Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is urging former President Donald Trump and Republicans to shift their focus to policy rather than personal attacks if they want to win the 2024 election.
“Given the messenger, this comes as something of a surprise,” noted Politico Playbook, which spoke to the former GOP presidential candidate on Wednesday.
Ramaswamy was clear-eyed about where things stand. He not only delivered a warning to Republicans, but acknowledged his own shortcomings in the primary, claiming to be something of a changed man who’s learned a lesson or two on how not to run a campaign — lessons he hopes Trump will internalize.
ON THE GOP MESSAGE: In Ramaswamy’s view, Republicans are not talking enough about Harris’ policy stances, something he calls a “missed opportunity.” Harris, he notes, has an extensive record Republicans can assail — from her past support for eliminating private health insurance to banning fracking — while drawing a policy contrast with the GOP.
“I think if we’re able to say … ‘This is our vision for the entire United States’ … then we go down the list and say, ‘Here are the policies that Kamala Harris has [not only] stood for in the past but that she has actually taken steps to implement …. I think we can win this thing not only by a small margin, but still in something that resembles a landslide.”
He added: “But that’s not up to anybody else but us. And so that’s the work we have cut out for our own side. And if we do it, I think we win. And if not, I think we lose.” (Politico Playbook)
Ramaswamy said he has given this message to Trump directly multiple times, including after Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate.
It offered the perfect opportunity to “shift the focus to policy," he noted.
“That is the first presidential-style decision that we've actually seen her make,” he told Politico Playbook. “She could have gone the direction of a centrist, a moderate like Josh Shapiro. She didn’t. She made an affirmative decision to say, I want to go in the direction of somebody who has instead increased taxes in the states that he led … at least helped fuel a wave of violent rioting and protesting in his state, one of the most climate policy-forward governors.”
Whether Trump heeds Ramaswamy's advice remains to be seen. The GOP presidential nominee is set to hold a news conference Thursday afternoon in Bedminster, New Jersey.