共和党总统候选人和政治新人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米在民意调查中攀升，部分原因是他的策略拥抱和捍卫前总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)在周末成为头条新闻，当时他将2021年1月6日对国会大厦的袭击归咎于“无孔不入的审查制度”——但在骚乱发生后的几天里，他发出了不同的信息。
"你想知道是什么导致了1月6日?"拉马斯瓦米告诉主持人塔克·卡尔森周五在家庭领导峰会在即将到来的爱荷华州党团会议上举行的共和党论坛。“人们很容易说，有一个人的名字是不可说的，”他说，然后将袭击归咎于“这个国家在袭击前的无孔不入的审查”。
拉马斯瓦米说:“你告诉这个国家的人们，他们不能说话，那就是他们尖叫的时候。”“你告诉人们他们不能尖叫，那是他们把东西拆了的时候。”
但是紧接着国会大厦袭击37岁的拉马斯瓦米强烈谴责了这次袭击，并抨击了这位前总统，他现在是2024年共和党总统候选人提名的领先者。
“特朗普上周的所作所为是错误的，”拉马斯瓦米在骚乱发生后的几天里在推特上写道。“可恶透顶。简单明了。我以前说过。”
在另一条推文中，这位生物技术企业家说，“特朗普上周令人震惊的行为让我们看不到大型科技公司的治疗更糟糕。从长远来看，这有助于中国赢得比赛。”
社交媒体公司在1月6日之后禁止了一些账户，拉马斯瓦米与人合著了一篇《华尔街日报》的专栏文章，他在文章中称国会大厦的骚乱是“可耻的”，同时反对“高科技”审查。
2023年7月15日，在佛罗里达州西棕榈滩的棕榈滩县会议中心，Vivek Ramaswamy在转折点行动会议上发言。
阿尔·迪亚兹/迈阿密先驱报/TNS via Getty Images
拉马斯瓦米在2021年1月的《观点》杂志上写道:“艰难的案件导致糟糕的法律，特朗普先生上周给了美国一个艰难的案件。”。“对国会大厦的破坏是美国历史上的一个污点，硅谷抓住这次袭击做了国会不能做的事情，压制了第一修正案旨在保护的那种政治言论。”
在接受美国广播公司新闻采访时，拉马斯瓦米表示，他会以不同于特朗普的方式处理1月6日的事件，但他表示，他不会将骚乱归咎于前总统。
“把1月6日归咎于唐纳德·特朗普是错误的，这是错误的，”他说。
拉马斯瓦米说，他在骚乱后几天谴责特朗普的言论是关于他如何处理1月6日的事情，他告诉美国广播公司新闻，“我会怎么做?...从那天开始，在同样的情况下，我会说，一旦有人暴力接近国会大厦，就“退下”。"
“在抗议者变得暴力时袖手旁观，我认为这是一个严重的领导错误，”他说，同时重申，“我不认为唐纳德·特朗普是1月6日的原因。”
然而，在他2022年的著作《受害者之国:身份政治、功绩之死和回归卓越之路》中，拉马斯瓦米尖锐地批评了这位前总统没有承认选举。
“这是民主黑暗的一天。上次选举的失败者拒绝承认竞选失败，声称选举被盗，从忠诚的支持者那里筹集了数亿美元，并正在考虑再次竞选行政职位。”拉马斯瓦米写道。“我指的当然是唐纳德·特朗普。”
他写道，特朗普“就各种欺诈指控提起了数十起诉讼...但他们根本无法改变一个州的结果，更不用说他需要推翻的几个摇摆州的结果了。”
拉马斯瓦米写道:“在许多情况下，总统本人提名的法官做出了不利于他的裁决，这是我们国家机构健康的标志。”“接受选举结果并实现权力的和平过渡是宪政共和国的一部分:有时你的团队会失败，但如果你接受结果并为下一次选举做准备，最终天平会再次向你倾斜。”
“我们打了，我们输了，我接受了结果，”他写道。
当被问及他在《受害者之国》中谴责特朗普选举主张的评论时，拉马斯瓦米说，他坚持自己的话，但也说，“我认为2020年的选举在有限的意义上被偷走了。”这位企业家声称，“如果亨特·拜登笔记本电脑的故事没有被压制，2020年的选举将会不同。”
在竞选过程中，拉马斯瓦米在很大程度上支持特朗普。上个月，他在迈阿密举行新闻发布会，在特朗普因处理机密文件而被起诉后，为前总统辩护，成为头条新闻发誓要赦免特朗普并呼吁其他候选人也承诺这样做。
这位前总统本人似乎也注意到了这一点，他本周末在佛罗里达州的保守党大会上发表讲话时大声喊出了拉马斯瓦米转折点美国会议。
“[州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯]的支持率下降得如此之快，他可能不会在第二的位置上呆太久了。我想知道会是谁?也许是Vivek?...他做得很好，”特朗普告诉人群。
拉马斯瓦米的竞选活动被证明是有效的，这位政治新手在民意调查中排名第四，仅次于前副总统迈克·彭斯，并超越了几位现任和前任州长。
拉马斯瓦米在今年第二季度筹集了超过770万美元，包括从自己的个人财产中借给他的竞选团队500万美元。这个季度结束时，他手头有900多万美元。
Vivek Ramaswamy, who's embraced Trump on the campaign trail, condemned him after Jan. 6
Republican presidential candidate and political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy, who's climbed in the polls thanks in part to his strategy ofembracing and defendingformer President Donald Trump, made headlines over the weekend when he blamed "pervasive censorship" for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol -- but he had a different message in the days following the riot.
"You want to know what caused Jan. 6?" Ramaswamy told moderator Tucker Carlson Friday atThe Family Leadership Summit, a GOP forum held at the site of the upcoming Iowa caucuses. "There's such a temptation to say that there's one man whose name is unspeakable," he said, before blaming the attack on "pervasive censorship in this country in the lead-up" to the attack.
"You tell people in this country they cannot speak, that is when they scream," Ramaswamy said. "You tell people they cannot scream, that is when they tear things down."
But in the immediate aftermath of theCapitol attack, Ramaswamy, 37, forcefully condemned the attack and blasted the former president, who's now the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
"What Trump did last week was wrong," Ramaswamy wrote on Twitter in the days following the riot. "Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple. I've said it before."
In another tweet, the biotech entrepreneur said, "Trump's egregious behavior last week blinds us from seeing that Big Tech's cure is worse. Makes for a winning game for China in the long run."
And after social media companies banned some accounts in the aftermath of Jan. 6, Ramaswamy co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece in which he called the Capitol riot "disgraceful" while arguing against "big-tech" censorship.
"Hard cases make bad law, and Mr. Trump presented America with a hard case last week," Ramaswamy wrote in the January 2021 Journal opinion piece. "The breach of the Capitol is a stain on American history, and Silicon Valley seized on the attack to do what Congress couldn't by suppressing the kind of political speech the First Amendment was designed to protect."
In a brief interview with ABC News, Ramaswamy said he would have handled Jan. 6 differently from Trump -- but said he does not blame the former president for the riot.
"It is false and it is a mistake to blame Jan. 6 on Donald Trump," he said.
Ramaswamy said his comments condemning Trump in the days after the riot were about how he handled Jan. 6, telling ABC News, "What I would have done? ... Starting that day under the same circumstances, I would have said, as soon as there are people violently approaching the Capitol, 'Stand down.'"
"Standing by while protesters turned violent, I think was a bad mistake of leadership," he said, while reiterating, "I don't think Donald Trump was the cause of Jan. 6."
However in his 2022 book, "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence," Ramaswamy sharply criticized the former president for not conceding the election.
"It was a dark day for democracy. The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again." Ramaswamy wrote. "I'm referring, of course, to Donald Trump."
He wrote that Trump "filed scores of lawsuits over various claims of fraud ... but they came nowhere close to changing the outcome in a single state, let alone the several swing states whose results he needed to overturn."
"In many cases, judges the president himself had nominated ruled against him, a sign of health in our nation's institutions," Ramaswamy wrote. "Accepting the outcomes of elections and having a peaceful transition of power is part of what it means to be a constitutional republic: Sometimes your team loses, but if you accept the result and prepare for the next election, eventually the scales will tip your way again."
"We fought, we lost, and I accepted the result," he wrote.
When asked about his comments in "Nation of Victims" condemning Trump's election claims, Ramaswamy said he stands by his words, but also said, "I think the 2020 election was stolen in a limited sense." The entrepreneur claimed the "2020 election would have been different if the Hunter Biden laptop story had not been suppressed."
On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy has largely rallied to Trump's side. He made headlines last month when he held a press conference in Miami in which he defended the former president after Trump was indicted over his handling classified documents --vowing to pardon Trumpand calling on other candidates to promise to do so as well.
The former president himself seems to have taken notice, shouting out Ramaswamy during his remarks in Florida this weekend at the conservativeTurning Point USAconference.
"[Gov. Ron DeSantis] is dropping so quickly, he's probably not going to be in second place much longer. I wonder who is going to be? Maybe it's Vivek? ... he's doing well," Trump told the crowd.
Ramaswamy's campaign has proven effective, boosting the political novice to fourth in the polls just behind former Vice President Mike Pence and leapfrogging several current and former governors.
Ramaswamy raised more than $7.7 million in the second quarter of the year, including lending his campaign $5 million from his own personal fortune. He finished the quarter with more than $9 million on hand.
