Vivek Ramaswamy says if presidents can only serve a total of eight years, government employees should be subject to the same restrictions.
It came during a speech in California where the 2024 hopeful said he went off-script, delivering a speech that he claims his campaign advisers told him would be too high-brow for the average voter.
“It’s not a campaign speech I’m giving you,” he said. “I’m telling the truth here.”
Ramaswamy then warned the room full of hundreds of Republican voters at the Republican Party’s fall convention in California: “I want to cut through the usual introductions and go into this.” We are in the middle of a war right now.”
“We are in the middle of a cold cultural civil war in the United States. And you can’t win a war unless you first know you’re in it,” the biotech billionaire and father of two added.
Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy gave a speech in California on Saturday in which he says his advisers told him this would be too high-minded for the average voter
Addressing voters at the Republican Party’s fall convention in California, he warned them: “We are in the middle of a war right now. We are in the midst of a cold cultural civil war in the United States. And you can’t win a war unless you first know you’re part of it.”
Ramaswamy’s appearance at the Saturday lunch followed comments at the convention from three of his Republican primary competitors the day before.
By far the biggest crowd pleaser was former President Donald Trump, who addressed a room of about 1,500 California Republicans immediately after lunch at the Anaheim Marriott Convention Center.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott also delivered remarks at the convention — but before much smaller crowds in much smaller rooms. Ramaswamy addressed a crowd about the same size as DeSantis’ turnout — still smaller than Trump’s, but larger than Scott’s.
Surprisingly, attendees at Ramaswamy’s event were far less decked out in Trump gear than those at Scott and DeSantis’ remarks.
California voters who spoke to DailyMail.com were more enthusiastic about the prospects of Ramaswamy earning the Republican nomination than DeSantis or Scott — that is, if Trump were left out of the equation.
Ramaswamy offers a radical platform that includes gutting and even eliminating some federal government agencies altogether.
He also believes that federal government employees should only serve in their positions for eight years — the same length of time as a two-term president.
“Today, the people we elect to lead the government are no longer the ones who actually run the government,” Ramaswamy warned. ‘It is the deep state in the shadow government of the three-letter agencies that wield power today. And that’s why I said that as your next president, I will do what the American president… can actually do.”
Donald Trump stole the show at the CaGOP convention with comments he made Friday against President Joe Biden, California Governor Gavin. Newsom and California Democratic Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott also spoke at the convention Friday. DeSantis joked that he was “disappointed” not to encounter any protesters, while Scott held a Q&A with the chairman of the California GOP.
The candidates all spoke across the street from Disneyland. DeSantis joked during his remarks, “Great to be in Southern California. I didn’t know if I was even allowed – I’m kind of close to DisneyLand. I didn’t know if they would let me join them. It’s OK’
“We will close the unconstitutional federal administrative state,” he promised. ‘That’s the head of the snake. And we’re not going to tinker around the edges, we’re going to strip it down.’
“If I can’t work for all of you for more than eight years as your next president, which I think is a good thing, then none of those federal bureaucrats should be reporting to me either. An eight-year term for the bureaucracy, instead of this protection of the civil service. We’re done with them.’
In addition to the 2024 Republican candidates swinging down the West Coast this week, Congress is working overtime to try to avoid a shutdown by late Saturday.
But Ramaswamy says the shutdown isn’t the biggest threat to the US – but these bureaucrats outside elected office are responsible for the US’s decline.
“Today, the real threat to us doesn’t even come from Congress, on the eve of whatever artificial shutdown debate they’re having at a certain hour. That is not the real threat we face,” he told a cheering crowd.
“The real threat we face in the United States is the rise of that managerial class from our universities, to corporate America, to the ultimate mother of the managerial class in the administrative state in the federal government itself.”
The convention was held in the days after the GOP’s second primary debate, about 70 miles away at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Trump skipped the debate, just as he did last month at the first debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He did, however, come to Southern California for the convention and, soon after, a stop at retail politics at an ice cream shop near his fundraiser in Beverly Hills.
Protesters supporting and opposing Trump’s appearance there Friday clashed outside the Anaheim Marriott Convention Center. No demonstrators demonstrated for or against the other candidates at the convention
The Golden State Republican Party is the biggest prize for those vying for the Republican presidential nomination. But this year, the CaGOP changed the rules in a way that competitors say would boost Trump’s chances of winning all the votes of the 169 delegates.
During the March 5 primary, any candidate who collects more than 50 percent of the vote will get all the delegates up for grabs — instead of the previous split where candidates could win three delegates in each California congressional district.
In the past, several candidates walked away from California primaries with at least a few delegates under their belt. And now, if that 50 percent threshold is met, Trump will likely walk away with it all.
Delegates who attended the conference this weekend told DailyMail.com they don’t like the change and believe it was a way for California State Party Chairwoman Jessica Patterson to further her own agenda to get Trump re-elected.