Vivek Ramaswamy added another agency to the list of federal entities he says he'd shut down if elected president in 2024: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“We are done with the J. Edgar Hoover legacy,” the 2024 presidential hopeful told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 3.
Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who founded the anti-ESG firm Strive, has already pledged to close the Department of Education—a call he reiterated during his March 3 CPAC speech.
“It has no reason to exist,” he said.
Ramaswamy also took aim at the “national divorce” rhetoric that has made its way into conservative circles.
“Do we want a national divorce, or do we want a national revival?”
He argued that genuine “national unity” cannot be achieved through wishy-washy appeals to centrism or moderation.
“You get national unity in this country by embracing the extremism, the radicalism of the ideals that set this nation into motion 250 years ago,” he said.
Ramaswamy also reiterated his pledge to end affirmative action.
“It is a national cancer on our soul, and we are done with it,” he said.
He also called for the United States to declare independence from China. Ramaswamy specifically said the country should ban most firms from doing business there until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) collapses or “radically reforms itself.”
“I’m sorry, Henry Kissinger. We’re done with your experiment in America,” he said, referring to the legendary diplomat who opened up relations with China.
Criticizing ‘Three Secular Religions’
The 2024 hopeful began his speech by describing his path from biotech entrepreneur to outspoken conservative, which began after the death of George Floyd in 2020. He said he was under pressure in his company to speak out in favor of Black Lives Matter.“I chose not to do it,” he said.
Ramaswamy named “three secular religions” he believes are poisoning American life.
The first he described as a “woke racial religion” in which identity dictates everything. Ramaswamy argued that Americans’ fear of being called racist had allowed that creed to gain power.
“When given the choice between pledging allegiance to this new religion and being tarred with the scarlet ‘R,’ that’s when everyday Americans started to bend the knee,” he said.
The second secular religion has to do with gender and sexuality. He pointed out that two seemingly contradictory beliefs are enforced at the same time.
“The sex of the person you’re attracted to has to be hardwired on the day you were born—it had to be, or else it couldn’t be a civil right—but your own biological sex is completely fluid over the course of your lifetime. It makes no sense unless it’s a religion,” he said.
He named “the climate religion in America” as the third secular religion.
Ramaswamy said the climate faith “has about as much to do with the climate as the Spanish Inquisition had to do with Christ, which is to say nothing at all.”
“It is about power, dominion, control, punishment, and apologizing for what we have achieved in this country and the modern West as we know it,” he added.
He argued that a pervasive culture of victimhood had “domesticated” Americans’ “inner animal spirit.”
Ramaswamy, who said he was “all in on the America First agenda,” welcomed the competition with Trump during election season.
Questions Remain on Trade, Legal Immigration
Ramaswamy’s CPAC speech comes just weeks after he announced his candidacy on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Feb. 21.The biotech entrepreneur then embarked on a tour of New Hampshire and Iowa, two important early states in the caucus and primary calendar.
After a Feb. 23 speech at Iowa’s Capitol, Ramaswamy told The Epoch Times that he was “stepping up and offering a vision of national identity” through his candidacy.
A self-described hardliner regarding China and illegal immigration, Ramaswamy has said less about trade and the high rate of legal immigration.
He told The Epoch Times he supports a points-based immigration system.
