Linda Qiu
Sun, August 27, 2023
The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswam, center, fields a question at the first Republican presidential primary debate, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times).
Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, commanded considerable attention during the first Republican primary debate as his standing was rising in national polls.
Railing against “wokeism” and the “climate cult,” Ramaswamy has staked out unorthodox positions on a number of issues and characterized himself as the candidate most likely to appeal to young and new conservative voters.
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Here’s a fact check of his recent remarks on the campaign trail and during the debate.
CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL
What Ramaswamy Said:
“There was this Obama appointee, climate change activist, who also believes, as part of this Gaia-centric worldview of the Earth, that water rights need to be protected, which led to a five- to six-hour delay in the critical window of getting waters to put out those fires. We will never know, although certain science points out to the fact that we very well could have avoided those catastrophic deaths, many of them, if water had made it to the site of the fires on time.” — at a conservative conference in Atlanta in August
This lacks evidence. Ramaswamy was referring to M. Kaleo Manuel, the deputy director for Hawaii’s Commission on Water Resource Management, and overstating his ties to President Barack Obama as well as the potential effect of the requested water diversion.
First, Manuel is not an “Obama appointee” but rather participated in a leadership development program run by the Obama Foundation in 2019. Ramaswamy and other conservative personalities have derided comments Manuel made last year when he said that native Hawaiians like himself used to consider water something to “revere” and something that “gives us life.”
On Aug. 8, the day a wildfire engulfed a historic town in Hawaii, Manuel was contacted by the West Maui Land Co., a real estate developer that supplies water to areas southeast of the town of Lahaina on Maui island, The New York Times has reported. Noting high winds and drought, the company requested permission to fill a private reservoir for fire control, although the reservoir was not connected to fire hydrants. No fire was blazing in the area at the time.
The water agency asked the company whether the fire department had made the request, received no answer and said that it needed the approval of a farmer who relied on the water for his crops. The company said that it could not reach the farmer but that the agency approved the request hours later.
Asked for evidence of Ramaswamy’s claim that filling the reservoir when initially requested would have prevented deaths from the fire, a spokesperson said it was “common sense; if you can put out a fire faster using water, you can save lives.”
But state officials have said it is unlikely that the delay would have changed the course of the fire that swallowed Lahaina, as high winds would have prevented firefighters from gaining access to the reservoir. In an Aug. 10 letter to the water agency, an executive at the West Maui Land Co. acknowledged that there was no way to know whether “filling our reservoirs” when initially requested would have changed the outcome but asked the agency to temporarily suspend existing water regulations. The executive, in another letter, also wrote that “we would never imply responsibility” on Manuel’s part.
What Ramaswamy Said:
“The reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.” — in the first Republican debate Wednesday
False. There is no evidence to support this assertion. A spokesperson for Ramaswamy cited a 2022 column in the libertarian publication Reason that argued that limiting the use of fossil fuels would hamper the ability to deliver power, heat homes and pump water during extreme weather events. But the campaign did not provide examples of climate change policies actually causing deaths.
The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, estimated in May that extreme weather events, compounded by climate change, caused nearly 12,000 disasters and a death toll of 2 million between 1970 and 2021. Extreme heat causes about 600 deaths in the United States a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A 2021 study found that one-third of heat-related deaths could be attributed to climate change.
In campaign appearances and social media posts, Ramaswamy has also pointed to a decline in the number of disaster-related deaths in the past century, even as emissions have risen.
That, experts have said, is largely because of technological advances in weather forecasting and communication, mitigation tools and building codes. The May study by the World Meteorological Organization, for example, noted that 90% of extreme weather deaths occur in developing countries — precisely because of the gap in technological advances. Disasters are occurring at increasing frequencies, the organization has said, even as fatalities decrease.
JAN. 6 AND THE 2020 ELECTION
What Ramaswamy Said:
“What percentage of the people who were armed were federal law enforcement officers? I think it was probably high, actually. Right? There’s very little evidence of people being arrested for being armed that day. Most of the people who were armed, I assume the federal officers who were out there were armed.” — in an interview with The Atlantic in July
False. Ramaswamy has echoed the right-wing talking point that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol did not involve weapons and was largely peaceful. His spokesperson argued that he was merely asking questions.
But as early as this month, 104 out of about 1,100 total defendants have been charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon, according to the Justice Department. At least 13 face gun charges.
It is impossible to know just how many people in the crowd of 28,000 were armed, as some may have concealed their weapons or chosen to remain outside magnetometers set up at the Ellipse, a sprawling park near the White House, where Donald Trump held his rally. Still, through those magnetometers, Secret Service confiscated 242 canisters of pepper spray; 269 knives or blades; 18 brass knuckles; 18 stun guns; 30 batons or blunt instruments; and 17 miscellaneous items like scissors, needles or screwdrivers, according to the final report from the Jan. 6 committee.
What Was Said:
Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey: “In your book, you had much different things to say about Donald Trump than you’re saying here tonight.”
Ramaswamy: “That’s not true.” — in the Republican debate
Ramaswamy was wrong. During the debate, Ramaswamy vigorously defended Trump, calling him “the best president of the 21st century.” Christie was correct that Ramaswamy was much more critical of Trump in his books.
In his 2022 book, “Nation of Victims,” Ramaswamy wrote that despite voting for Trump in 2020, “what he delivered in the end was another tale of grievance, a persecution complex that swallowed much of the Republican Party whole.”
Ramaswamy added that he was “especially disappointed when I saw President Trump take a page from the Stacey Abrams playbook,” referring to the Democratic candidate for Georgia governor who, after her 2018 defeat, sued the state over accusations of voter suppression. Moreover, he wrote, Trump’s claims of electoral fraud were “weak” and “weren’t grounded in fact.”
In his 2021 book, “Woke Inc.,” Ramaswamy described the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as “a disgrace, and it was a stain on our history” that made him “ashamed of our nation.”
And after the Jan. 6 attack, Ramaswamy wrote on Twitter, “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple.”
FOREIGN POLICY
What Ramaswamy said:
“Much of our military defense spending in the last several decades has not actually gone to national defense.” — in an interview on the Fox Business Network in August
False. A spokesperson for Ramaswamy said he was comparing military aid to foreign countries and “homeland defense.” But the amount the United States has spent on security assistance pales in comparison to general military spending and homeland security spending.
According to the federal government’s foreign assistance portal, military aid to other countries ranged from $6 billion to $23 billion annually from the fiscal years 2000 to 2022, peaking in the fiscal years 2011 and 2012 when aid to Afghanistan alone topped $10 billion a year.
In the past two decades, the Pentagon’s annual budget ranged from more than $400 billion to more than $800 billion. Operation and maintenance is the largest category of spending (36%) and includes money spent on fuel, supplies, facilities, recruiting and training, followed by compensation for military personnel (23%), procurement of new equipment and weapons (19%), and research and development (16%).
The Department of Homeland Security itself has an annual budget that has increased from $40 billion in the 2004 fiscal year, when the agency was created, to more than $100 billion in the 2023 fiscal year.
Ramaswamy’s claim reflects a common misconception among American voters, who tend to overestimate the amount spent on foreign aid. Foreign aid of all categories — including military aid as well as assistance for health initiatives, economic development or democratic governance — makes up less than 1% of the total federal budget. In comparison, about one-sixth of federal spending goes to national defense, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Outside official government figures, researchers at Brown University have estimated that since 9/11, military spending in the United States has exceeded $8 trillion. By that breakdown, the United States has spent $2.3 trillion in funding for overseas fighting versus $1.1 trillion in homeland security defenses. But that figure also includes spending that cannot be neatly categorized as overseas versus domestic defense spending: $1.3 trillion in general military spending increases and medical care, $1.1 trillion in interest payments and $2.2 trillion for future veterans care.
What Was Said:
Nikki Haley, former U.N. ambassador: “You want to go and defund Israel. You want to give Taiwan to China. You want to go and give Ukraine to Russia.”
Ramaswamy: “Let me address that. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m going to address each of those right now. This is the false lies of a professional politician." — in the Republican debate
Both exaggerated. Haley omitted nuance in describing Ramaswamy’s foreign policy positions, but her characterizations are far from “lies.”
In interviews and campaign appearances, Ramaswamy has said that he views the deal to provide Israel with $38 billion over 10 years for its security as “sacrosanct.” But he has said that by 2028, when the deal expires, he hopes that Israel “will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S.”
In a nearly hourlong speech at the Nixon Library this month, Ramaswamy said his administration would “defend Taiwan if China invades Taiwan before we have semiconductor independence in this country,” which he estimated he could achieve by 2028. But, he continued, “thereafter, we will be very clear that after the U.S. achieves semiconductor independence, our commitments to send our sons and daughters to put them in harm’s way will change.”
On Russia’s war in Ukraine, Ramaswamy has said he would “freeze the current lines of control” — which includes several southeastern regions of Ukraine — and pledge to prohibit Ukraine from being admitted to NATO if Russia ended its “alliance” with China. (The two countries do not have a formal alliance.)
c.2023 The New York Times Company
Nitish Pahwa
Fri, August 25, 2023
Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy at the first GOP debate on Wednesday in Milwaukee. Win McNamee/Getty Images
About 20 minutes into Wednesday’s Republican presidential nominee debate, the Fox News anchors turned things over to a college student with a pertinent question. “Polls consistently show that young people’s No. 1 issue is climate change,” said Alexander Diaz, chair of Young Americans for Freedom at the Catholic University of America. “How will you, as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party, calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change?”
It was, honestly, a remarkable moment. Fox News itself has been no slouch in the decades-spanning right-wing mission to downplay the effects of climate change, disputing the near-universal global agreement that human overdependence on fossil fuels is to blame. Yet, just before Diaz’s question, moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum pointed to the historic weather disasters unfolding across the country—Maui’s wildfires, Tropical Storm Hilary, the Florida coast’s “hot tub” ocean temperatures, the record-breaking Southwestern heat waves—and noted their links to human impacts. They even closed out Diaz’s question with one of the most pointed gestures of the night: asking each candidate to raise their hand to demonstrate their belief that the climate was indeed changing thanks to human action.
Granted, the bar is so, so low. In the 2012 cycle, there were more questions asked about the moon than about the Earth. In 2016, voters concerned about our climate’s future had to watch Hillary Clinton declare that she believed in science as a laugh line, since the concept of a (denialist) President Donald Trump was still perceived as a joke. Last cycle, climate change did come up, albeit mostly in the Democratic primaries, not in Trump-devoted Republican circles. But over the past decade, the climate around climate change has, well, changed considerably: Following youth trends more broadly, Gen Z and millennial Republicans have consistently stated that they want their party to take firm action on the problem. As John Della Volpe, polling director at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, noted in a pre-debate newsletter: “Protecting access to clean air and water … is about as important to younger Republicans as preserving traditional values is for older ones.”
Diaz himself is evidence of this new type of young Republican: He interned this summer for Arizona Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a freshman Republican who, in a bipartisan talk held in Tucson this week, touted the opportunity to make his state a “climate tech hub” while mentioning his congressional work to protect public lands and fund the cleanup of “forever chemicals” from Arizonan water supplies. Far from sufficient, but better than many Republicans these days.
Anyway, how did the candidates respond to the should-be layup of “raise your hand if you agree humans are changing the climate”? Not well, obviously, as this is the party whose base is still in thrall to Donald Trump—who gutted environmental regulations during his administration and has declared his intent to further that project should he win in 2024, likely in part by complaining about water-efficient showerheads.
A request for a quick gesture devolved into a melee of incoherent braying. Ron DeSantis interrupted the hand-raising exercise to say they should get to debate the issue instead. Then he went off on a misleading rant about President Joe Biden’s Maui response that moderators agreed was not an answer to the question at hand. Everything got worse when Vivek Ramaswamy jumped in with this absolute humdinger: “I’m the only person on this stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this: The climate change agenda is a hoax.” Wildly enough, the in-house viewers booed Ramaswamy for this; the polling firm Navigator found that his approval among independent women voters dropped sharply as Ramaswamy continued ranting about the “anti-carbon agenda” and attributed human casualties to “bad climate change policies.” This also fueled a heated personal squabble with Chris Christie, in an early manifestation of the candidates’ deep contempt for this fast-talking newcomer—who, tauntingly, brought up the Christie-Obama “hug” that followed Superstorm Sandy.
Then Nikki Haley responded, in … a relatively thoughtful manner? “We do care about clean air, clean water—we want to see that taken care of,” she declared. “Is climate change real? Yes, it is. But if you wanna go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.” Whatever you make of that line, it is maybe the most reasonable thing any Republican debater said about the issue—again, the bar is so, so low—and it earned a bit of applause.
Haley took a similar tack on abortion, dismissing the push for a federal ban (an incredibly unpopular policy helmed only by incredibly unpopular people, like Mike Pence) and holding forth on the need to protect vulnerable women instead of just, like, jailing them. Both subjects require GOP contenders, in the hopes of “appeasing the base,” to take extremist positions (being anti-abortion, denying human-caused climate change) that are wildly at odds with what the clear majority of American people actually want (access to abortion, action on climate change). Thanks to a detested former president and an outright-loathed Supreme Court, the GOP has backed itself into self-defeating stances both topics. The other candidates’ waffling only underscored this, as did post-debate polling demonstrating that even though Haley was favored by independents, Ramaswamy charmed the Trump-era base.
Overall, it wasn’t a great night for anyone who desires a more reality-oriented GOP. Ramaswamy hammered his oft-repeated “Drill, frack, burn coal” line, earning some cheers; Doug Burgum, known for embracing a bit of action to reduce emissions as North Dakota governor, nevertheless echoed Haley’s critiques of Biden’s climate policies for allegedly “subsidizing China,” conveniently forgetting the domestic battery factory coming to his state thanks to funds from the president’s infrastructure bill. “If we’re going to stop buying oil from the Middle East and start buying batteries from China, we’re going to trade OPEC for Sinopec,” he blustered. (Buddy, I’m sure that one sounded a lot better in your head.)
Once again, the Republican Party is on track to dismiss the existential concerns of young voters—even as they grow into an ever-important voting bloc. If this didn’t help the GOP in the past few election cycles, it’s probably not going to help them in the next one, either. At any rate, it’s going to be an interesting several months!
