Former 2024 Republican presidential hopeful and Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy said that the incoming Trump administration is focused on “uniting the country,” listing it as a top priority.
“I think he cares about uniting the country. I think that is Donald Trump’s No. 1 focus,” Ramaswamy told ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday, responding to a question from the outlet’s Jonathan Karl.
Ramaswamy, a businessman, said that “we have to get back to a place, after this election, after that decisive victory—which I do think was a gift to the country—get back to a place where ordinary Americans who might have voted differently among their family members or their colleagues or their neighbors, to be able to get together at the dinner table and say, ‘We’re still Americans at the end of this.’”
During an event in January, Trump suggested that Ramaswamy would be on his team in some capacity, along with former 2024 GOP candidates Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. “That’s a group of great people,” Trump said of the three. “You’ll be seeing a lot of them.”
Trump confirmed at a rally in mid-June that Ramaswamy would “be with us in some form,” calling him a “smart guy.”
While Ramaswamy on Sunday did not say if he would be joining the Trump team, he said the president-elect has “learned a lot from that first term” and will “take to new heights some of the things he wasn’t able to accomplish in the first term, which I think is going to be a good thing.”
Last week, Trump won the presidential election against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, garnering all seven swing states and winning the popular vote. Ballots are still being counted in states including Arizona and California.
His win also marks a comeback for the president-elect since the 2020 election. Since then, he has been charged with felony crimes in four jurisdictions, among other legal problems.
A day after Election Day, Trump told his supporters that his win has given him and the GOP “a powerful and unprecedented mandate” on a multitude of different policy proposals he made in the campaign.
“This will truly be the golden age of America. That’s what we have to have,” he said. “This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again.”
On. Nov. 7, President Joe Biden spoke at the White House and called on Americans to accept the results of the election.
“We accept the choice the country made,” he said. “I’ve said many times, you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree,” and he called for unity after the bitterly partisan election.
Biden also called on people to “bring down the temperature” in terms of political rhetoric, adding that voters should “see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans.”
“For over 200 years, America has carried on the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world,” the president said at the White House’s Rose Garden, adding it is a system “where the people, the people vote and choose their own leaders and they do it peacefully. And where in a democracy, the will of the people always prevails.”
During the initial phase of his transition, Trump so far has named his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, to become his White House chief of staff.
“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected,” the president-elect said in a statement late last week. “Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again.”
