitutional authority and even a constitutional duty to do with the one thing a chief executive ought to do with the next Anthony Fauci or Merrick Garland or James Come. You fire them, You fire the legions of people under them, You dismantle the managerial industrial complex around them. So I think that's one of the things that's different from me. The other thing that frankly, my success in living the AMA Dream allows me to do in the financial sense of this is to not be tethered to the donor class in this country. I did not ask for anyone for permission to run. I did not friendly with Donald Trump. We'll have a great relationship. I didn't ask him for permission to run. But I also didn't go to a bunch of Republican donors and asked them for permission to run either ringing a tin can with a hat in hand, and that liberated me from that process. And I saw firsthand even this last weekend why that's important. One of the things I wrote an opened in the Wall Street Journal that ran in print yesterday, which made what was initially an unpopular case but I think is now hopefully becoming more popular, that the federal government should not have been bailing out and it was a bailout these Silicon Valley bank depositors tech companies. The government lied, they said, it's not a bailout. I think you had to see through it. It wasn't a bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, but it was a bailout of Silicon Valley tech companies that had made rash decisions putting money at a bank that they shouldn't have put that much money in that then, when in their hour of need, went to the federal government for help and got it. I criticized that decision. But I'll tell you something I lost. And these are billionaires who called me over the weekend, I mean many of them, countless people trying to influence me because I was a public voice on this, especially after I published in the Journal on Sunday to say no, no no, no, you got it all wrong. Throwing arguments like spaghetti against a wall. It actually gave me greater conviction. And why it has to be an outsider that's untethered to those interests because many of those people were going to be would be supporters of my campaign potentially in big ways. And you know what, I stuff to stick with what I believe. I lost that that was painful. It didn't leave me feeling very happy. There's something about going through it that you're thinking. You feel good when you something like that happens. You don't when you're running a race to the top amount everest. But it's going to take people who actually share my convictions to fill that void instead, just for a second, because you know these people much better than I do. What is the argument of a high tech billionaire as to why everyday working Americans should cover their stupidity? They tried every argument in the book. Nude first was this is the most uristic, but the most honor. They said, Hey, the k you should know better. You know, we're the engine of innovation. I'm just telling you stuff they told me over the weekend. Okay, you know, and you talk about China all the time on how the US needs to be more competitive, Well, why would you make us less competitive because you know we're the bleeding edge of American innovation. That's bogus, and said that, you know what, if we're the bleeding edge of American innovation led by people who are buffoons concentrating four and eighty million dollars in one bank, in Silicon Valley Bank because they helped you with some personal favors and that was part of Silicon Valley Bank's model for winning business, I said, then they are probably not the leaders in American innovation. So they say, Okay, that argument didn't work, So they try a different argument with me. Okay, okay, this guy's oh he's populist conservative, Okay, let me try an argument that works with him. Then, hey, no, no, this is about small businesses and workers in the American economy. People aren't going to be able to make payroll. Bogus argument again, because you know what, if you're a startup company that has a viable business model that was the same business model three weeks ago, Okay, it hasn't changed. So that means that if your CFO made a big screw up and gave money to a bank that weigh too much concentration in a bank that he shouldn't have concentrated in. Well, venture investors can still put in more money because your business model supposedly still works right now. That's painful if you're a CEO or a founder or even an existing venture capitalist, because you take equity dilution, which means you make less money upon success. That's not a reason for a bailout. So then they pontify these workers and say, no, no no, no, we'd have to lay off these workers. That's bunk. It's a lie. But it takes somebody who's able to see through this. And I'm gonna be very honest with this man. I've already put in eight figures into my campaign already, but it's going to take a whole movement to fill the wake of that billionaire class in Silicon Valley and elsewhere that would have otherwise been supporters. And that's why I've gotten better at this. I wasn't good at this on day one, but I've gotten better at this, And just asking for help, do we have some questions, mister speaker, good evening, and mister Ramaswami. I just storted your new book and actually just arrived and I can't wait to read it. It struck me that for years a lot of these big corporations were giving out politically correct messages to appease those customers of theirs who were oversensitive and might boycott them. But now I turn around and look that these corporate bigwigs really have these deeply woke ideologies. And corporations to me were always you know, people are about to make money and the big gruff corporate fat cats and they're not woke. So how did this change happen? And when to let me reveal what's actually going on behind the scenes that's topped down. It's actually the ESG movement in this country, right, And you see this more in public companies than private ones. Why because the top shareholders of almost all public companies in the United States are three institutions, Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard. They're using the money. I would venture to say, probably of most people on this call to tell American companies to invest in those companies, but to tell them that we the shareholders, are demanding that you adopt these environmental or social goals or else will dock your pay as CEO or else we might even fire you from your board seat. And so that's actually the top down fource that turned upside down the model of the nineteen nineties, where the ninety nineties you would have said that if the CEO is using corporate resources to advance a social agenda, the shareholders are to discipline. But now they've turned that game upside down and they said, we are the shareholders Black Rock or Vanguard, and we demand that you adopt a Scope three emissions cap if you're Chevron, even though you didn't want to in twenty twenty one, or that you adopt a racial equity audit if your Apple or Home Depot in twenty twenty two, even though those companies initially didn't want to. So that's actually where the secret invisible hand behind the scene comes from, is from the black Rocks and state streets of the world and make government favors in response. So that's this ESG cancler that I've focused on not only exposing but also trying to defeat through the market. I started Strive. It was the only in leading effort to actually take this on. Strive crossed over half a billion dollars in the first three months after launching its first fund because of this hunger that people have. Once you're educated on this, it's hard to unsee. But I think that's a big part of the problem. Now. I think that there's a demand side to it, too, right, It only works if you have a general populace in a culture in America that's willing to buy up what they're selling. That's what I want to fix my running for the presidency through this broader cultural revival. That's great. Hi, I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, a little bit north New Good evening. Simple question, the US has lost standing on the world stage. We are not where we used to be. Why should jijiin king and Vladimir frutin respect or hopefully fear you well, thank you for saying that. I believe that we should actually use US military resources to who would have ever thought protect the United States? And so one of the first things that I'll do in office, and I've actually been the first candidate by far who has pledged to do this, though I hope and expect that others will catch on too, is to say, look, we have an ability to use a justified use legally, morally and ethically justified use of military force to protect our own border and to solve the Fennel crisis. I was actually just talking to somebody about this shortly before this call. I think we should be able to do to the cartels what we did on the other side of the world. To isis to al Zawahiri, to Slamani, to Bin Laden, because those are actually narco terrorists that are undermining the United States from within. And I think that does a couple of things. Of course, it solves the Fennel crisis, which is supply driven. And I think that I just refuse as an America I'm talking to you from Central Ohio today, I just refuse to sit by passively and watch one hundred thousand deaths per year level in a homelessness crisis driven by a problem that we can actually solve. That just irks me. I refuse to just watch with passivity. But I think it also sends a signal for what we're actually willing to do to protect American interests. The other thing I've called for it, and I think this is not going to be easy, but I think we're going to do it is actually declare independence from communist China. I think that is the you know, I know our host today is a historian and a history buff. Your history PhD right is right. This is the declaration of independence that Thomas Jefferson would sign if he were alive today. I think it's the declaration of independence that I intend to sign as the next president. That is not easy, right, We've got addicted to buying cheap stuff. There will be some short term economic inconvenience for us. But here's my theory of foreign policy. Okay, if you're willing to make a sacrifice, that's precisely when you don't actually have to make one. All Right, we need to start thinking on the time scales of history, not on the time scales of election cycles. A little bit more Churchill and a little less Chamberlain in America. Now, that's unfair to Chamberlain if you actually understand the true history of it. But you understand what I'm saying, okay, is that if we're willing to declare economic independence from China, we actually got to recognize and remember that China's in a weak spot right now. Sis and Pink tried to hold onto power for that unprecedented third term that he took over last October that gives us an opportunity to take the economic rug out from China so we can defeat them economically so that we'll never have to militarily. But you can only even be willing to make a sacrifice if you know what you are sacrificing for, and that is this thing we call America. Which is why it comes back to the thing I opened with, this revival of a missing national identity. That's why I'm running afternoon do they I'm from Local Rock, Arkansas, and I think it seems like to me that we could just like I would like to have a gazillion vivix in this country, and it seemed like to me that we don't have this immigration thing down. Why do you think Biden is not stopping illegal immigration over the border. I just think it's intentional or you can see these people they rice the border. What do you think is the whole skinny on this? It is part of this culture of apologizing for the essence of who we are, American exceptionalism. You can't even say that anymore. It's a four letter word. I say it all the time. It's a heart of our it's the heart of our campaign. Message is a belief in the exceptionalism of the ideas that set this nation int emotion, that constitute the heart and soul of this nation. But I think that it's part of this culture of apologizing for who we are. It's the same thing that puzzlingly makes them hostile to nuclear energy. Why because nuclear energy might actually be too good at solving their own supposed climate problem. But it also might be even if you buy into the tenets of this climate cult. But it also is pro growth. That's why there's an anti growth agenda and anti GDP growth agenda in this country for the same reason that we believe in the dissolution of our own borders. It's an apology for who America is. And so I think immigrants, and I'm a first generation America I was born here. But I think immigrants and even first generation Americans have a responsibility to actually revive that lifeblood of our nation. And so what does our immigration policy look like right now? We have accidental immigration, which is illegal immigration. Forget about that. We should have a hard line against that. Nobody's more hard line against illegal immigration, including the use of the military to secure it, than I am. But I also think that we need to pair that with getting rid of other forms of accidental immigration, an H one B lottery system. Why on earth would we have a lottery system when you could just pick the best ones. I'd say take meritocratic immigration instead, points based immigration, factoring in both contributions you're likely to make to this country, but also civic commitments to this country. Actually knowing something about the history and the principles of this country, and actually, you know what, Then you bring in people who actually believe in a nation, who actually have something to contribute to people who might be just taken for what they inherited for granted. And I think we need to revive this idea of citizenship in our country. I'll share something with you just for funds. And we're on a zoom here, just having some fun late in the late afternoon. Here. Take this in that spirit, imagine the opposite system, making this a two way street efforts met Nude actually when he came to college when I was a freshman in college. He won't remember this, but he had this idea. It was just a fun idea. We're in high schools across this country. You should give the kids who do best in math and science classes. You should give them some extra cash so that they can take someone out on a date and be one of the cool kids. Okay in high school nude, do you remember that? Yeah, okay, yeah, I remember it. It's stuck with me. Actually, you had an impression on me, and it's like, I'm talking. I wasn't thinking you'd like the money. Absolutely, yeah. I was good at math, so I would take that. Actually, I was like, why wasn't he The principle of my high school is that I was thinking. I was a freshman as eighteen years old at the time you made an impression on me. Here I am, you know, less than about twenty years later and running for president, taking inspiration from people like you who touched me twenty years ago without even knowing it because I was sitting in the audience and we didn't even meet, right, But I take that same idea. So the spirit of that idea, having some fun with this is, you know, let's give somebody some money. Give him fifty thousand dollars one hundred thousan dollars in this countr. If you don't believe in the ideas of this nation, we'll write you a check. Go to another country. The only thing is you don't get to come back. Okay, we'll build the wall, my kids, the military security, the wall. We got a secure border. Now why do I bring up that thought experiment because it will remind people who are not just immigrants who came to this country because they love it, but people who have a choice to stay in this country because they actually love it. They just forgot it. Because you can't value something you just inherit. You value you something, have a stake in building and choosing. And I'm just about reviving that lifeblood of citizenship, of belief in this great nation. That's part of what we've forgotten. And you know, thank you for saying that. Honestly, I'm just gonna shamelessly say this is forget the question of who you vote for in this election until next year. You could save that for next year. Nobody's cast in ballots this year. This year is about the what and the why. What do we stand for? Why do we stand for it? And my next goal is the next step. There's a step by step processes. Get a prominent spot, not a side spot, a prominent spot like Nudad in twenty twelve. And by the way, I watched you in those debates. You did more for this country in those debates than Mitt Romney did as the non I'm just gonna say that bluntly because he actually took a lot of what you said too. But I'm just gonna make it a shameless because there's nothing to be ashamed of. This is about the country we're talking about here. Everybody in this call. I don't know if it's one dollars one dollar, if it's the max out of thirty three hundred dollars thirty three hundred dollars, but just go to Vivic twenty twenty four dot com and make sure we actually drive that agenda this year. Actually, that's what matters. Forget forget the who Kevin McCarthy or somebody else right Rona McDaniel or somebody else who cares. These are boring questions. They don't matter. We bicker over them because we never stopped to first define the what and the why. Let's do that and put me in a position to do that for you. That's what I hope to do it, not only as a first generation American, but as somebody who's now running for president of the the United States. I appreciate I know how busy you are running for president, having tried it myself, I do want to mention to you close and I are now developing a movie series called Journey to America, which is first generation immigrants who have made this country dramatically better, and I think you would find it when it gets done a few weeks. It's really pretty amazing people like Henry Kissinger and others who really have dramatically enriched this country as your parents did. We're coming here, so I want to remind everyone V I V E K two O two four dot com. This is one of the brightest people to run for president, and I think somebody who's going to bring a lot of energy and already has made a lot more impact than I think people thought he could six or eight weeks ago. So we're going to follow you closely, and we really appreciate you tending the time with us, and we wish you very safe travels and maybe in a few months we can revisit and see how your campaign's coming. Appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Good to meet everybody this way, and it's always good to talk to you, you know, so people'll talk to you said thank you, thank you, very much, mister speaker. Yes, and I'd like to ask you please. I notice in the run up to this next election, you've got mister Trump and you've got mister DeSantis. They're all and they're starting to say take pot shots. I just wonder, do you think there's a chance that both of them, like Reagan and Bush did, would team up to run in twenty four They might? This is wide open. Remember if we were talking at this point in two fifteen, nobody would have told you Donald Trump's gonna be the nominee. He hasn't even come down that long escalator at this point, doesn't do that till June. So I would say that they're a possibility. I frankly was very impressed the other night by Governor Huckabee Sanders, who I thought did a great job answering the Democrats. Governor Kim Reynolds in Iowa has had an amazing record. Senator Tim Scott is a remarkable guy. There's a lot of people out there, and I would not automatically assume anything. Clearly, Donald Trump is the front runner, and clearly if he decides to run, governor to senis right now would be the number two position. But It's a long way from here to the election, and I wouldn't automatically assume that it will be stable and that it's automatically frozen in place current in Dallas, Texas. And my question following up on Vic's probe was with regard to federal unions and the contracts we have with them, because they do dominate policy at the end of the day. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the two most inefficient industries in America are both either either fuel completely or mostly by federal government dollars, and that is the education industry in the bureaucracy. Is there a way to break those contracts by the president or must he go through Congress? Or how does addressing those contracts work. Philip Howard has a new book out. He's one of the brightest lawyers looking at government and how it operates, and his new book, he basically argues that, much like Veveik did, that the very definition of our constitution allows the voters to elect people to whom they give power, and that the nature of public employee unions is unconstitutional because it violates the right of the voter to give power to somebody, because it puts in place, as Veveik made very clear, people who you can't fire, you can't control, who have their own agenda. So Philip Power now is gathering up the resources to file a lawsuit to go to the Supreme Court to get them to rule that by definition, public employee unions are unconstitutional. Now, if he wins that case, and he thinks he's got a very realistic chance of winning it, that will change everything, and it will be fascinating. And I happen to think you have to have a very profound overhaul of the whole structure of the bureaucracy, and that can only be done either through the Supreme Court or coming out of the twenty twenty four election by having a Republican House and Senate and a Republican President who make it one of their highest priorities in January of twenty twenty five. But clearly the current bureaucracies just don't work there muscle bound, they're geriatric, they're decaying, and they're just not competent, and it's going to take real change. I don't understand the difference between equity and inequality. The way they use it in the liberal media and often is not in Congress, in the Senate, could you tell me what you think. I think if you're on the left, equity means you get the same outcome. So, for example, if one group of students can't do math, then you should not allow another group of students to do math. So in a very famous case in Virginia, they had a high school in which a very high percent of the students were Asian American. Because they're parents are very education oriented, they insisted that their children do their homework. They really valued them doing well. So from a liberal standpoint, that was an inequitable outcome because they're not interested in the highest quality. They're interested in racial and sexual and other devices to define who you should be. Which, by the way, when you start getting to either running the Department of Transportation badly, or you can start getting to medical schools where instead of bringing in the brightest and the best people, you start bringing in people who may not be as bright or may not do as well, but they fit your model. You're building up problems for the future that are very real. So I think we stand for equality of opportunity, not equity of outcome. We stand for people doing their very best and as Vavay said, we stand for a meritocracy. We think you ought to be able to earn a better future. And the people who say, no, I don't want to work, I don't want to do anything, but you owe me. The whole conversation about the Silicon Valley Bank. If some person out there is a multi millionaire and they're stupid enough to put their money in a bank that was clearly on sound, why should all the rest of us have to work and pay to bail them out. They sure weren't going to help us as long as they were rich. So I'm very unsympathetic to the billionaires in Silicon Valley, and I think Biden was just playing wrong to say, you know, if you're part of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, you get two hundred and fifty thousand dollars because that's what was paid in. That's the insurance you bought. But if you haven't have thirty million dollars in an account, you get two hundred fifty thousand dollars. You don't get thirty million. And I think this is a huge mistake. And if the federal government gets in the habit of bailing out stupidity, it's going to really be very, very expensive. Let me remind all of you by the way, I hope you found this interesting. We hope to eventually have all the presidential candidates, including the Democrats, come and join us in the Inner Circle. And if you find it useful, I hope you'll tell your friends and encourage them to join it. I find it helpful and fascinating to listen to the questions and see where it goes. Thank you for listening, and thank you to members of my Inner Circle club. And if you'd like to become a member, please go to newts Inner Circle dot com and sign up for a one or two year membership today. Newts World is produced by Gingerish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guardsey Sloan, our producer is Rebecca Howe, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Fendley, special thanks to the team at Gingwish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of newts World can sign up for my three free weekly columns at gingwish three sixty dot com. I'm Slash Newsletter. I'm newd Gangridge. This is news work.

On this episode of Newts World, I'm joined by members of my Inner Circle Club for a fascinating conversation about a wide range of issues and topics on their minds. We hold these regular video conference calls so that we can have an honest discussion about what is happening in America today. I find it extraordinarily helpful to me personally and helping think through the issues that are facing us. So I hope you'll find this episode of Newts World informative, and if you'd like to become a member of my Inner Circle Club, please go to newts Inner Circle dot com and sign up for a one or two year membership today. I'm really pleased. This is a guest Vivak Remiswamy, who has actually done several podcasts. He's always interesting. He is now a Republican candidate for president. He is a former biotech CEO and America Business Leader, New York Times bestselling author of two books, Woke Ink and Nation of Victims. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was a nationally ranked tennis player. Valedictorian of his high school. Went to Harvard majored in biology, graduated simonicum laude, and he received his law degree from Yale Law School. While working at a hedge fund, he started the biotech company Royvan Sciences, where he oversaw the development of five drugs that went on to become FDA approved. In twenty twenty two, he founded Strive, an Ohio based asset management firm that directly competes with asset managers like black Rock, State Street, Vanguard, and others companies who used the investment dollars of everyday citizens to advance environmental and social agendas the many citizens and capital owners disagree with. And I should say, he's done all of this, and he is only thirty seven years old, so from my perspective, he has a long career ahead of him. But he's not exactly hanging out doing nothing. His campaign website, which all of you should note, is two two four dot com. Let's v v e K two O two four dot com. And I think you're going to find it a fascinating thing to watch. First of all, VEC welcome. Let me just toss it to you from Ante. I have to confess the two times we were together for a podcasts, you were fascinating. You clearly were critical of the current system, but it didn't quite occur to me that at thirty seven you'd be running for president. So I think you ought to start and tell us why so nude. I just think we're in the middle of this national identity crisis where, yes, most people my age, you brought in my age, but really, ask people any age in this country what does it even mean to be an American? Today? You get a blank stare in response, And I think that is a problem. I think that's actually the vacuum at the heart of our national soul when faith, patriotism, hard work, family, these things have disappeared, and that's what allows vokeism or gender ideology, or climb or covidism to fill the void, because human beings still have a need to believe in something higher. Yet we can't even answer the question of what it means to be a citizen of this nation. And so that's why I decided rather than just doing what even frankly, I'm not going to blame other conservatives, I'll even just blame myself rather than what I've been doing for much of the last several years of just complaining about that problem. And I do think there's a role for identifying a problem that other people don't see and seeing it with clear eyes, that's fine. But we've done that. Now, how do we actually deliver a solution? And I think the right answer isn't just to stamp out the poison one at a time. It's to go upstream and fill that black hole, fill that void with the vision of American national identity that runs so deep that it dilutes this woke agenda to irrelevance. And I want to do it in a way that doesn't drive us to a national divorce, but drives us to a national revival. And so, if I'm being blunt about it, my wife and I did talk about the fact that shouldn't I be more trade and educated and prepared for even a job like this if I wanted to take it on twenty years from now, And in some ways you can't debate that that's almost by definition true. But I think we live in this moment where actually there's room for somebody who comes in from the outside who did what Trump did, by the way, in twenty fifteen, which I respect to say that I'm not going to take the norms of a broken and even in some ways corrupt system for granted, I'm going to actually just bring in my question of what is right, deliver what's right doing a way that's nationally unifying, unifying, Not by showing up in the middle and saying can't we all compromise and hold hands and sing Kumbaya guys. No, No, not that kind of national unity, fake national unity, actual national unity. By embracing the radicalism, the extremism. Dare I say of the ideas that set this nation into motion two hundred and fifty years ago, from meritocracy to excellence, to free speech and open debate, to self governance over aristocracy, to even the rule of law itself. Embrace those basic ideas that bind us together across our different shades of melanin. You know, you have a different skin color than I do, So what who cares about that kind of diversity? If there's nothing greater that binds us together across that diversity. I actually believe those ideals that bind us together still exist. We've forgotten them, we can't see them because we've been taught that we're divided. I believe pretty deep in my bones that those ideals still exist, and I'm running for president to revive them. I'm fascinating, partly because you're obviously really smart. I mean, you didn't get through Harvard and Yale at the level you did without some reasonable like you. But in addition, you're astonishingly successful. I mean it's important for people remember well. And I'm not going to emphasize your youth, because obviously I'm not your age, But I do think it's interesting that you're at a point in your life where you have been so successful scientifically, so successful in founding a company, so successful, and then founding financial investment firm, so you can afford to do this, and you bring to the game all the lessons you've learned of leadership and of managing people and of getting things done. How do you think that changes your approach from normal people. I think it helps me in two ways. I mean, one is, you have a lot of Republicans theorizing about shutting down the administrative state, gutting departments. I've called for the abolition of the Department of Education. Others have joined me. I'm not going to shut down the FBI. Outhers haven't joined me on that one. I didn't go shut down the FBI and replace it with something new, built from scratch. Yes, I went to Yelaw School, so I have a deep understanding of the Constitution. You would think you would hope for how much you pay to go through that education, and I've been a scholar of it afterwards. My books are you know, some of them are certainly legally well grounded. But I combined that not as an academic, but somebody who's been a chief executive. And so I'll explain this view of Article two of the Constitution to you. Okay, I've been a chief executive before. If somebody works for you and you can't fire them, that means they don't work for you. It means you work for them because you're responsible for what they do without having any authority over it whatsoever. That means that a lot of those civil service protections, if they're going to be read so expansively, we don't need to do some sort of schedule F exception. To be cute about this, and I'm referring to, you know, a good step that the Trump administration took it the tail end of its term. We need to take a strong view of article too of the Constitution that says you fire them. And I don't think that article too the meaning says that you can create agencies that don't exist if Congress hasn't budgeted. But it's a one way ratchet that says that if you do run the federal government, you know that's going to be waste, fraud, and abuse, or somebody that works for you that's going to undermine the objectives of effectuating the laws of the United States. You absolutely have constitutional authority and even a constitutional duty to do with the one thing a chief executive ought to do with the next Anthony Fauci or Merrick Garland or James Come. You fire them, You fire the legions of people under them, You dismantle the managerial industrial complex around them. So I think that's one of the things that's different from me. The other thing that frankly, my success in living the AMA Dream allows me to do in the financial sense of this is to not be tethered to the donor class in this country. I did not ask for anyone for permission to run. I did not friendly with Donald Trump. We'll have a great relationship. I didn't ask him for permission to run. But I also didn't go to a bunch of Republican donors and asked them for permission to run either ringing a tin can with a hat in hand, and that liberated me from that process. And I saw firsthand even this last weekend why that's important. One of the things I wrote an opened in the Wall Street Journal that ran in print yesterday, which made what was initially an unpopular case but I think is now hopefully becoming more popular, that the federal government should not have been bailing out and it was a bailout these Silicon Valley bank depositors tech companies. The government lied, they said, it's not a bailout. I think you had to see through it. It wasn't a bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, but it was a bailout of Silicon Valley tech companies that had made rash decisions putting money at a bank that they shouldn't have put that much money in that then, when in their hour of need, went to the federal government for help and got it. I criticized that decision. But I'll tell you something I lost. And these are billionaires who called me over the weekend, I mean many of them, countless people trying to influence me because I was a public voice on this, especially after I published in the Journal on Sunday to say no, no no, no, you got it all wrong. Throwing arguments like spaghetti against a wall. It actually gave me greater conviction. And why it has to be an outsider that's untethered to those interests because many of those people were going to be would be supporters of my campaign potentially in big ways. And you know what, I stuff to stick with what I believe. I lost that that was painful. It didn't leave me feeling very happy. There's something about going through it that you're thinking. You feel good when you something like that happens. You don't when you're running a race to the top amount everest. But it's going to take people who actually share my convictions to fill that void instead, just for a second, because you know these people much better than I do. What is the argument of a high tech billionaire as to why everyday working Americans should cover their stupidity? They tried every argument in the book. Nude first was this is the most uristic, but the most honor. They said, Hey, the k you should know better. You know, we're the engine of innovation. I'm just telling you stuff they told me over the weekend. Okay, you know, and you talk about China all the time on how the US needs to be more competitive, Well, why would you make us less competitive because you know we're the bleeding edge of American innovation. That's bogus, and said that, you know what, if we're the bleeding edge of American innovation led by people who are buffoons concentrating four and eighty million dollars in one bank, in Silicon Valley Bank because they helped you with some personal favors and that was part of Silicon Valley Bank's model for winning business, I said, then they are probably not the leaders in American innovation. So they say, Okay, that argument didn't work, So they try a different argument with me. Okay, okay, this guy's oh he's populist conservative, Okay, let me try an argument that works with him. Then, hey, no, no, this is about small businesses and workers in the American economy. People aren't going to be able to make payroll. Bogus argument again, because you know what, if you're a startup company that has a viable business model that was the same business model three weeks ago, Okay, it hasn't changed. So that means that if your CFO made a big screw up and gave money to a bank that weigh too much concentration in a bank that he shouldn't have concentrated in. Well, venture investors can still put in more money because your business model supposedly still works right now. That's painful if you're a CEO or a founder or even an existing venture capitalist, because you take equity dilution, which means you make less money upon success. That's not a reason for a bailout. So then they pontify these workers and say, no, no no, no, we'd have to lay off these workers. That's bunk. It's a lie. But it takes somebody who's able to see through this. And I'm gonna be very honest with this man. I've already put in eight figures into my campaign already, but it's going to take a whole movement to fill the wake of that billionaire class in Silicon Valley and elsewhere that would have otherwise been supporters. And that's why I've gotten better at this. I wasn't good at this on day one, but I've gotten better at this, And just asking for help, do we have some questions, mister speaker, good evening, and mister Ramaswami. I just storted your new book and actually just arrived and I can't wait to read it. It struck me that for years a lot of these big corporations were giving out politically correct messages to appease those customers of theirs who were oversensitive and might boycott them. But now I turn around and look that these corporate bigwigs really have these deeply woke ideologies. And corporations to me were always you know, people are about to make money and the big gruff corporate fat cats and they're not woke. So how did this change happen? And when to let me reveal what's actually going on behind the scenes that's topped down. It's actually the ESG movement in this country, right, And you see this more in public companies than private ones. Why because the top shareholders of almost all public companies in the United States are three institutions, Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard. They're using the money. I would venture to say, probably of most people on this call to tell American companies to invest in those companies, but to tell them that we the shareholders, are demanding that you adopt these environmental or social goals or else will dock your pay as CEO or else we might even fire you from your board seat. And so that's actually the top down fource that turned upside down the model of the nineteen nineties, where the ninety nineties you would have said that if the CEO is using corporate resources to advance a social agenda, the shareholders are to discipline. But now they've turned that game upside down and they said, we are the shareholders Black Rock or Vanguard, and we demand that you adopt a Scope three emissions cap if you're Chevron, even though you didn't want to in twenty twenty one, or that you adopt a racial equity audit if your Apple or Home Depot in twenty twenty two, even though those companies initially didn't want to. So that's actually where the secret invisible hand behind the scene comes from, is from the black Rocks and state streets of the world and make government favors in response. So that's this ESG cancler that I've focused on not only exposing but also trying to defeat through the market. I started Strive. It was the only in leading effort to actually take this on. Strive crossed over half a billion dollars in the first three months after launching its first fund because of this hunger that people have. Once you're educated on this, it's hard to unsee. But I think that's a big part of the problem. Now. I think that there's a demand side to it, too, right, It only works if you have a general populace in a culture in America that's willing to buy up what they're selling. That's what I want to fix my running for the presidency through this broader cultural revival. That's great. Hi, I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, a little bit north New Good evening. Simple question, the US has lost standing on the world stage. We are not where we used to be. Why should jijiin king and Vladimir frutin respect or hopefully fear you well, thank you for saying that. I believe that we should actually use US military resources to who would have ever thought protect the United States? And so one of the first things that I'll do in office, and I've actually been the first candidate by far who has pledged to do this, though I hope and expect that others will catch on too, is to say, look, we have an ability to use a justified use legally, morally and ethically justified use of military force to protect our own border and to solve the Fennel crisis. I was actually just talking to somebody about this shortly before this call. I think we should be able to do to the cartels what we did on the other side of the world. To isis to al Zawahiri, to Slamani, to Bin Laden, because those are actually narco terrorists that are undermining the United States from within. And I think that does a couple of things. Of course, it solves the Fennel crisis, which is supply driven. And I think that I just refuse as an America I'm talking to you from Central Ohio today, I just refuse to sit by passively and watch one hundred thousand deaths per year level in a homelessness crisis driven by a problem that we can actually solve. That just irks me. I refuse to just watch with passivity. But I think it also sends a signal for what we're actually willing to do to protect American interests. The other thing I've called for it, and I think this is not going to be easy, but I think we're going to do it is actually declare independence from communist China. I think that is the you know, I know our host today is a historian and a history buff. Your history PhD right is right. This is the declaration of independence that Thomas Jefferson would sign if he were alive today. I think it's the declaration of independence that I intend to sign as the next president. That is not easy, right, We've got addicted to buying cheap stuff. There will be some short term economic inconvenience for us. But here's my theory of foreign policy. Okay, if you're willing to make a sacrifice, that's precisely when you don't actually have to make one. All Right, we need to start thinking on the time scales of history, not on the time scales of election cycles. A little bit more Churchill and a little less Chamberlain in America. Now, that's unfair to Chamberlain if you actually understand the true history of it. But you understand what I'm saying, okay, is that if we're willing to declare economic independence from China, we actually got to recognize and remember that China's in a weak spot right now. Sis and Pink tried to hold onto power for that unprecedented third term that he took over last October that gives us an opportunity to take the economic rug out from China so we can defeat them economically so that we'll never have to militarily. But you can only even be willing to make a sacrifice if you know what you are sacrificing for, and that is this thing we call America. Which is why it comes back to the thing I opened with, this revival of a missing national identity. That's why I'm running afternoon do they I'm from Local Rock, Arkansas, and I think it seems like to me that we could just like I would like to have a gazillion vivix in this country, and it seemed like to me that we don't have this immigration thing down. Why do you think Biden is not stopping illegal immigration over the border. I just think it's intentional or you can see these people they rice the border. What do you think is the whole skinny on this? It is part of this culture of apologizing for the essence of who we are, American exceptionalism. You can't even say that anymore. It's a four letter word. I say it all the time. It's a heart of our it's the heart of our campaign. Message is a belief in the exceptionalism of the ideas that set this nation int emotion, that constitute the heart and soul of this nation. But I think that it's part of this culture of apologizing for who we are. It's the same thing that puzzlingly makes them hostile to nuclear energy. Why because nuclear energy might actually be too good at solving their own supposed climate problem. But it also might be even if you buy into the tenets of this climate cult. But it also is pro growth. That's why there's an anti growth agenda and anti GDP growth agenda in this country for the same reason that we believe in the dissolution of our own borders. It's an apology for who America is. And so I think immigrants, and I'm a first generation America I was born here. But I think immigrants and even first generation Americans have a responsibility to actually revive that lifeblood of our nation. And so what does our immigration policy look like right now? We have accidental immigration, which is illegal immigration. Forget about that. We should have a hard line against that. Nobody's more hard line against illegal immigration, including the use of the military to secure it, than I am. But I also think that we need to pair that with getting rid of other forms of accidental immigration, an H one B lottery system. Why on earth would we have a lottery system when you could just pick the best ones. I'd say take meritocratic immigration instead, points based immigration, factoring in both contributions you're likely to make to this country, but also civic commitments to this country. Actually knowing something about the history and the principles of this country, and actually, you know what, Then you bring in people who actually believe in a nation, who actually have something to contribute to people who might be just taken for what they inherited for granted. And I think we need to revive this idea of citizenship in our country. I'll share something with you just for funds. And we're on a zoom here, just having some fun late in the late afternoon. Here. Take this in that spirit, imagine the opposite system, making this a two way street efforts met Nude actually when he came to college when I was a freshman in college. He won't remember this, but he had this idea. It was just a fun idea. We're in high schools across this country. You should give the kids who do best in math and science classes. You should give them some extra cash so that they can take someone out on a date and be one of the cool kids. Okay in high school nude, do you remember that? Yeah, okay, yeah, I remember it. It's stuck with me. Actually, you had an impression on me, and it's like, I'm talking. I wasn't thinking you'd like the money. Absolutely, yeah. I was good at math, so I would take that. Actually, I was like, why wasn't he The principle of my high school is that I was thinking. I was a freshman as eighteen years old at the time you made an impression on me. Here I am, you know, less than about twenty years later and running for president, taking inspiration from people like you who touched me twenty years ago without even knowing it because I was sitting in the audience and we didn't even meet, right, But I take that same idea. So the spirit of that idea, having some fun with this is, you know, let's give somebody some money. Give him fifty thousand dollars one hundred thousan dollars in this countr. If you don't believe in the ideas of this nation, we'll write you a check. Go to another country. The only thing is you don't get to come back. Okay, we'll build the wall, my kids, the military security, the wall. We got a secure border. Now why do I bring up that thought experiment because it will remind people who are not just immigrants who came to this country because they love it, but people who have a choice to stay in this country because they actually love it. They just forgot it. Because you can't value something you just inherit. You value you something, have a stake in building and choosing. And I'm just about reviving that lifeblood of citizenship, of belief in this great nation. That's part of what we've forgotten. And you know, thank you for saying that. Honestly, I'm just gonna shamelessly say this is forget the question of who you vote for in this election until next year. You could save that for next year. Nobody's cast in ballots this year. This year is about the what and the why. What do we stand for? Why do we stand for it? And my next goal is the next step. There's a step by step processes. Get a prominent spot, not a side spot, a prominent spot like Nudad in twenty twelve. And by the way, I watched you in those debates. You did more for this country in those debates than Mitt Romney did as the non I'm just gonna say that bluntly because he actually took a lot of what you said too. But I'm just gonna make it a shameless because there's nothing to be ashamed of. This is about the country we're talking about here. Everybody in this call. I don't know if it's one dollars one dollar, if it's the max out of thirty three hundred dollars thirty three hundred dollars, but just go to Vivic twenty twenty four dot com and make sure we actually drive that agenda this year. Actually, that's what matters. Forget forget the who Kevin McCarthy or somebody else right Rona McDaniel or somebody else who cares. These are boring questions. They don't matter. We bicker over them because we never stopped to first define the what and the why. Let's do that and put me in a position to do that for you. That's what I hope to do it, not only as a first generation American, but as somebody who's now running for president of the the United States. I appreciate I know how busy you are running for president, having tried it myself, I do want to mention to you close and I are now developing a movie series called Journey to America, which is first generation immigrants who have made this country dramatically better, and I think you would find it when it gets done a few weeks. It's really pretty amazing people like Henry Kissinger and others who really have dramatically enriched this country as your parents did. We're coming here, so I want to remind everyone V I V E K two O two four dot com. This is one of the brightest people to run for president, and I think somebody who's going to bring a lot of energy and already has made a lot more impact than I think people thought he could six or eight weeks ago. So we're going to follow you closely, and we really appreciate you tending the time with us, and we wish you very safe travels and maybe in a few months we can revisit and see how your campaign's coming. Appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Good to meet everybody this way, and it's always good to talk to you, you know, so people'll talk to you said thank you, thank you, very much, mister speaker. Yes, and I'd like to ask you please. I notice in the run up to this next election, you've got mister Trump and you've got mister DeSantis. They're all and they're starting to say take pot shots. I just wonder, do you think there's a chance that both of them, like Reagan and Bush did, would team up to run in twenty four They might? This is wide open. Remember if we were talking at this point in two fifteen, nobody would have told you Donald Trump's gonna be the nominee. He hasn't even come down that long escalator at this point, doesn't do that till June. So I would say that they're a possibility. I frankly was very impressed the other night by Governor Huckabee Sanders, who I thought did a great job answering the Democrats. Governor Kim Reynolds in Iowa has had an amazing record. Senator Tim Scott is a remarkable guy. There's a lot of people out there, and I would not automatically assume anything. Clearly, Donald Trump is the front runner, and clearly if he decides to run, governor to senis right now would be the number two position. But It's a long way from here to the election, and I wouldn't automatically assume that it will be stable and that it's automatically frozen in place current in Dallas, Texas. And my question following up on Vic's probe was with regard to federal unions and the contracts we have with them, because they do dominate policy at the end of the day. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the two most inefficient industries in America are both either either fuel completely or mostly by federal government dollars, and that is the education industry in the bureaucracy. Is there a way to break those contracts by the president or must he go through Congress? Or how does addressing those contracts work. Philip Howard has a new book out. He's one of the brightest lawyers looking at government and how it operates, and his new book, he basically argues that, much like Veveik did, that the very definition of our constitution allows the voters to elect people to whom they give power, and that the nature of public employee unions is unconstitutional because it violates the right of the voter to give power to somebody, because it puts in place, as Veveik made very clear, people who you can't fire, you can't control, who have their own agenda. So Philip Power now is gathering up the resources to file a lawsuit to go to the Supreme Court to get them to rule that by definition, public employee unions are unconstitutional. Now, if he wins that case, and he thinks he's got a very realistic chance of winning it, that will change everything, and it will be fascinating. And I happen to think you have to have a very profound overhaul of the whole structure of the bureaucracy, and that can only be done either through the Supreme Court or coming out of the twenty twenty four election by having a Republican House and Senate and a Republican President who make it one of their highest priorities in January of twenty twenty five. But clearly the current bureaucracies just don't work there muscle bound, they're geriatric, they're decaying, and they're just not competent, and it's going to take real change. I don't understand the difference between equity and inequality. The way they use it in the liberal media and often is not in Congress, in the Senate, could you tell me what you think. I think if you're on the left, equity means you get the same outcome. So, for example, if one group of students can't do math, then you should not allow another group of students to do math. So in a very famous case in Virginia, they had a high school in which a very high percent of the students were Asian American. Because they're parents are very education oriented, they insisted that their children do their homework. They really valued them doing well. So from a liberal standpoint, that was an inequitable outcome because they're not interested in the highest quality. They're interested in racial and sexual and other devices to define who you should be. Which, by the way, when you start getting to either running the Department of Transportation badly, or you can start getting to medical schools where instead of bringing in the brightest and the best people, you start bringing in people who may not be as bright or may not do as well, but they fit your model. You're building up problems for the future that are very real. So I think we stand for equality of opportunity, not equity of outcome. We stand for people doing their very best and as Vavay said, we stand for a meritocracy. We think you ought to be able to earn a better future. And the people who say, no, I don't want to work, I don't want to do anything, but you owe me. The whole conversation about the Silicon Valley Bank. If some person out there is a multi millionaire and they're stupid enough to put their money in a bank that was clearly on sound, why should all the rest of us have to work and pay to bail them out. They sure weren't going to help us as long as they were rich. So I'm very unsympathetic to the billionaires in Silicon Valley, and I think Biden was just playing wrong to say, you know, if you're part of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, you get two hundred and fifty thousand dollars because that's what was paid in. That's the insurance you bought. But if you haven't have thirty million dollars in an account, you get two hundred fifty thousand dollars. You don't get thirty million. And I think this is a huge mistake. And if the federal government gets in the habit of bailing out stupidity, it's going to really be very, very expensive. Let me remind all of you by the way, I hope you found this interesting. We hope to eventually have all the presidential candidates, including the Democrats, come and join us in the Inner Circle. And if you find it useful, I hope you'll tell your friends and encourage them to join it. I find it helpful and fascinating to listen to the questions and see where it goes. Thank you for listening, and thank you to members of my Inner Circle club. And if you'd like to become a member, please go to newts Inner Circle dot com and sign up for a one or two year membership today. Newts World is produced by Gingerish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guardsey Sloan, our producer is Rebecca Howe, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Fendley, special thanks to the team at Gingwish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of newts World can sign up for my three free weekly columns at gingwish three sixty dot com. I'm Slash Newsletter. I'm newd Gangridge. This is news work.