Vivek Ramaswamy at Exeter Town Hall: US in 'middle of a war' and as an outsider he can heal

Multimillionaire and political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy told voters in New Hampshire on Saturday that he is uniquely qualified to lead the U.S. out of its ongoing culture wars.

The tech entrepreneur said the country "is in the middle of a kind of war … not a war between black and white as the media might teach you to believe. it is not even a war between Democrats and Republicans. It's a war between the majority of us … who believe in the founding ideals of this country, that all men are created equal."

On the other side, he said, is a "fringe minority who says your identity is based on your race, your gender and your sexuality. … There is no middle ground between these views."

The good news Ramaswamy, 38, told a standing room crowd of voters at Exeter Town Hall on Saturday morning is that he had learned during his nine-month campaign "that 80% of us in the United States, black or white, red or blue, are on the pro-American side of this war."

While some candidates have called out his age and experience as weaknesses, Ramaswamy said his generation "grew up in the 10 to 20 years where we were taught to celebrate our diversity and our differences."

"We forgot all of the ways that we are really the same as Americans, bound by that common set of ideals. I believe it's deep in my bones that those ideals still exist," he said. "But we're going to have to do the hard work of rediscovering them."

Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?

An Ohio native, Ramaswamy holds a biology degree from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. After beginning a career as a hedge fund investor, he made millions in the biotech world when he founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical research company, in 2014.

Forbes valued the company at $7.3 billion in 2021, and it puts his net worth at around $600 million in 2016. After leaving Roivant in 2021, he published bestseller Woke, Inc.

Ramaswamy also founded a drug company that was developing intepirdine, which looked to help Alzheimer's patients but that business went belly up in 2017.

He announced his candidacy in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal in February, saying, "I am launching not only a political campaign but a cultural movement to create a new American Dream – one that is not only about money but about the unapologetic pursuit of excellence."

What has he said about Donald Trump?

Ramaswamy has made overt appeals to Donald Trump's base in various ways, including a pledge that if elected, he will pardon the 2024 GOP front-runner for any federal crimes.

On Saturday, he called Trump "an excellent president" while responding to a question about the Department of Education. He said that even though Trump named Betsy DeVos to run the department, what is needed is a "quantum leap change" because incremental reform is not working.

What did he say about the Department of Education?

"My approach is to actually take a lot of these agencies and shut them down," he said. Ramaswamy said he favored taking the Education Department's budget and sending "it back to the parents across this country. … Every parent, whether they're here or if they move to Chicago or anywhere else, (would have) true educational mobility for their children."

What did Vivek Ramaswamy say about the Israel-Hamas war?

He supported Israel's right to defend its homeland, but suggested the U.S. move with trepidation. "We have to provide Israel with diplomatic support, munitions support as needed and further even provide them with intelligence sharing (and) get to the bottom of that intelligence failure. Frankly both the U.S. and Israel allowed this to happen," Ramaswamy said. "But we have to do it in a way that avoids broader regional conflict in the Middle East. That does not advance American interests."

Past involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq resulted in less-than-desirable results, Ramaswamy said. "The Taliban is still in charge in Afghanistan 20 years later and frankly (there is) a hostile anti-American regime in Iraq that's vulnerable to Iranian incursion. That didn't advance American interests and we have to own up to that."

Where is Vivek Ramaswamy in the polls?

Poll aggregators 538 and Real Clear Politics have him in third and fourth, at 7.2% and 6.2%, respectively. Real Clear Politics has Ramaswamy in fifth in New Hampshire averaging 7.2%.

Ramaswamy polled at 4% in a New Hampshire poll by USA TODAY/Boston Globe/Suffolk University. That placed him tied for fifth with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, behind Trump, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Contributing: Phillip Bailey

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vivek Ramaswamy at Exeter Town Hall: US in a culture war