This week GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy braved the wintry conditions to travel the state as most of Iowa experienced blizzard-like conditions. He finished the day on Tuesday with an event in West Des Moines. And he closed it with a media availability that went about 40 minutes.
Media availabilities typically last 5-10 minutes tops with presidential candidates. Ramaswamy, though, has extended the length of these throughout his campaign when time allows.
And during this particular media availability, he pushed back hard against narratives offered by the mainstream media.
It started with Iowa State Rep. Jeff Shipley explaining why he endorsed Ramaswamy earlier that night. Shipley credited Ramaswamy for discussing eminent domain and carbon capture pipeline projects.
“I think the carbon capture pipeline project, maybe more than anything else, is going to determine a lot for the future of Iowa,” Shipley said. “I’ve been very appreciative of that stance. But really, you put in the work and it’s been noticed.”
Shipley also said Ramaswamy has been “knocking it out of the park” as it relates to the weaponization of federal law enforcement.
Ramaswamy said he’d rather lose an election and stand for what’s right than to play a political game in support of eminent domain being used for the carbon capture pipelines. However, he believes he’ll deliver a surprise in Iowa.
Ramaswamy said he was “amused and offended” at a story from The Iowa Standard detailing a poll that excluded Vivek from an answer.
“That (poll) purposefully, literally you have voters proactively asking about my name when they’re not mentioned according to this reporting, and they’ll hear of anyone from Asa Hutchinson to Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, to Ron DeSantis, but exclude me. That’s purposefully trying to I think, and has successfully, sullied the waters of a small set of people who are actually polled, but has really deceived the general public about what’s about to happen here in Iowa. And the sad part is, the mainstream media — you all — latch onto that narrative in deciding what you foist onto your viewers in deciding who they should or shouldn’t support because I fall outside of that Overton window. But you know what, the people aren’t going to be duped. I don’t think the people of Iowa, caucusgoers, are sheep.”
Vivek was pressed by a reporter for nixing a couple of events due to local law enforcement advisories regarding road conditions. He responded to criticism from the media for Vivek’s earlier criticisms of other candidates canceling events before he canceled a couple of his own.
Ramaswamy said it was a “classic” move by the mainstream media.
“I’ve done more events than every other candidate combined,” he said. “And people know. In Iowa, they reward the people who have shown up. We’ve shown up and we’re not just showing up to check some box.”
Ramaswamy said his campaign is doing things the way it is supposed to. And he pivoted back to the poll shenanigans he referred to earlier.
“I think many of you are actively interfering with the Iowa Caucus,” he said. “Shame on you for that. Trying to actually create artificial distortions. Thankful for a real journalist who at least is an Iowan journalist at The Iowa Standard that reported on a lot of these shenanigans — expressly excluding certain polls used by the RNC to determine who you do and don’t put in front of your audiences. Shame on you. But the people of this state and the caucusgoers in particular I think are smart enough to see through it. We’re betting on their ability to do it.”
Ramaswamy said things changed when he began speaking about things that are outside of the Overton window of the Republican Party — such as the truth about Jan. 6 as well as the Ukraine conflict and funding by America.
He said the corporate media has “lost their minds” because of the topics he chooses to discuss. He noted it isn’t just the left-wing media either, but the corporate media.
Rep. Shipley said comparing Ramaswamy’s campaign to that of Ryan Binkley and Perry Johnson isn’t a fair comparison. Ramaswamy was “at the tip on the spear” by writing books about topics such as ESG in 2020.
“He’s been on the frontline of major policy accomplishments and issues to bring forward,” Shipley said. “To compare him to people like Perry Johnson, there’s just not a comparison from my perspective.”
Ramaswamy said he believes corporate media is attempting to make the race a two-candidate showdown between Donald J. Trump and a “puppet” they can control — Nikki Haley.
Then they want to eliminate Trump from competition. “I’m the America First candidate in this race who you’re not going to be able to take out,” Ramaswamy said. “I am in this until the very end. A lot of you guys have been trying to write a lot of the trash about trying to, you know, discredit the candidacy of how committed I am — you know what, I’m spending my own money. I’m putting my money where my mouth is. We are in this race until the very end and the very end is Nov. 2024 and then it’s January 2033. So get ready guys, I’m not going anywhere. And you know what you’re going to have to start getting used to contending with the realities of the issues I’m talking about, even if that falls outside of what your bosses deem acceptable.”
Ramaswamy explained to the mainstream media reporters they were serving as pawns in the game of the establishment, but he will not drop out and instead owes it to the country to make sure they are in it through the inauguration and until January of 2033. The “fake reporting,” he said, is a “desperate attempt of a bunch of Super PAC puppets that have their cronies in the media doing their bidding for them.”
Shipley said the present moment is what matters. And there are important issues Iowans need to know about. Shipley said he wasn’t aware Larry Fink was supportive of Nikki Haley.
“It’s just so shocking because this is one of the big globalist architects of whatever is happening internationally and this is the biggest threat,” Shipley said. “The problem isn’t so much Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, all of those people. We have Nikki Haley being backed by people like Larry Fink and these big globalists who, their sole purpose is to deconstruct national sovereignty to allow these big pipeline projects, to rob land from Iowans. That’s what people need to be focused on and discussing.”
Ramaswamy then got into a discussion with an ABC News reporter about a debate offer to Cornel West. Ramaswamy said he didn’t care and it “meant nothing to me.” The reporter asked Ramaswamy if there were any other candidates he was willing to debate one-on-one.
“Anybody,” Ramaswamy answered. “That’s my whole premise. You’ve got other Republican candidates that will be having security escort people out if they have a question that the candidate disapproves of. We don’t roll that way.”
Ramaswamy said he has been answering questions from people who disagree with him throughout his campaign. The reporter interrupted him.
“Your question, with due respect ma’am, is incoherent and I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
He continued, saying he would debate anybody whether they agree or disagree.
“We have to have more open dialogue in this country,” he said.
Shipley mentioned the difficulty in getting answers from other candidates regarding the carbon capture pipeline projects.
“You’ll ask them, ‘What’s your stance on the carbon pipeline’ and they’ll tell you everything but their stance on that issue,” Shipley said. “Yet there’s people’s property, their century farms, are at stake at this issue. We need to be talking about it now and it needs media attention.”
Ramaswamy went into greater detail about his concerns about a plan to pit a puppet (Haley) against Trump before doing what is necessary to remove Trump from the race.
We were able to ask Ramaswamy about his exclusion from the CNN debate as well as Fox News hosting town hall events with every other major candidate and whether Vivek would take Greg Gutfeld up on his invitation for a town hall. That happened on Thursday and Friday nights.
“I think that’s actually far more fluid and organic and good for Greg Gutfeld,” Vivek said. “Good for Tucker. Good for people who are able to think independently outside of the programmed mind of the Overton window that’s about as narrow as can be right now about what ideas we’ve been able to explore in our politics.”
Ramaswamy also said it is “obvious” the media doesn’t want him in the race.
“Look at the BS that they’re printing,” he said.
The media is failing to meet even its own “low journalistic standards” to write a narrative for the race to dupe Americans.
“I also think that local press is one of the best checks that we have on centralized national media,” Ramaswamy said. “I think there’s two checks. One is a thriving local press, which sadly one of the things I’ve learned traveling the state is you’ve got some great reporters at local papers trying to do good, independent journalism but have been choked out because of the nature of a consolidated business model. And the other check is a free and open internet which frankly allows people to reach people directly through podcasts or otherwise. As a business matter, that’s a far more promising economic proposition. I think we’re going to have to figure out how the economics of local press can work because I think a loss for this country is the disappearance of local press.”
Ramaswamy said going through the process in Iowa has opened his eyes to the importance of a local press.
Shipley said the fact Ramaswamy is pledging to work to remove liability protections for vaccine manufacturers shows he is someone willing to solve problems and address the root of the problem.
“It’s about the proper assignment of liability for when things go wrong,” Shipley said. “If you reform that issue, you’ll never hear the anti-vaxx argument again. And I know some people get really annoyed by those people, they’ll all go away because all they’re asking for is just making sure that if products are harmful that there’s a way to remedy that.”
Ramaswamy said in this one case — any other manufacturer can make a product and be sued if it harms you — but here there is a special shield of liability for vaccine manufacturers. He then asked why his answer to the COVID vaccine question was censored during the last GOP debate.
“Can somebody explain to me, because I don’t know what the hell happened here, why in the middle of the fourth debate where I gave my answer to that question, why was that censored,” Ramaswamy said.
Just one answer was “excised,” he said during the live stream of the debate. Ramaswamy asked reporters if anyone knew what happened. He was asked what he thought it was.
“I have no idea,” he said. “It is beyond bizarre that when you’re giving a response that runs against the interest of the very people who are the advertisers on television and the advertisers ont hat debate that the thing goes dark just while I’m speaking. And it rhymes with a pattern we’ve seen ever since. I think it’s pretty lame that CNN ended the town hall five minutes early. I think that it’s pretty lame that you see the Overton window closing, but those are hard facts and I’d love for somebody to explain to me what the heck happened.”
When asked by a reporter if he believes the mainstream media may be reporting on things he simply doesn’t realize are happening, Ramaswamy flipped the question around.
“My question back is, do you think it’s possible that there is a systematic pervasive bias that has caused the mainstream media to systematically lie to the American public about some of the most important questions to the future of this country over a concentrated period of five years without a shred of self-awareness or accountability,” he said.
He noted there may be different interpretations of facts, but when the cards are flipped over and everyone sees the Trump/Russia collusion hoax was “made up BS,” but every network adopted one narrative and it happened to be the false narrative.
The same thing happened with the origins of COVID. The Hunter Biden laptop story followed the same pattern.
“At that point, the more credible explanation is that there’s something else systematic going on,” he said. “If it was uncorrelated, what different members of the media think, you’d have 10 different members of the media saying 10 different things. But here it’s not only bizarre that the entire media had the same thing to say under conditions of uncertainty about the same phenomena, about the five different topics I just laid out. But all of them not only had one interpretation it was the wrong interpretation.”
That weighs in favor, he said, of a media systematically distorting a narrative.
“It will be healthy for this country if somebody, please, one of you step up and do it, care about this country to just look your audience in the eye, go through the exact instances I just named and say the following words or something like it — ‘We got it wrong. I’m sorry, we got it wrong. We lied to you. Here’s why we lied to you and here’s why I will give you the confidence that this will never happen again because it’s unacceptable in the United States of America.’ The moment that happens I think we have taken a leap forward toward reuniting this country.”
Ramaswamy said when that happens he’ll be done with the unnecessarily contentious back-and-forths with the media.
“There’s an easy way out of it. Literally, you all know it. Everything I just said is factually true,” he said. “That the media lied about every one of those instances. Has now been disproven. And has not owned the accountability or apologized to their audience for it. Just do it. One of you. It will be probably the single greatest thing that could happen in the next number of months that could heal this country ahead of the next election so that we’re not repeating a lot of what we went through from 2020 through January of 2021.”
Ramaswamy said if the media would do that, it would allow others to be held accountable by a media that has regained its integrity.
To close, State Rep. Eddie Andrews asked Vivek to ask the media if any of them were willing to admit they got things wrong on the origins of COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop or Jan. 6.
Ramaswamy said it’s a good thing to be curious about and asked by a show of hands who is willing to admit the Trump/Russia collusion hoax was incorrectly reported by the mainstream media.
Zero hands went up.
“Why not,” Ramaswamy said. “Why would that be inappropriate? I think what’s inappropriate is lying to the public.”
A reporter asked if the public was lied to or if the media reported on a set of facts provided at that period of time.
“That’s a fair question,” Ramaswamy said. “I actually think that the public was lied to long after the media systematically still understood that this was the product of the Steele Dossier. The Steele Dossier was a piece of Russian disinformation provided by the Hillary Clinton campaign that was served up to the federal government as a basis for issuing a FISA warrant to then potentially infiltrate a member of the opposition party. If this was Bush and Cheney doing it to John Kerry, this would have been the stuff of scandal — impeachment and worse. And yet I think it was an intentional lie that the media said that that account, which we now know to be true, was actually the Russia disinformation.”
Ramaswamy said that the explanation may work if it was just one instance. But then he asked if anyone believed the media’s reporting about the origins of COVID.
Not a single hand went up in the air when asked if the Wuhan Lab was the likely origin of the COVID pandemic.
“So, so you had reporting — the same media that has reported that the COVID-19 pandemic did not originate in a lab in Wuhan is unwilling to admit today,” Vivek said before being cut off.
A reporter said that report came out in 2023.
“It was known that there was a Wuhan Insitute of Virology where they were conducting Gain-of-Function Research, the very city which was the origin of a global pandemic and yet the media’s explanation was that somehow it could’ve been any source other than actually having started in the lab. I just think that that’s systematic,” Ramaswamy said.
He then asked if the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression due to it being Russian disinformation was actually accurately reported and factually owned by Hunter Biden.
One hand went up. But it was the New York Post reporter who said he had to raise his hand.
Another reporter said she believes Hunter is suing Rudy Guiliani over the laptop.
“So you think that it was actually the product of Russian disinformation as was reported for the media,” Vivek asked.
“I didn’t cover the Hunter Biden case. I’m not sure why we’re talking about that,” she said.
“Because it was election interference on the eve of the last election,” Ramaswamy said. “And I think there’s the same kind of election interference happening this time around. And I think it’s happening, the early waves of it, with respect to the treatment of my candidacy and I think that that is likely to be a major problem heading into the next year unless you are able to openly and transparently acknowledge the mistakes of the past. Without acknowledging the mistakes of the past I think we are destined for an even more dangerous future. And I do not want to see a repeat of what happened in the 12-15 months leading up to January of 2021.”
Ramaswamy said much of the oppression of speech was a key part in what culminated in Jan. 6, 2021. He said it is “vital” to the future of America that the mistakes not be repeated by that is what he is seeing play out in the campaign.
“This is not some sort of contentious got you in reverse, I just think somebody in the media, like very soon, needs to stand up and do what I have suggested which is to look your audience in the eye to say ‘Here’s where we got it wrong last time. We’re sorry about that. Here’s the steps we’re taking to make sure it doesn’t happen again in this election.’ And I think that would improve the integrity of this election and I think it will improve, frankly, future safety of our institutions over the course of the next 12-15 months which I am deeply worried about in this country. I think we’re skating on thin ice.”
Vivek is certainly the most honest and clear thinking candidate. And he makes the media responsible for their actions. The fact that he’s funding his campaign makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE. Reminds me of when Trump started. As long as candidates accepts no one’s money they are free to tell the truth. And make those who are destroying America, accountable.