With a promise to axe 1 million govt jobs, Vivek Ramaswamy out-Trumps Trump

WASHINGTON – It could have been a scene out of The Apprentice, the long-running reality TV show hosted by former US president Donald Trump for a decade.

On a small stage framed by American flags stood Mr Vivek Ramaswamy, the pugnacious – and sometimes irascible – multimillionaire entrepreneur vying to become the official Republican presidential candidate. 

The setting was the America First Policy Institute, a think-tank that is often described as preparing for a second Trump term. Officially non-partisan, it is led by the former president’s domestic policy chief, Ms Brooke Rollins, and its staffers include eight former Cabinet secretaries.

Mr Ramaswamy, quite at home in the small but overflowing room of more than 100 people on a Wednesday morning, promised a revolution – not incremental reforms – if he were elected president.

Mr Ramaswamy’s “revolution”, as he sketched it, does not envision an overthrow – just federal downsizing on an epic scale.

Speaking with assurance, without notes or a teleprompter, Mr Ramaswamy never fumbled for words during his 45-minute address. The 38-year-old self-made millionaire said he would fire more than one million civil servants and shut down five government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Education and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Trump, 77, the Republican front runner by far, was not in the audience. But he would likely have approved. 

In his own 2016 campaign, he had promised to “drain the bureaucratic swamp” in Washington and rid the government of corruption and wasteful spending.

Analysts credit Trump’s political success partly to his image built through The Apprentice, where he hired and fired aspirants vying for a real-world prize: the chance to run one of his businesses.

“There are three branches of the US government, not four. We must shut down the fourth branch of government,” said Mr Ramaswamy, referring to the roughly 2.25 million-strong federal bureaucracy. 

“They don’t have the same political oversight as members of Congress or the president. You cannot fire them on election day.”

But fire them he would. Mr Ramaswamy said that as president, he would retrench more than 75 per cent of the federal bureaucracy, which conservative pundits and politicians have long called “bloated”. In effect, Mr Ramaswamy would fire more than 1.6 million federal employees.

While his proposals may seem drastic or unrealistic, this is election season in the United States.

It is not unusual for candidates in primary elections, through which the parties select their presidential candidate, to draw attention to themselves through audacious proposals. These help the contestants stand out in a crowded race and enable them to attract primary voters, who are more faithful to party ideology. The Republican Party has traditionally stood for small government.

Mr Ramaswamy has been more provocative than most – there are currently more than 10 declared contenders. He has floated a host of radical ideas, making headlines.

Among other things, he wants to stop funding the Ukraine war effort. He has called climate change a “hoax” and wants to raise the voting age to 25 from 18. 

As in all things, political calculation may be behind the voting age push by, paradoxically, the youngest man in the race: Mr Ramaswamy does not fare well with youth voters despite being a millennial.

To be fair, sweeping bureaucratic reforms seem to be the Republican flavour this election cycle. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who places a distant second to Trump in Republican polls, has pledged to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

Mr Ramaswamy, a Yale law graduate who made his fortune in pharmaceuticals, is straining to narrow the six-point gap with Mr DeSantis, who is one rung above him at 12.9 per cent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Neither approaches Trump, who towers over the field at 55 per cent. 

In his speech, Mr Ramaswamy, while being careful to offer tribute to Trump, said he wanted to “pick up” where the former president left off in “taking on the administrative state”.

But Mr Ramaswamy has repeatedly said he is not running for second place, or to be on the Republican ticket with Trump. “Donald Trump and I share something in common – and that is that neither of us would do well in a No. 2 position.”

The Republican faithful who gathered to hear Mr Ramaswamy at the small, overflowing meeting room seemed to like his ideas, and the energy he brought to the Republican field.

“I love that Vivek tells you exactly what you will get in his leadership,” said Ms Manisha Singh, the founder of a Washington-based strategic advisory firm, who was in the audience. Her parents, like Mr Ramaswamy’s, immigrated from India.

“Anyone who wants to make serious reforms to the US government has a challenge in front of them,” said Ms Singh, a former assistant secretary of state for business and economic affairs under Trump. 

“But I believe that he has the interest and the ability. He is very serious and I think he will come in and have a plan to do it,” she added.

Not far from the building where Mr Ramaswamy spoke, Mr Scott Roberts, a Republican voter from the battleground state of Wisconsin, was touring the capital for the first time with his Vietnam veteran father.

“I’ve been going out of my way to listen to him because he’s so energetic and seems so knowledgeable,” Mr Roberts said of Mr Ramaswamy. “He just seems the right fit for the country,” he added.

“Trump and Ramaswamy would be a heck of a team together. If they put their heads together, what could they not accomplish?”

If Mr Ramaswamy is auditioning to be Trump’s Apprentice and his running mate, he may have taken one step closer.