In conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy

1. 0:00 – 1:08

   Bestie intros!

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:00

      Saxey, can you... Can you come outside your window and, and I'm gonna start waving and you'll see me? You wanna see me?

   2. VRVivek Ramaswamy0:05

      (laughs)

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:05

      Zach, have two of your butlers hold you up on their shoulders.

   4. VRVivek Ramaswamy0:09

      I hope this is being taped and part of the show 'cause this is great.

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:13

      David, you're wearing blue shorts, right?

   6. DSDavid Sacks0:15

      Yeah.

   7. JCJason Calacanis0:16

      Yeah. I saw you.

   8. DSDavid Sacks0:16

      (laughs)

   9. JCJason Calacanis0:16

      Did you see me?

   10. DSDavid Sacks0:17

       No, I didn't see you. Where are you?

   11. JCJason Calacanis0:19

       When you look out, I'm the first house, the pink house. Look at this house.

   12. DSDavid Sacks0:22

       Oh.

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:22

       Do you see th-

   14. DSDavid Sacks0:24

       I heard you. I couldn't see you though.

   15. JCJason Calacanis0:26

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:27

       Yelling like a lunatic.

   17. DSDavid Sacks0:29

       You're the pink house?

   18. JCJason Calacanis0:31

       Look, I'm right... Can you see me?

   19. DSDavid Sacks0:31

       Are you below me or above me?

   20. JCJason Calacanis0:33

       Yeah. No, I'm like to your right. If you're looking out, I'm at your right. Your first house on the right.

   21. DSDavid Sacks0:38

       Oh, there. Oh, I see you waving.

   22. JCJason Calacanis0:40

       You see me? Yeah, I see you.

   23. DSDavid Sacks0:43

       Oh, I see you.

   24. VRVivek Ramaswamy0:44

       (laughs)

   25. JCJason Calacanis0:44

       I see you. I see you.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:45

       You guys are like 12-year-olds.

   27. JCJason Calacanis0:46

       Come over afterwards. We'll have a glass of wine.

   28. DSDavid Sacks0:47

       Okay. All right. I'm come... I'm gonna come over afterwards.

   29. NANarrator0:50

       (instrumental music)

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:50

       Vivek has a hard stop. We should go.
2. 1:08 – 19:16

   Vivek's background, corporate political / ESG distractions, why he's running for president

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:08

      in.

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:08

      All right. Vivek Ramaswamy is finally on the program. He's an entrepreneur. He graduated Harvard, Yale, all that kind of stuff. He was an entrepreneur, then a capital allocator. I think broad strokes, everybody knows he's a conservative return... R- running as a Republican. He's anti-woke, he's pro-life, anti-affirmative action, pro-free speech, and he wants federal government term limits. And, uh, his fans are lunatics. They've been asking for him to be on the All-In Podcast every day. I've gotten about 300 emails from your fans. Welcome to the program.

   3. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:41

      They sound like you're fans actually 'cause I hear it all the time as like blaming me for why I have not been on this program. And so you guys, this has been like some sort of idealized experience for me. I'm looking forward to it.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:52

      Okay, great. So what we try to do here is have a real conversation and try to get these candidates off their talking points. Yeah. So this isn't Meet The Press obviously. We want to talk to you like a human being. So the extent that, you know, as a politician now, you can talk like a human being, the audience, and we would appreciate it. Meet David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya, and David Friedberg. All right, Vivek, why don't you explain maybe your background as a capital allocator and as an entrepreneur and then why you chose to run for president at this time?

   5. VRVivek Ramaswamy2:20

      Yeah, sure. I mean, my, my parents, like many people you probably also know who have had similar success stories, they came to this country with almost no money. I went on to actually found successful companies. And so I started my career as a biotech investor. I worked at a hedge fund in New York when I graduated in 2007. I thought I was gonna be a scientist. I studied molecular biology, ended up enjoying my time as... at an internship at a hedge fund a lot more than that. So I did that for seven years. Three of those years, I spent in law school at the same time. But then when I finished law school, I had, you know, I think felt like my learning curve had flattened from being a pure capital allocator. So I stepped down and s- founded a new kind of biotech company that I could... Actually, you guys might be more interested in it... in it than most (laughs) -

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya3:08

      Yeah, go ahead.

   7. VRVivek Ramaswamy3:08

      ... of my political audiences. But the basic premise was give scientists skin in the game in the projects they actually work on. So if you're a GSK or advisor or whatever, Merck, you discover a drug or you develop it, you don't have personal upside in the individual drug that you develop. You do have various forms of asymmetric downside and so people don't take risks unless they're the same risks that the other pharma companies are taking because if you take the same risk and fail but everybody else is failing in a therapeutic category at the same time, you're safe. But if you take a risk that other people aren't willing to take and you fail, then you experience budget cuts, maybe job security risks, social embarrassment, which is a big factor in big pharma as well, which in turn created an opportunity that I took advantage of, which was that there were systematically categories of drugs that went undeveloped even after big pharma had, for a long time, spent a lot of money developing those drugs up to a certain point. So I built a business called Roivant, basically in-licensed some of those drugs in their early stages of development, phase one or phase two, often for pennies on the dollar relative to what had gone into them. Often, we would have scientists or drug developers who are passionate about that very project inside the companies who would come with those drugs because they wanted to develop them but the big pharma company said that they weren't in that area anymore. And we built a pipeline of such drugs. The whole plan was some of them would work, some of them wouldn't. The successes would make up for the failures. And it's now a $10 billion public company and it returned, unlike many private companies, uh, you know, returned a billion dollars plus to shareholders before going public and, um, you know, is, is doing... continues to do well to this day. I led the company as CEO for seven years. Five of the drugs I worked on are FDA approved today. The one I'm probably most proud of is, is a drug that... It's actually a biologic that is a lifesaving therapy in kids and the other one's an approved drug for prostate cancer. But that was my world is the point. Very different world. Maybe more similar to your guys' world now than the world I'm in now. Something funny happened in 2020 which was that at my own company, there were demands that I make a statement on behalf of Black Lives Matter after the George Floyd... It was a tragic death in May of 2020. By June, there were demands that I start making statements on behalf of BLM. And it was a funny time because only starting that February, I had ventured into actually exercising my voice as a citizen while being a CEO at my own peril, criticizing what was then the still new shiny object of stakeholder capitalism. So I published this piece in The Wall Street Journal. It generated some waves that February. A few months later in May, this George Floyd controversy comes up and the long story short, I can go into it if you guys are interested, but over the next six months, a series of-... escalating events led me to face a choice the following January of, you know, there's three advisors to my company that stepped down after I wrote a rather, I didn't intend it to be, but a rather controversial piece in the Wall Street Journal at the time-

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya6:20

      What was the premise of the piece?

   9. VRVivek Ramaswamy6:21

      ... in January 2021.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya6:21

       Yeah.

   11. VRVivek Ramaswamy6:22

       The premise of the piece was that, it, it actually was controversial on numerous counts, but the basic premise was it was the first legal argument anybody had made that if the government is pressuring a private actor to do something that the government couldn't do directly, that that was still state action. Now, the subtext is this was in the wake of January 6th, when there was widespread systematic censorship of, you know, political speech in this country, at least I believe there was. And so at the time I made that argument, it was dismissed as a conspiracy theory on the facts. "No, that's not happening." It was also dismissed as a legal theory. You know, this rube who, you know, happened to go to law school, forgot his first year where the First Amendment only applies to state actors. You know, now fast-forward three years, two-and-a-half years, we now know those facts were far worse than even I envisioned at the time, and actually, the legal argument that I made is now popularized by Clarence Thomas and others that are finding its way into our jurisprudence. But anyway, three advisors to the company found it so offensive that I would make this argument in public that within 48 hours of that piece, they resigned, and that was definitely a post-Jan 6th mood and reaction, that I had to then make a choice, right? 'Cause now this is having potentially an adverse impact on the company. I could either, all right, call it a year where I experimented with expressing myself and, you know, wearing my legal academic hat and call that a day and continue with biotech, or legitimately, if I didn't want to have an adverse impact on my company, I could step down and really speak freely. I choose to, I chose to step down, not in small part because the company was doing great. You know, I had a successor lined up, so there was a fortunate set of circumstances that happened to be the right time. I had just had my first son. My son Karthik was born in February of 2020. He was about to turn a year old. We were at a transitional phase of our life. COVID, you know, we were, we had a year away from the office. My wife was filling a fellowship. There was just a lot going on in our life that it felt like this was a moment for a life transition to focus on, you know, there are a lot of people, talented people developing medicines, maybe some of them more talented than me, you know, Roven's a successful company.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:30

       Did you feel like you were being bullied into making a statement about Black Lives Matter by your own employees and do you... what, what's your thought, generally speaking, on companies being politically active and companies having a political voice? 'Cause it has come up in our industry over and over again. You might know Brian Armstrong-

   13. VRVivek Ramaswamy8:46

       Yeah.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:46

       ... from Coinbase said, "Hey, we're here to do crypto, nothing else."

   15. VRVivek Ramaswamy8:49

       Yeah.

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:49

       "Please don't talk about anything political." So what are your thoughts generally on that?

   17. DFDavid Friedberg8:52

       Hey, Dave, you, you wrote a whole book on this, right? I mean, I read-

   18. VRVivek Ramaswamy8:55

       I wrote a whole book, yes. It's-

   19. DFDavid Friedberg8:55

       I read your book, and it's, it-

   20. VRVivek Ramaswamy8:57

       Oh, you did.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg8:57

       ... speaks a lot about the distinction between what the intention is, uh, in optimizing for shareholders versus the personal interests of the executives and those in charge expressing their personal points of view through the, the corporation. Um, and I think-

   22. VRVivek Ramaswamy9:11

       Yeah.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg9:11

       ... you had, you had some points of view on where that should all go, but was that in part motivating for you to run for public office? And why president instead of running for a Senate seat or-

   24. VRVivek Ramaswamy9:21

       Yeah.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg9:21

       ... congressional seat or something else?

   26. VRVivek Ramaswamy9:23

       Yeah. So I've, it turns out I've written... I wrote three books in the last two years-

   27. DFDavid Friedberg9:27

       Yeah.

   28. VRVivek Ramaswamy9:27

       ... and two of them are about this topic.

   29. DFDavid Friedberg9:28

       Yeah.

   30. VRVivek Ramaswamy9:28

       The first one is Woke, Inc., which was for a general audience, and then there was a second one called Capitalist Punishment, which was specifically about the ESG strand of this and capital markets. A- and just so people are aware, my general view is that companies should focus on making products and services for people who need them without apologizing for it. And yes, that's how you maximize profit for shareholders, by having a worthy mission and sticking to it without taking on social missions that are best carried out by institutions outside of corporate America. I, I so much believe this that even before I ran for president, this actually does answer your question, Dave, is I actually thought the way I was gonna have impact based on this. I enjoy being an author, but I'm not by nature just an academic, I like to do things. I, I started a company called Strive. It's an asset management firm that directly competes against the likes of BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard. That's what I thought my next leap was going to be. Strive's first fund launched last August, and less than a year in, um, it's close to a billion dollars in assets under management. I think it took JPMorgan two years to get to a billion when they got into the ETF business. That was what my journey was gonna be is, within corporate America, restore the unapologetic pursuit of excellence over distracting and dilutive political, environmental, and social agendas. But the thing that struck me, I think late last year and last December, and last year we had our second son, got a new company off the ground. You all know what that entails. You know, it was very much an all-in experience doing that. December, we had some time to take a step back, and, you know, my wife and I, we, you know, take a moment to ask yourself why are you doing (laughs) what you're doing. It's not a conversation you often have or take time to do, but, you know, the question of the why. A- and it reminded me back of that experience I had at Roven. You asked me, did I feel bullied? I didn't actually feel bullied. It, I, I think I can imagine someone in my shoes feeling that way, but I didn't feel like it was somebody cornering me to do something I didn't want to do. Others have had that experience. That wasn't quite how it felt for me. It felt like there's a group of people who followed me on this mission, who look up to me, who were disappointed in me, actually. And I think that was much harder than feeling like I was being bullied, was to have a group of people who followed me on this worthy mission of developing medicines that pharma companies weren't, that felt proud of that mission, that now felt disappointed in me. And, and that was much harder to deal with than the bullying, but that also opened my eyes to the fact that I'm here stridently fighting against BlackRock and, you know, the ESG industrial complex, which is a little bit of a deflection from the essence of what I actually think is going on at the real root cause, especially amongst young people in the country.
3. 19:16 – 30:24

   Energy policy, unemployment work requirements, immigration

   1. DFDavid Friedberg19:16

      So Vivek, let me ask a question around where we are in the cycle of the American experiment, where we have obviously, uh, allowed the throttle to be full forward and as a result, we've seen extraordinary progress emerge from the entrepreneurial talents and the drive of the people of this country for the past 250 years, and it's really extraordinary in a transformed human civilization. We now find ourselves, particularly over the past 50 years as this problem has gotten worse, with increasing disparity between the haves and the have-nots, or those who believe they, they have not, which is nearly everyone. Everyone now has some point of view that they have not got something, and they see other people that do have something that they do not. And this inequality and this perception of inequality, both with respect to absolute amounts of capital, income, earnings, a- and these perception issues have now driven a populist movement in this country that we have seen historically many times in the past, different countries that ultimately turn into either socialist nations or fascist nations. M- you know, in all cases, some sort of autocratic regime seems to have emerged because of this populist movement that we're now seeing not just in the US but across the West. Do you feel like we're at that moment in the US? And one of the manifestations of that, I'll say, is government spending. Because everyone demands more from their government and the government steps up and the elected officials that they elect step up and spend more, and it layers and it layers and layers. And we now have a $33 trillion debt load and we have a one and a half trillion dollar annual deficit, and by many projections, Social Security will be bankrupt in anywhere from 10 to 15 years. Uh, 10 to 20 years, whatever, uh, numbers you want to use. The CBO assumes we're gonna have unsustainable spiraling debt. What is your point of view on where we are in the cycle, how it's manifesting today, and how we're gonna deal with the fiscal issues that arise from these movements?

   2. VRVivek Ramaswamy21:15

      Yeah, so I think where we are in that... in the cycle, I don't take that as a passive law of physics. I think that who runs this country and leads this country can make an actual difference in the actual underlying course of that so-called cycle, which is part of what pulls me into this. So I'm a little bit unconventional on, uh, h- uh, m- my views on the debt load and the entitlement spending in this country and our first step in our way out of it. I, I don't think we're in a place of having remotely enough consensus or trust... And I think trust is probably the more important word than consensus, to begin just snip-snip, make cuts to what people feel like they were entitled to and promised, especially in a moment where we're beginning with deep distrust that will take what you call those populist flames and throw kerosene on it.

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:04

      Good.

   4. VRVivek Ramaswamy22:04

      I do... Uh, I am more optimistic about this, and I think this is quite realistic actually, is that the next leap forward is we can grow our way out of, I'm not gonna say all, but most of our actual fiscal calam- pending fiscal calamity. Right? This year, I mean, I think like right now, last six months, we're talking less than 1.5% annualized GDP growth, what we're averaging right now. For most of our national history, we actually have grown at over four-plus percent GDP growth. Certainly, if you go back to the pre-gold standard period, and even after going off the gold standard, we had a relatively stable US dollar, and I am one of these weird guys who believes that the Fed should have a single mandate of dollar stability without playing the Phillips curve game. But anyway, put that sidetrack to one side, we've grown at 3-4% GDP growth for most of our national history, even relatively recent national history. And I don't think it's a complicated path to get back there. I think things we need to do, unlock American energy. There's... You know, we talk about secular religions. I view the climate cult as one of those secular religions. Drill-

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:06

      What's your energy plan?

   6. VRVivek Ramaswamy23:07

      ... frack.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:07

      What would your specific-

   8. VRVivek Ramaswamy23:08

      Well-

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:08

      ... energy plan be?

   10. VRVivek Ramaswamy23:09

       Completely, completely, um, unlock the permitting process that they've used as a backdoor mechanism to shut down American energy production, drilling, fracking, burning coal. Coal should not be a four-letter word. Embracing nuclear energy. Later tonight, like after we're having this conversation, this evening, I'm gonna be at St. Anselm College laying out my detail. It's gonna be like a giant poster (laughs) laying out the anatomy of how I will shut down the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has been a fundamentally hostile administrative agency to the existence of nuclear power in this country. Actually, even to the detriment of actually making sure that we are getting our nuclear energy from Gen 2 rather than Gen 3 or Gen 4 reactors, but that'll be for tonight. It's an all-of-the-above approach of unshackling ourselves to produce energy here in the United States. To your point about... You know, Dave made a good point earlier about the addiction of paying people more from the federal government, that becomes the status quo if that's your voter base. That's not even good, in many cases, for the people who are giving that money too. I think we should stop paying people to stay at home when actually the top obstacle for many businesses to grow, you guys all know this well, is filling vacant job openings. And so that is an obstacle to GDP growth, is paying people more to stay at home than many of them-... earn to go back to work.

   11. JCJason Calacanis24:28

       Do you think that the IRA was good legislation?

   12. VRVivek Ramaswamy24:33

       I, I don't have, um... I'm- it's not, like, it's not like my- the horse that I'm gonna, you know, uh, ride, right, in terms of, like, the main... I'm gonna pin everything on it. But, but I mostly don't think it was, it was great legislation. Uh, what, what... Like, where are you coming from on that? Because, like, we might have different reasons for saying why.

   13. JCJason Calacanis24:49

       Oh, I'll- if you, if you think about what the IRA does for energy and, frankly, if you just roll up the BIL, CHIPS and IRA, I'm just curious to your thoughts on whether government incentives are moving in that direction that you actually support or you still think it's j- it's missing something.

   14. VRVivek Ramaswamy25:07

       Well, I... So, one of the things that I actually focus on, and I think is really important is, what can the US president actually do? Right? I mean, President Trump's... I don't know if people remember this. His main promise, uh, policy promise was actually repeal and replace Obamacare, which never happened because it required going through Congress. So, I'm actually focused on elements that I can deliver on without asking Congress either for permission or forgiveness. And so that's why my answer to Jason was, I go straight to, at least, let's focus on actually the administrative state, which, on my reading of the Constitution, reports in to the single duly elected president. So, when I talk about the permitting process at the Department of Interior or shutting down the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I believe in, you know... We could go... I'm going into details on it tonight. I have the legal authority to do that as the US president. I think the legislation is gonna be much more complicated, and I don't believe that I can be in a position to promise what we would do legislatively to any of that.

   15. JCJason Calacanis26:04

       You mentioned, um, getting people to take all these jobs that, that are available. Um, do you want to talk about immigration for a second and what you think about that?

   16. VRVivek Ramaswamy26:13

       Yeah. Merit-based immigration, all the way.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya26:14

       Maybe before you go right to immigration, would, would you... Are you saying you would cut entitlements like unemployment or shorten the unemployment period to force people to go back to work? Is that-

   18. VRVivek Ramaswamy26:22

       And, and tie them-

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya26:22

       ... what I'm reading into it?

   20. VRVivek Ramaswamy26:24

       And, and tie them to work requirements. Absolutely. Yeah. Tied to the work-

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya26:26

       Would you have a specific for that, like a certain number of months or, you know, dollar amounts?

   22. VRVivek Ramaswamy26:30

       Yeah. You know, a pretty good, a pretty good... I mean, I do, but I think that's, again... I'm very clear about what I will do through executive authority. What needs to go through legislation, I mean, that's all a negotiation. But I think a good principle is 1996 or in the 1990s, work fair under Clinton was actually far more aggressive than the work envi-

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya26:50

       Yeah.

   24. VRVivek Ramaswamy26:50

       ... work requirements that were put into this supposed Republican-led debt deal where, like, what did they say? It was if you're age 18 to 55 and you are able-bodied and childless, then you have to work at least 20 hours a week in order to receive more than three months out of three years worth of welfare, right? Now, Joe Biden, as a US senator, voted for actually much more stringent work fair requirements in the '90s. So, you know, I... Yes, I have ideas on specifics, but I'm not gonna make a promise on exactly what that specific will look like. But a guiding principle is, it has to be at least as aggressive as what we adopted with the bipartisan Consensus in the 1990s.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya27:28

       I mean, to your point, during Clinton, we had 69, almost 70% participation, and we're at 61-

   26. VRVivek Ramaswamy27:34

       Exactly.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya27:34

       ... now, I think. So, it's obvious that we have to, uh, trim that. But to Chamath's next point, you know, we have 10 million job openings. We're not letting anybody in. How would you look at immigration? Obviously, we have people coming in the southern border illegally, and then we have H-1B visas. And now Canada is saying, "Hey, we'll steal all those H-1Bs. We'll take them." So, how do you look at-

   28. VRVivek Ramaswamy27:53

       Yeah.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya27:53

       ... immigration, to Chamath's question?

   30. VRVivek Ramaswamy27:56

       Merit-based immigration. I mean, one of the things that Canada does have, and I'm not a fan of America imitating Canada or anything like this in, in most respects-
4. 30:24 – 44:46

   Foreign policy: How to handle Ukraine/Russia and Taiwan/China

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:24

      What, what do you agree with and what don't you agree with so far?

   2. DSDavid Sacks30:26

      Well, there's a lot of stuff to agree with there. We're talking about American exceptionalism. One thing I wanna talk about there is that I agree that America is-... exceptional and we're most exceptional when we're trying to set an example for other nations, when we're trying to be the shining city on a hill, as Reagan put it.

   3. VRVivek Ramaswamy30:45

      Yeah.

   4. DSDavid Sacks30:45

      But lately, and really, I mean, over the last couple of decades, what you've seen is that what American exceptionalism means to a lot of people in Washington is that we run all over the world and impose our ideology and our values on all these different countries. We began this great crusade to try and spread democracy in the Middle East. We tried to turn countries like Afghanistan and Iraq into Madisonian democracies. We now are very, very involved in Ukraine, basically trying to detach that country from the Russian sphere of influence and turning it into a member of our military and economic alliance. So it does seem like American exceptionalism is taking on this sort of harder, more militarized edge. Where would you draw the line? I mean, uh, like, what makes sense to you?

   5. VRVivek Ramaswamy31:37

      I think, uh, I, I basically agree with everything you just said. I think, as a side note, on the geopolitics of it, I, I do think Ukraine is on track to become potentially the next Vietnam or the next Iraq. I think you have said similar things. I also think there's something else going on with Ukraine that's fueling this, which relates to the deeper identity crisis in our country that I described earlier. I think Ukraine has become a new religion, right, in the, in the country and it's a substitute for purpose and meaning, just like climate ideology or wokeism is, and, and, you know, there's the flags that go along with it.

   6. DSDavid Sacks32:08

      It's like a crusade. I mean, you have people, like, waving these-

   7. VRVivek Ramaswamy32:11

      Oh, absolutely.

   8. DSDavid Sacks32:12

      Yeah.

   9. VRVivek Ramaswamy32:12

      You, you go to Washington, DC, at least I did in June, I was there for one of the Sunday shows, where my wife and I are going for a walk, we saw more trans flags and Ukraine flags than we did American flags on a short walk that we took through Washington, DC, our nation's capital. So I'm not, I'm not whining about this or being histrionic about it, I just think getting to the essence of what's going on, I think that's a different element of Ukraine that's different from even what we saw with Vietnam or Iraq. I don't think American exceptionalism is foisting our values onto anyone. I think American exceptionalism is about demonstrating, through our example, how America flourishes and is strong when we live by our own ideals. And I think the best way we give hope to the free world is by being that shining city on a hill, not going somewhere else and talking about it tanks behind us while actually suffering here at home. If you sh- ro- roam the streets of Kensington, as I did a few weeks ago, you know, you don't have to go to, you don't have to go to Baghdad to see the third world. And so-

   10. DSDavid Sacks33:13

       Mm-hmm.

   11. VRVivek Ramaswamy33:13

       ... that, I think, is, is I think a big loss of where we are today in the country. When you're president, Putin invades Ukraine, you would sit back, not give any armaments, and let him roll in? Here's what I would do. I would actually be proactive in doing a deal, and I've been very clear about the deal I would do. Trump has said he would do a deal in 24 hours, he didn't say what it was. Uh, I, I believe there is a deal to be done, but I also believe (laughs) it's important to be clear about what the contours of that deal would be. I would freeze the current line... Let's take the status quo right now. It, it... So I could answer your question or I could answer starting from the present. If you don't... I could- We could do both. I could start from the present. I mean, the obvio- Yeah. The obvious is maybe put NATO, take NATO off the table and avoid the whole thing, but now we're playing- Yeah, that's-

   12. DSDavid Sacks33:55

       Yeah, that's what I would have said.

   13. VRVivek Ramaswamy33:56

       Yeah, we're playing alternative history-

   14. DSDavid Sacks33:57

       I would have said the pr-

   15. VRVivek Ramaswamy33:57

       ... so maybe it's better to talk about-

   16. DSDavid Sacks33:59

       Yeah.

   17. VRVivek Ramaswamy33:59

       ... what's happening now. So let's just start from the present, right? Yeah. Because I don't think that we would have... If I was president, I don't think we would have gotten to the point of those th- things rolling in. Angela Merkel made some disastrous comments, Putin made a hard demand. We would have said hard no to Ukraine joining NATO and that would have been that. There would have been no tanks rolling in. But let's talk about the present.

   18. DSDavid Sacks34:12

       And Putin may have... Still, even if you took NATO off the table, Putin may have still invaded. We don't know.

   19. VRVivek Ramaswamy34:17

       I, I don't, I don't think so, but we can't... You know, those are counterfactuals that we can- Exactly. ... you know- Yeah. ... we're not going to have one side or the other being able to, to (laughs) , to prove that, right? So let's talk about the present. Right now, let's say I'm US president. I would freeze the current lines of control. We have a precedent for doing this, the Korean War, Korean War style armistice. That does give Putin most of the Donbass region. That's beyond the pale of what many are willing to accept in either party, but I think any deal, someone has to win, everyone has to win something out of the deal. I would further then give that assurance that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO, but there's a requirement in return. The biggest requirement is that Russia has to exit its military partnership with China. There's a 2001 treaty, it's called the Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Cooperation, military cooperation between the two countries, that Xi Jinping and Putin ratcheted it up to the so-called Strategic No Limits Partnership in 2022. That is why China's now coming, by the way, to Russia's aid. I personally believe we are absolutely sending Putin into Xi Jinping's arms in a way that's a mistake. I would also require that Putin remove his nuclear weapons from Kaliningrad, that we take any Russian military presence in the US, in the Western Hemisphere off the table, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua. I think this is a deal that Putin would do if we paired it with reopening economic relations with Russia, which I would do, because I think Putin does not... And I can give you some evidence for this, but I think Putin does not enjoy being Xi Jinping's little brother. And so I think that this is actually an opportunity, and I have to confess I am a guy who sees our foreign policy prism, through the prism of believing that China is the top long-run threat that we face, and so most of my foreign policy views and national security views, even on topics that are apparently unrelated to China, I still see it through that prism. But this one isn't a far leap, because China's literally in a military treaty with Russia and coming to their aid. I would use the Ukraine war and an end to the Ukraine war as a way to bifurcate the Russia-China relationship, uh, and divide... basically dissolve that relationship. And then actually, that's our best way and most effective step towards deterring Xi Jinping from going after Taiwan, because right now Xi Jinping...You know, I think that there's a mistaken consensus view that the way he thinks about it is, "Oh," reason by analogy rather than by actual analyzing of a situation. Say, "Oh, well, he got that piece of land, then maybe I can go get this island." I don't think he reasons by analogy. I think he reasons by the cards he has in terms of hard power. So his bet is that the US won't want to go to war with two different allied nuclear superpowers at the same time, but if Russia's no longer in his camp, then Xi Jinping is going to have to think twice about going after Taiwan.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:09

       So then I guess the-

   21. VRVivek Ramaswamy37:09

       It's part of my broader Taiwan deterrence strategy.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:11

       Yeah, the obvious followup question there is, you wouldn't defend Ukraine. Would you have America and the allies defend Taiwan if it was invaded?

   23. VRVivek Ramaswamy37:19

       I would, at least until the US has achieved semiconductor independence.

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:23

       So you would defend Taiwan?

   25. VRVivek Ramaswamy37:23

       And, and that's a crass thing to...

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:25

       Yeah.

   27. VRVivek Ramaswamy37:25

       Because we depend on them for our modern way of life in a way that we don't on Ukraine. And, and then th- and the latter part of this is, sounds a little crass to some people, but I believe in being honest. I actually think that... Yeah, I'll kind of get to the... I'll get to this point in a second, but to answer your question, yes, until we've achieved semiconductor independence.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:44

       Got it, so it's not-

   29. VRVivek Ramaswamy37:44

       I believe we can achieve semiconductor independence.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:46

       Yeah, so it's not... Your belief is not, "Hey these are two democracies. They both deserve equal defense from the United States, Ukraine, and Taiwan." It's, "Ukraine doesn't have semiconductors. We don't have a strategic need to defend them-"
5. 44:46 – 54:09

   Media strategy, Silicon Valley Bank's implosion

   1. VRVivek Ramaswamy44:46

   2. DFDavid Friedberg44:46

      This morning, there was a, an opinion piece, I'm assuming you read it, by Rich Lowry, chief of The National Review, published on Politico. Get ready for the Vivek Ramaswamy moment in which I would say he's fairly effusive, uh, about the campaign you're running, right? I mean, would you agree? Like (laughs) -

   3. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:04

      Effusive, you said?

   4. DFDavid Friedberg45:05

      Yeah, it was, uh, there was some-

   5. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:06

      Oh, really?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg45:06

      Yeah, some really-

   7. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:07

      (laughs) I didn't take it that way.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg45:08

      Did, did you read the piece? I mean, I thought there was some really nice-

   9. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:09

      I thought you said abusive. Oh, really? Interesting.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg45:11

       No, effusive. Abusive, yeah.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:12

       Abusive. He loves you. (laughs)

   12. DFDavid Friedberg45:13

       Yeah. No, he said, he, I, I-

   13. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:14

       Oh, he doesn't love me actually, it turns out. Yeah. He doesn't at all.

   14. DFDavid Friedberg45:15

       No, he doesn't love you, but he said some, I, I think he said some complimentary things about your-

   15. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:18

       And that's okay.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg45:19

       ... about your campaign, about your character, but said there's no way you're gonna r- win an-, win for president.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:23

       Well, you went from under 1%, I think now the latest poll has you above 5%, and we're in the very early innings here, right?

   18. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:30

       I think there's one that just came. I mean, yeah, there's some that have, you know, bounced a little higher than that, but-

   19. DFDavid Friedberg45:34

       Yeah, you're a little higher, right?

   20. VRVivek Ramaswamy45:35

       ... that's all before the first debate.

   21. DSDavid Sacks45:36

       The thing that Vivek's done, let me just state this as an observer and then you can react to it, is that you have kind of inserted yourself in the debate on every issue, you know, every day as it comes up. I mean, you're kind of living off the land as a candidate, not out there with just kind of a traditional stump speech, but you're finding a way to insert yourself into the debate every day on social media. I see it, right? I mean, you post a tweet that will hit the nerve of whatever the issue is going viral that day, which means that you'll go viral. And so for months, I've been seeing your tweets go super viral. And so, it's not surprising to me that your candidacy is starting to, you know, catch on in that way. What's r- remarkable to me is that other candidates can't do it. I mean, when you first started doing it, I was kind of like, "Okay, this is obvious and easy. Of course this is what you would do." But other candidates have not really done that for whatever reason. So, I mean, am I correctly perceiving what-

   22. VRVivek Ramaswamy46:33

       I'll tell you, I'll give you my perspective.

   23. DSDavid Sacks46:34

       Yeah.

   24. VRVivek Ramaswamy46:34

       I'll you my perspective on that 'cause if we use the normal-

   25. DSDavid Sacks46:36

       The only time I didn't like it is when you accused us of creating a banking crisis, but other than that-

   26. DFDavid Friedberg46:40

       (laughs)

   27. VRVivek Ramaswamy46:40

       Can I just-

   28. DSDavid Sacks46:40

       ... it's been great.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya46:41

       Yeah.

   30. VRVivek Ramaswamy46:42

       I, I do wanna close the loop on that one.
6. 54:09 – 1:06:16

   Thoughts on Trump

   1. VRVivek Ramaswamy54:09

      responsibility.

   2. DFDavid Friedberg54:10

      I just wanted to hear, you know, you make a statement, you collect data, one in a hundred you say you'll change your mind. I just want to understand with all the data, the past, the present, and probably, who knows, every, every incremental day we see something new, what is the full 360 degree view that Vivek Ramaswamy has of Donald Trump?

   3. VRVivek Ramaswamy54:30

      Full 360 degree view. Got it. Yeah. I actually haven't had a space to articulate this yet, so I, I think this, I think this is useful. So my view is that he was a successful president, measured by reviving the economy, u- uh, successful president, period. How, why do I say that? Reviving the economy, growing the American economy-I think that recognizing and speaking to and partially addressing concerns that had been historically unaddressed by both, both major political parties. We did not enter a major war. We were on the brink of major conflict with North Korea, on the precipice in other parts of the world. ISIS was a thing. It is, you know, by, uh, it exists, but it's by and large not the same threat that it was after his presidency as it was when he took over. These are major accomplishments, right? I think the immigration crisis, I, I think is far worse today, precisely because Biden's in office and not Trump. So, I believe he was a successful president. That's view number one. View number two, he has an effect on people, about 30% of this country, that I think becomes psychiatrically ill when he is the US (laughs) president.

   4. DSDavid Sacks55:43

      (laughs)

   5. VRVivek Ramaswamy55:44

      I, I think it's just a fact, right?

   6. DSDavid Sacks55:46

      (laughs)

   7. VRVivek Ramaswamy55:46

      Agreeing with things that they otherwise wouldn't have agreed with because he's-

   8. DSDavid Sacks55:49

      I think that 30% number-

   9. VRVivek Ramaswamy55:50

      ... you know.

   10. DSDavid Sacks55:50

       ... applies in our pod too. (laughs)

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya55:52

       One in four. (laughs) Keep going.

   12. VRVivek Ramaswamy55:55

       Yeah, he... Well, I think that... I, I think it's just, it's just the reality is, people lose their ability to process information, people lose the ability to think independently. It's like a demonic possession that happens in this country of about, as best I can tell, about 30% of the country. And I think that's not good for the country. And, and we can debate who's to blame for that or whatever. But I'm just stating an, an observation that I feel pretty strongly about. And so I think most of Trump's policies were good. Do I have some policy disagreements with him? Of course I do. It would be weird if any two people agreed on 100% of things. I would reenter the CP TPP. He exited the TPP. I think his exit of the TPP gives us a stronger negotiating position with Malaysia and Japan to, you know, fix some of the micro things that we might have wanted. China's not in the TPP. That's part of the path to actually declare economic independence from China, if it comes to that. We could go into a lot of different details. I would've rescinded the affirmative action executive order that Lyndon signed, that I asked Trump's people why they didn't. They said it was a political hill they didn't want to die on. I'd shut down the Department of Education. We can go on. But, there... But broadly, he was a successful president with whom I mostly agree on his broad policy vision and especially his handling of foreign policy.

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya57:00

       What did he get wrong? And what... And was the election stolen?

   14. VRVivek Ramaswamy57:04

       Yeah. So, so, I mean, I gave you, like, small examples of what he got wrong. But I think the real char- the real thing that he got wrong... I'm not sure that getting wrong is the even framing. It's just a fact that 30% of this country became psychiatrically ill. And you're the leader of this country, you're leading a nation. And so you could decide whose fault that is, but I believe leaders are ultimately judged by their results. And for whatever reason, even when I'm saying the same things that Trump often did as a matter of policy or foreign policy or domestic economic policy, maybe it's 'cause people don't, uh, don't yet know me broadly, but I don't think that's it actually. I don't think I'm having that effect on people. And I think that that's why I'm in this race, to carry forward unapologetic George Washington America First policies and to do so more successfully, but also in a way that unites the country around that vision, more so than Donald Trump ever did or could in a second term. Was the election stolen? Here's the sense in which I think the election was stolen in a data-driven way. I have not seen any data to suggest that the ballot fraud or anything like that would have been sufficient to overturn the ballot count of the ballots. I've not seen any evidence to that effect. W- w- what I do see is hard evidence that people in this country (baby cries) would have elected a different president. Who's that?

   15. DSDavid Sacks58:31

       (laughs)

   16. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:31

       I like... Who, who, who's, who's that?

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya58:33

       This is Tally. This is child number five.

   18. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:36

       Number five.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya58:37

       Number five.

   20. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:37

       She is cute.

   21. DSDavid Sacks58:38

       Yeah.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya58:38

       But number one in our hearts.

   23. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:39

       Oh. (laughs)

   24. DSDavid Sacks58:40

       Aw.

   25. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:40

       You can, you can't say that. (laughs) That's nice.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya58:42

       All right, so continue.

   27. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:43

       What's your name? What's your name? I want to say hi.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya58:44

       Tally. Tally. Tally.

   29. VRVivek Ramaswamy58:45

       Oh, Tally. Hey. Hey, I, I've... I'm, I'm away from my sons these past next, last few days. (baby cries) So I, I, I, you know, am happy for you. Hopefully we'll be with our little guy soon. You know, what, what, what I was saying is... Let me get to the punchline. The sense in which the election was stolen was the Hunter Biden laptop story and the systematic suppression of information. I think that there is no doubt, uh, and it's no doubt. I think that the evidence strongly suggests that Trump would have been elected and not Biden had we actually a voter base that had access to that information. And I think that that is something that we ought to learn from. And I think that it does cast a lot of doubt and frustration on the legitimacy of the election.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya59:26

       Let me double-click on that. Uh, you seem to have said on other programs, I've heard you at least a half dozen times talk about a deep spa- deep state conspiracy trying to frame Donald Trump, federal indictment of the 37 criminal charges for the stolen documents, refusing to give them back. You got the New York case, 34 more felony counts. We're about to have another one drop on January 6th. You got the Georgia, where he, he tried to get people to get 10,000 more votes. You got the New York case where a CFO is going to jail. You got him guilty of sexual, uh, assault. And then you got Letitia James is suing the, the Trump organization. Of these seven, are all seven a deep state conspiracy?
7. 1:06:16 – 1:14:10

   Campaign strategy, establishment appeal

   1. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:06:16

      why I'm in the race.

   2. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:16

      In order to win this candidacy... And the reason I brought up the Politico, uh, publication this morning, obviously, there, there was a bit of tongue in cheek on the effusiveness, but the, the, the key point being made was you have no chance of winning-

   3. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:06:28

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:28

      ... and that you shouldn't be in the race at all. Now, look (laughs) , I, I, I'd like to-

   5. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:06:34

      I think that was the thesis of the piece, that's fair. That's a fair description of it.

   6. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:36

      Yeah, but what's interesting is, what's interesting is where it's coming from, right? It's coming from the establishment voice. And I think we'd like to hear just a little bit around your political strategy. What is your intention around building bridges and ties to the Republican establishment to support your candidacy here? Or does the, uh, or does the Republican establishment largely sit on the sidelines right now and wait to see who emerges with this popular movement and, and who's out there? You're obviously running-... an incredible campaign on the road, very active, very vocal. And as everyone says, probably by far the most articulate and most thoughtful and most intelligent of the candidates in the race today. But lacking experience, lacking connections, not part of the establishment, and as a result, cast in this negative light consistently by the, um, by, by these sorts of writers. So what, what is your strategy to win this race given the... Is it not important, as Trump showed in the last election cycle, to have those Republican establishment ties? Or are you gonna be building bridges? And then my follow-up question is, if you don't win, what are you gonna do? (laughs) So, yeah.

   7. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:07:41

      Yeah. So let me, uh, let me address the first.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:44

      Yeah.

   9. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:07:44

      I- it's basically in the camp that I don't think... Uh, it's the voters that ultimately matter, not the people who have appointed themselves in the reigning establishment, or it's not even the establishment anymore. It's an outdated establishment that I don't think actually is gonna influence meaningfully the result of this election, except for one respect, which is money, which I'll get back to. So, so, so the area where we're punching above our weight, right? We... Debates haven't even happened yet and at least in the last week, I'm third in most of the national polls. This is well ahead of even where we planned to be, right? We planned to be in third by November, December, ahead of the Iowa caucuses, ahead of New Hampshire, over-perform expectations in both of those, use the momentum to then win the race. That was broadly the strategy with the debate stage as the pla- as the way where I would steadily work my way into that. I think we're just now on a different curve where, you know, we might be in second place by then and by a smaller margin than people expected. I think the debate stage is critical. The campaign strategy is actually to combine the initial investment that, because I've lived the American dream, I've, was able to make, but to combine that with a true grassroots uplift. We've got close to 70,000, maybe more, I have to check the exact numbers, unique donors already. We have former, you know, vice presidents or other candidates that are, you know, well on their way and struggling by some measures to get to 40,000, which is the threshold for the first debate. So our strategy is very much a grassroots strategy. I've done more campaign events than anybody in the Republican field, and so this is... Our strategy is very grassroots driven. So I'm punching above my weight in terms of events, unique donations, polling. The one area where I'm punching below weight is large-scale donations. So we are not raising mass numbers of large-check external funds yet into the campaign. Uh, my super PACs or, I don't have an... I mean, whatever. They're independent expenditures. I don't... There's, there's an entity that exists out there that's been affiliated with me, has, based on public reports, uh, tiny amounts of money compared to those that are supporting and all in for candidates from Tim Scott to Ron DeSantis. And that's also a reality, right? And I think that that comes with competitive advantages and disadvantages, and they're two sides of the same coin. I think I am at liberty, total liberty. I feel totally unconstrained to pursue the strategy that David mentioned earlier, which is that I'm reacting in real time to what I believe.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg1:10:07

       Have you been surprised by the lack of clarity maybe, uh, of the DeSantis campaign in really creating a pathway through Trump? And if you are surprised, what-

   11. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:10:22

       I'm not surprised.

   12. DFDavid Friedberg1:10:23

       What do you think he's doing wrong?

   13. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:10:25

       Not surprised.

   14. DFDavid Friedberg1:10:25

       If you had to critique it.

   15. VRVivek Ramaswamy1:10:26

       Yeah, I'm not surprised because, you know, I know him, uh, and I think he's a good executer. Right? I think he has been a r-... I disagree with some other people on this. I think he's been quite an effective governor. I think that when you're talking about... And Scott Walker, in the last cycle, was quite an effective governor. And for the same reasons that people believed Scott Walker was gonna be the runaway nominee last time around, I think that people naturally gravitate... People think they want somebody who has done something as an effective executer. But when it comes to the US presidency, I think it's a unique role where what matters is actually having a vision for where we are going. Right? And so I'm not, uh, with... I don't... Without saying things that are interpreted as being mean about somebody else or not, I know all of these people. I've known them for a long time. I've shared stages with them over the course of my Woke, Inc. book tour and Nation of Victims book tour. I'm not surprised with how things are going in this race. Uh, you know, I, I said we expected to be where we are in November. We're here in July. I'm not surprised that we're doing well. I understand how audiences across this country responded to my message in Woke, Inc. I'm not surprised (laughs) that they're continuing to respond well to Trump. I think there's nothing surprising about where we are in this race right now.

Episode duration: 2:10:16