Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami warned this week that Republicans need to acknowledge “harsh realities” about how they air criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris following her election as the Democratic presidential nominee.
“I think what it comes down to is that a lot of Republicans were caught off guard after the convention,” Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital on Friday. “And that resulted in reactive steps being taken that didn't make sense, and I think that's actually hurting us.”
Ramaswami spoke to Fox News Digital about a comment he posted on X on Thursday that has been viewed by more than 3 million people, which addressed some of the issues and concerns Republicans have with the way they talk about Harris facing off against former President Trump.
Ramswamy's first point and concern is that Republicans are calling for Biden to resign or be removed from office, using the argument that if Biden is not competent to run for president then he is not competent to serve as president.
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Vivek Ramaswamy warned this week about the way Republicans criticize Vice President Kamala Harris (Getty Images)
“I don't think this makes any sense, and here's why,” Ramaswami explained. “Kamala Harris has no track record as a political leader, much less as president of the United States. Why put her in the position of president of the United States, with all the perks of incumbency? There's no way she's sitting in the Oval Office making policy or foreign policy changes or creating situations that make her look good. Sadly, this is one of the advantages that many incumbent presidents have had throughout American history.”
Ramaswami said calling for Biden to resign was “another example” of Republicans being “reactive” and would ultimately “hurt our chances rather than help us.”
“If Kamala Harris were to become president of the United States for even a short period of time, even a minute, that would not be good for America, it would not be good for the Republican Party's electoral prospects,” Ramaswami said. “That's not what we should want, it doesn't make sense, and that's why I pointed that out.”
While many Republicans have focused on Harris' record as a prosecutor, Ramaswami warned that it could backfire if they focus too much on attacking her for “sending too many people to jail” for minor offenses.
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Vivek Ramaswami, chairman and co-founder of Strive Asset Management and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, speaks during a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa on January 3, 2024. (Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“So this is another kind of criticism that's going to come from some conservatives, that she put too many people in jail when she was a prosecutor,” he said. “It's a false attack. It doesn't make sense.”
Ramaswami continued: “In fact, one of the images Kamala Harris is trying to project is that she's going to be the law-and-order candidate for president. I think that's ridiculous. Look at the policies she's supported under Democratic administrations, closing prisons, defunding the police, and so on. That's led to a wave of crime in this country. The American people, both on the other side of the aisle and in Congress, are adamantly opposed to this crime wave. But in the context of that, when Republicans are criticizing Harris for incarcerating too many people, that doesn't make sense, because it legitimizes the ridiculous claim that she's the law-and-order candidate.”
Republicans have accused Harris of covering up Biden's health problems while accusing her of orchestrating a soft “coup” to remove Biden from the running. Ramswamy told Fox News Digital that the two messages don't mesh.
“The bottom line is, what voters really care about is the future,” he said. “What are we actually going to get done? The more we focus on quibbling about past political missteps on the Democratic side and so on, the more we're going to be seen as narrow-minded.”
“On the one hand, Republicans are saying Kamala Harris covered for Joe Biden. She covered for him and told the public that he was actually a great president, when in fact he had no cognitive abilities. On the other hand, we're saying Kamala staged a coup against Biden. To many independent voters, saying both at the same time doesn't make sense. They're self-contradictory. And if you say something that doesn't make sense, you're more likely to lose votes. That's what I care about most. So I go back to the basics: that's not how we win this election. We're not going to win this election by nitpicking all these little things about Kamala…by taking 'insider' political criticisms. It doesn't matter. Voters don't care.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee on Tuesday. (REUTERS/Kevin Mohat/Pool)
Mr Ramaswami told Fox News Digital that the “biggest risk” facing Republicans was not Ms Harris, but rather “Democratic shenanigans”.
“Voters don't love Kamala Harris on her own terms,” Ramaswamy said. “We know that because even when she ran in the Democratic primary, she didn't even make it to the Iowa caucuses. I'm a little-known 37-year-old businessman who ran for president of the United States for the first time last year. I got more delegates for the US presidential election than Kamala Harris got. And that's because voters are not attracted to her. So Kamala Harris is not our biggest risk.”
Asked whether some Republicans were underestimating Harris' chances of winning, Ramswamy said “complacency” was always a concern.
“If we don't fight because we think we're behind, we'll fall behind quickly,” he said. “We're not fighting a candidate. Not Kamala. Not Joe. Not any other candidate. We're fighting a machine. And the more we understand that, the more we know we have a formidable opponent. Let's face it: Republicans have suffered devastating defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022, contrary to our expectations.”
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“I don't want to see the same thing happen in 2024. So here we go: 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' The old adage has a meaning. I think our movement needs to wake up and say our goal is not to win by a small margin. We have to win by a huge margin. A huge margin is a victory, unless the margin is a little rigged. That's the attitude we need.”
Ramaswamy said Democrats were waiting until after the Republican National Convention to have “full information” and that while it was understandable that Republicans were “caught off guard,” he believed they would ultimately prevail in November if they stayed focused.
“That's not an issue, because I could easily beat Kamala Harris with the same landslide victory that I would have beaten Joe Biden,” he said, “but not by micromanaging random political criticism of her. I think that could backfire. I think what we need to do is clarify our vision of who we are and what we stand for, so that we can not only win by a landslide, but we can also unite this country and bring it back to life, which is what we desperately want.”
Andrew Mark Miller is a Fox News reporter. Find him on Twitter at @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.