Vivek Ramaswamy: This Is Likely When Biden Will End His 2024 Presidential Campaign
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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is Vivek Ramaswamy,
00:07entrepreneur, former 2024 presidential candidate and author of Truths, coming out in September.
00:13Vivek, thank you so much for joining me.
00:15It's good to be on.
00:17We had a historic presidential debate on Thursday between current President Joe Biden, former
00:23President Donald Trump. And almost a week later, we're still dealing with the fallout
00:27from President Biden's debate performance. People now are calling for him to step aside,
00:32drop out of the race. You have been saying he's not going to be the Democrats' nominee
00:36for months now. Can you talk about why you've been saying that?
00:40I've been saying that for nearly a year and a half now. I said it for much of the campaign
00:43trail last year, though it was dismissed as a crazy idea last year. It has now become
00:49the mainstream view of what's going to happen. And the reason is, first of all, I think most
00:52organizations, including political parties, tend to do whatever's in their best long-run
00:57interest. So I think that the plan as it's played out, not that it's been in some smoke-filled
01:02backroom plot, but just the incentives match exactly what you're seeing play out, which
01:07is a late switch would actually be to the advantage of Democrats. That's the hard reality
01:11where they'd rather put somebody up late, still in the honeymoon phase with the public
01:17when the election occurs in November, but without having the chance to go through that
01:20scrutiny phase. To anybody who's been watching this for a long time, it's been plain as day
01:24that Joe Biden does not have the cognitive faculties to serve as the U.S. president.
01:29It's sad. Many people across this country do suffer from dementia. It does appear like
01:34Joe Biden is likely to be one of them, but that doesn't entitle him to be the president
01:37of the United States. To the contrary, I'm really worried about, even right now in the
01:41lead-up to the election, who exactly is running the country. It's been unclear who's running
01:46the country for the last year and a half. I think it's certainly unclear who's running
01:49it right now. But I do continue to believe, as I have for the last 16 months, that Joe
01:55Biden will not be the nominee. And I think in some ways this election, for that reason,
01:58hasn't really even kicked into full gear.
02:01I had a conversation a few hours ago with a Republican congresswoman, Harriet Hageman,
02:06and she said, she asked that same question, I am curious who's running the country. I'm
02:11going to flip it back to you. Who do you think is running the country right now if you don't
02:14think it's Joe Biden?
02:16Look, I think it is a managerial machine. For so many years in America, we've seen the
02:21decline of our constitutional republic into this administrative bureaucracy, the rise
02:26of the administrative state, the rise of bureaucrats who are never elected to their positions,
02:32who are really the ones setting most of public policy today. It's interesting, even just
02:36last week, the Supreme Court did rein in a good amount of that administrative power.
02:40But whether you want to call it the deep state, the administrative state, the fourth branch
02:44of government, or the unelected bureaucrats, that's, I think, the class of people, particularly
02:49around Joe Biden, who are really running the show. And they've really just put up a president
02:54really as a symbol, as a kind of puppet, for a machine underneath it that's really driving
02:59most of the policy decisions. And so, you know, that's not conspiratorial or accusational.
03:03I think it's just a descriptive reality of how Washington, D.C. works today. The people
03:07we elect to run the government are not the ones actually running the government. And
03:11nowhere is that more true than in the case of Joe Biden, who is only nominal, in some
03:15thin nominal sense, the president of the United States. I don't think in any real, actual
03:20true sense, he really is even the president, which is part of why I've long advised Republicans
03:26and said so as a candidate myself, that the way that we need to win this election isn't
03:31just by criticizing Biden. Frankly, Biden isn't going to be the nominee, as I've said
03:35for the last year and a half. The way we're going to actually win not only this election,
03:39but revive this country is by defining who we are and what we stand for and what are
03:45those values that we're actually advancing rather than just worried about the candidate
03:49who we're running against.
03:51If you don't think President Biden is going to be the nominee, who do you think is going
03:55to replace him?
03:56Look, again, I think you've got to track the incentives and the psychology of the party
04:01that's at issue here. In this case, that's the Democratic Party. There's an uncomfortable
04:05truth. Kamala Harris was not qualified to be the vice president. She didn't even make
04:10it to the Iowa caucus. She was wildly unpopular and I think egregiously unqualified to serve
04:14as the vice president. She's failed on every initiative she's been given, most notably
04:19for border security, where that's been one of the real black marks on the Biden presidency,
04:23among many black marks on that presidency. Nonetheless, they went with her for one reason,
04:28identity politics. Don't take it from me. Look at what many Democrats said at the time
04:32for her basis for being put into that position, that she was a woman of color. Their words,
04:36not mine.
04:37Well, if they put her in that position based on identity politics, then I think it's going
04:42to be very difficult for them to pass her over unless they actually admit they were
04:46wrong before, which is impossible for them to do. And so I think it's either got to be
04:50Kamala Harris or somebody else who checks those same boxes, like Michelle Obama. And
04:56I think the latter possibility, people discounted. I think it's actually more likely than most
05:00people expect, because that would also be the type of figure that rises above the otherwise
05:05personal competitive forces that a lot of other ambitious people who might want to run
05:09for president in the Democratic Party would have competing against each other.
05:13I think Michelle Obama does rise above that fray while still paying homage to the temple
05:17of identity politics that resulted in Kamala Harris's elevation in the first place.
05:22Michelle Obama has said before that she doesn't want to run. But who do you think has the
05:27better chance of beating Trump? Because both Biden and Harris in a recent CNN poll are
05:33losing to Trump. But the gap between Harris and Trump is smaller. So who do you think
05:38is the Democrats best option?
05:40Look, that's for the Democratic Party to decide. The reality is, I think President Trump is
05:44on a firm course to not only win this election, but to potentially win this election in a
05:49unifying landslide like we haven't seen in this country in a generation since Reagan
05:54in 1980 and 1984. And I do think this country is in bad need of that type of unifying result.
06:01We're used to these razor thin margins, all the way from the 2000 election on down, that
06:05I do think has divided this country and created an artificial perception of division. When
06:10in fact, when I travel this country now, a lot of people in communities that would have
06:14otherwise supposedly gone Democrat, urban inner city communities, black Americans, young
06:18Americans, even people who are working class Americans that might have historically voted
06:22Democrat. I think they're sick and tired of the way those policies have left them holding
06:26the bag, particularly economically. And I also think that the scourge of illegal mass
06:31migration in this country has left Americans of every color and every partisan affiliation
06:36worse off for that illegal migration crisis and the wave of crime in the cities across
06:41this country. So I think President Trump has an opportunity to make this a unifying landslide
06:47victory irrespective of who the Democrats put up. But that comes back to the cautionary
06:51note I offered earlier. We can't fall into the trap of obsessing over who the nominee
06:55is going to be on the other side. I think we have to do the harder work of looking in
06:58the mirror and asking ourselves, who are we and what do we actually stand for? Not just
07:04as Republicans, but as Americans. And I think if President Trump does that, I think he's
07:08on track to already doing it. I think he did a great job at the debate and a lot of his
07:11recent speeches. If he stays on that track, Republicans up and down the ballot, I think
07:16we're going to be able to unite this country in a landslide.
07:20Like you said at the beginning of the conversation, your call or prediction, rather, that President
07:24Biden won't be the nominee was dismissed for months as a sort of fringe talk. The past
07:30week, that has become way more mainstream. On a campaign call today, President Biden
07:34said in no uncertain terms, reportedly, that he is staying in the race until the very end.
07:40So what do you think of his insistence there?
07:42Well, he might be right about that and that the very end is just coming very soon. So
07:47that's, I think, the reality. The longer they wait, though, every day between now and
07:50late August, you could argue it actually helps the Democrats. As I said, the later that swap
07:55out takes place, the less time there is for scrutiny of that candidate, the more likely
07:59it is that the candidate is in a honeymoon phase with the public, whoever it is that
08:03they put up. It's akin to the feeling that a tortured prisoner might have to his liberator.
08:08That would be the attitude of much of the public, certainly aided by the mainstream
08:11media to whoever that new nominee is going to be. And so if you just play out the incentives,
08:15I'm not a big fan of conspiracizing or theorizing without fact, but just look at the actual
08:20incentives. And in the same way that an investor would, you have a business audience,
08:25I'm a business person, look at the incentives, play that out. I think it's a big part of why
08:29I've been vehement for over a year, even when it was considered to be a fringe conspiracy to say
08:34that Biden wasn't going to be the nominee. Just follow the incentives. And I would do the same
08:38thing now as well. I think doing this tomorrow may not be their best incentive, but doing this
08:42over the course of the next four weeks, maybe even after the Republican National Convention,
08:47after that cake is baked. Yeah, that seems like a reasonable period when Biden's end of his
08:52candidacy may come near. Within the past year and a half, like you said, when you've been calling
08:57that he is going to drop out, you predicted the timeframe was going to be in two to three months.
09:02You said that in November. Obviously, it's been a little bit longer than two to three months. But
09:07is that because going back to your last answer, because Democrats, you believe,
09:12are incentivized to keep him in the race as long as possible?
09:16I think there was certainly no urgency to it. And I also think that that was part of why
09:20many in the Democratic establishment agreed to this debate. Not only did they agree to the debate,
09:25they effectively called for it. This was the earliest presidential debate in U.S. history.
09:30Never has there been a televised debate this early. And it's the only one that's ever taken
09:35place before the nominating convention of either party. Why do you think they went out of their way
09:40to demand that as a condition for a debate for the first time in American history? It's obvious.
09:45That was supposed to be Biden's final test. He failed it. I was saying that in the lead-up to
09:49the debate that was dismissed as a theory for why they scheduled the debate. It seems obvious now
09:53in retrospect. And so my only point is, I think that I say this less to congratulate myself on
09:58being right about some prediction, but the reality is anybody who found themselves surprised by
10:03Biden's performance, by Biden's lack of mental acuity, and by the Democrats' ready willingness
10:09to now swap him out, certainly in the media establishment, should ask themselves if the
10:14public institutions in the media and in the political establishment lied to you for that long
10:18about that. What else are they lying to you about as well? And just to be skeptical for people to
10:23seek the truth by tracking incentives and analyzing the situation on their own, rather than just
10:29swallowing what they're forced to. Vivek Ramaswamy, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much for
10:34your time today. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you. Appreciate it. We'll talk soon.