Vivek Ramaswamy plots his next move, with or without Trump

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Vivek Ramaswamy wants to be clear, or clear-ish: He says he doesn’t really know if anyone’s eating cats and dogs over in Springfield, Ohio, 45 minutes from his home in Columbus.

But the hyperkinetic-MAGA loyalist is going to head to the town that became a political flash point after the outlandish Internet theory about Haitian migrants there went viral. Never mind that the bizarre claim – amplified by Donald Trump during the presidential debate – is false.

As a divided America slouches toward Election Day, Ramaswamy is the same man the nation remembers: the preeningly ambitious, do-and-say-what-it-takes overachiever hungering for his shot at history.

On this mid-September afternoon, he’s gulping down a bottle of Mountain Valley Spring Water – the same brand, not incidentally, that’s been served at the White House – after a round of tennis and a workout with battle ropes, and barefooting around his mansion. Propped on the mantle in the basement, beneath an American flag, is an image of Trump after his attempted assassination in July. Indian hand drums are nestled on the floor nearby. If he looks and sounds like a guy in a hurry, well, that’s because he is.

Ramaswamy pads down to his basement studio for an interview about his latest book. Then up to his office for a conference call with John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. Then back down to the basement for another interview. He talks so fast that Ramaswamy said Trump once joked he made his head hurt. Before long, he’s heading downtown to give a talk to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

At age 39, and with a national profile few might have foreseen, Ramaswamy is on the cusp of – something. It was only nine months ago that he ended his long-shot campaign for the Republican nomination, where he prayed with Evangelicals and rapped to Eminem.

Now, if Trump wins on Nov. 5, Ramaswamy might very well follow the former president back to Washington. There’s talk of a cabinet position, perhaps the Department of Homeland Security. Trump has vowed to deport millions of people living in the US illegally and has said that one the places he’d start would be Springfield. Ramaswamy declines to discuss his potential role in a Trump administration.

And if Kamala Harris wins? Ramaswamy says he would accept the result of “a free and fair election,” even as Trump keeps claiming, with zero evidence, that the last election was “rigged” and this one might be too. “Whoever wins the election, wins the election,” Ramaswamy says. “I would commit to leading the Republican party to move past allegations of stolen elections.”

But Ramaswamy is Ramaswamy: He’s also strongly considering running for governor right here in Ohio. As his SUV heads toward the colonnaded statehouse, the former biotech entrepreneur says he’d transform his home state, synonymous with Rust Belt despair, into the next low-tax Florida or Texas.

“If other states have pulled it off and managed to get a boom of economic growth as a consequence, Ohio can too,” he says.

Another option, Ramaswamy says, would be to fill the Senate seat currently occupied by JD Vance, his former classmate at Yale Law, who Trump chose as his running mate rather than Ramaswamy.

Whether it’s Plan A, B or C, Ramaswamy seems poised to reap dividends for pledging allegiance to Trump. Since bowing out of the presidential race, he’s bought a stake in media company Buzzfeed Inc. and cemented valuable connections in the MAGA-verse. The Trump campaign dispatched him to the “spin room” in Philadelphia to talk up Trump’s performance following the September debate with Vice President Harris. He’s also been stumping for Trump in swing states, helped to galvanize him on crypto currencies and visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he said he helped the former president and his team craft a statement on abortion earlier this year.

Today, Ramaswamy says he counts among his friends Elon Musk, Trump’s richest fan, whom he met last year at the home of venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya. Backers of Ramaswamy’s young investment firm, Strive Asset Management, include Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who was an early patron of Vance, and Howard Lutnick, the Wall Street financier who happens to be helping to vet potential cabinet members for Trump.

No one goes into politics without some measure of self-regard. But to say Ramaswamy projects assurance would be to understate the matter. He’s ticked the boxes: Harvard, Yale Law, business success and wealth. His first book, “Woke, Inc.” brought him to national attention. So did his role as an early instigator of conservative attacks against environmental, social and governance investing on Wall Street, as well as against diversity, equity and inclusion. Ramaswamy now argues that corporate diversity efforts have only fueled racial animus. Black Americans who get jobs on merit are often viewed as diversity hires, he says.

“There’s an injustice of a different kind,” he says.

Looking back, Ramaswamy says he was “chastened” that the announcement of his presidential run fell flat. But, like Trump, he’s developed a reputation as a political counterpuncher. Nicknamed “V-Dog” in high school because of his bulldog tenacity, he hits back hard when challenged – and keeps on coming. He says personal attacks against him during his run triggered his “gladiatorial instincts.”

Now, just maybe, Ramaswamy has a second shot at power in Washington. None of this seems to surprise him. This, he says, was the plan all along.

“It feels natural for me,” Ramaswamy says. “I feel like I am pursuing my calling.”

Ramaswamy says his ambition and drive probably reflect insecurities that can come with being part of an immigrant family. He peers out the window of his SUV at the quiet streets of downtown Columbus and goes on: “They probably have roots in some sort of deep-seated experiences of inadequacy that make you want to make sure that you’re able to fight your way.”

Ramaswamy brushes off the suggestion that he and Harris, whose late mother is from India and father is from Jamaica, might share something in common in that regard. Among other things, they speak the Indian language Tamil. Ramaswamy’s brusque retort: “But I’m very open about my heritage.” The comment echoes Trump, who’s falsely suggested that Harris “happened to turn Black.”

When Ramaswamy got to Springfield last week, he spoke at a town hall-style event. The place was packed. He said he doesn’t blame migrants nor locals for the uproar (most Haitians in Springfield are in the US legally). Instead, he blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Ramaswamy said in an interview afterward that he didn’t go there to talk about cats and dogs.

This much is sure: Vivek Ramaswamy has a plan – several, in fact. Whichever one plays out, he says he wants to bring about “lasting change” in the US. And by “lasting,” the hyper-ambitious Ramaswamy doesn’t mean for the next four years. He means “over decades or centuries.”

Nov. 5 will determine his next move.