Fact Check: Ramaswamy's claim on kidnapping case involving Michigan governor
From CNN’s Marshall Cohen
To back up his false assertion that government agents entrapped Trump supporters on January 6, Ramaswamy pointed to the kidnapping case involving Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. He repeatedly said three defendants were acquitted because they were entrapped.
Facts First: As CNN’s Abby Phillip pointed out during the town hall, those numbers only tell part of the story. Nine other men charged in the plot were ultimately convicted.
There were federal and state charges stemming from the kidnapping plot against a total of 14 defendants. According to past CNN reporting, nine were convicted either by pleading guilty or at trial, and five were acquitted.
Testimony from the cases established that undercover FBI agents played a role in the plan, though that is a common tactic in investigations into criminal groups and gangs. Some of the defendants raised an entrapment defense at trial.
There were indeed split verdicts, but more were convicted than acquitted.
Fact Check: Ramaswamy on the Fed and inequality
From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald
When asked about growing inequality between the richest Americans and the middle class during a CNN town hall on Wednesday, Vivek Ramaswamy claimed the Federal Reserve’s policies over the past two decades were to blame.
He implied that the Fed’s policies of keeping interest rates relatively low over a majority of that period disproportionately benefited the wealthy, saying the central bank has been “raining money from on high, like manna from heaven” and that “it’s really flowed down through the top 1%.”
Facts First: This is misleading. While higher-income Americans may have stood to benefit from lower interest rates more than middle-class and lower-income Americans, the latter may also have been able to reap some benefits.
For instance, when the Fed slashed interest rates to near-zero levels to stimulate the economy — after the pandemic brought a surge in unemployment — many Americans were able to refinance their mortgages and lock in record low rates.
Watch Tom Foreman's Fact Check here:
Biden campaign calls Ramaswamy’s CNN town hall an "exercise in bombastic rhetoric"
From CNN's Samantha Waldenberg
President Joe Biden’s campaign called Vivek Ramaswamy’s CNN town hall in Iowa an “exercise in bombastic rhetoric."
"Vivek’s podcast of a campaign would be funny if it weren’t so deeply dangerous to our democracy. His town hall tonight was an exercise in bombastic rhetoric, offering zero solutions to the real issues that Americans demand action on,” Rep. Ro Khanna said in a statement released Wednesday night.
Khanna also called the Republican party “an unserious party” and accused Ramaswamy of engaging “in sensationalism for clicks.”
Khanna serves on the Biden campaign’s advisory board.
Ramaswamy shares how his Hindu faith aligns with "Judeo-Christian values"
From CNN's Aaron Pellish
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he aligns some core principles of his Hindu faith with the “Judeo-Christian values” shared by many Iowa voters, but acknowledged he would not be “the best president to spread Christianity.”
When asked by an audience member his response to those who believe he “cannot be our president” because his religion “is not what our founding fathers based our country on," Ramaswamy said he “respectfully disagrees.”
He laid out why he believes his upbringing in Hinduism aligns with the core tenants of Christianity, while also highlighting his connection to Christianity through his education at St. Xavier — a Catholic high school in Cincinnati.
“I'll tell you about my faith. My faith teaches me that God puts each of us here for a purpose. That we have a moral duty to realize that purpose. That God works through us in different ways, but we're still equal, because God resides in each of us,” he said. “I think those are the same Judeo-Christian values that I learned at St. X.”
Ramaswamy conceded that as a practicing Hindu, he would not be “the best president to spread Christianity throughout the country,” but said his own relationship to faith and his commitment to upholding the First Amendment protection for freedom of religion would be a focus of his presidency.
“Would I be the best president to spread Christianity through this country? I would not. I'd be not the best choice for that. But I also don't think that that's the job of the US president. But will I stand for the Judeo-Christian values that this nation was founded on that I was raised in, even in the Hindu faith? Yes, I will. You're darn right, I will,” Ramaswamy said.
“I think it's my responsibility to make faith and patriotism and family and hard work, cool again in this country, I think they're pretty cool and I think that's my job as your next president,” he added.
Ramaswamy has sought to ease potential concerns of voters who have doubts about his religious background, making particular effort to share details of his faith at recent campaign events in Iowa, where a significant constituency of Republican voters are Evangelical Christians. He often evokes anecdotes from the Bible, as he did at the town hall Wednesday.
"We don’t choose who God works through. God chooses who God works through. So we get to the Old Testament, a little bit further along, we get to the Book of Isaiah. I don't know if many of you are familiar with that one. God chose Cyrus, a gentile all the way in Persia, to lead the Jewish people back to the promised land,” Ramaswamy said.
“And so yes, I believe God put us here for a purpose. My faith is what leads me on this journey to run for president,” he said.
Fact Check: Ramaswamy’s false claims about "government entrapment" on January 6
From CNN’s Tara Subramaniam and Marshall Cohen
Vivek Ramaswamy reiterated his claim during a CNN town hall Wednesday that January 6 was an instance of “government entrapment,” offering as evidence that “we know there were federal law enforcement agents in that field.”
Facts First: FBI Director Christopher Wray, a lifelong Republican appointed by Trump, has repeatedly rejected claims that federal law enforcement agents were in any way responsible for the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on January 6.
In July, Wray told Congress: “This notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hardworking, dedicated men and women.”
And just last month, Wray was once again asked about alleged federal involvement in January 6 and pushed back strongly saying, “If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and/or agents, the answer is emphatically not. No. It was not violence orchestrated by FBI sources or agents.”
However, Wray has resisted attempts by GOP lawmakers to provide an exact number when asked how many government agents were in the crowd on January 6, if any.
The conspiracy theory that the FBI orchestrated the attack emerged in summer 2021 in a series of articles and TV segments from pro-Trump news outlets. The false and self-serving narrative claims the US government sent undercover FBI agents to trigger the violence so they could frame Trump supporters and make Trump look bad.
The supposed evidence backing up the theory is nothing more than a conspiratorial web of unproven claims, half-truths and inaccurate drivel from Trump supporters who have aggressively tried to absolve him of responsibility for the deadly assault that day.
About 850 rioters have been convicted of crimes stemming from January 6, according to the Justice Department. Most of them pleaded guilty, and many acknowledged that they were at the Capitol because they supported Trump.
Ramaswamy has a history of peddling disinformation about January 6, including at last week’s GOP debate, where he called the insurrection an “inside job.” You can read CNN’s previous fact check of that here.
Fact Check: Ramaswamy falsely claims that police rolled "out the red carpet" on January 6
From CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Kaanita Iyer
During Wednesday night’s CNN town hall, Vivek Ramaswamy doubled down on his previous comments that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was an “inside job,” adding that there is evidence of police “rolling out the red carpet” for rioters and inviting them in.
Facts First: Ramaswamy’s claim that the rioters were invited into the Capitol is false. About 140 police officers were assaulted while trying to stop the mob from breaching the Capitol. There were hours-long battles between police and rioters near some entrances. CNN obtained footage from police body-worn cameras showing how dozens of officers engaged in hand-to-hand combat with rioters in a desperate effort to keep them out of the building.
There are plenty of instances where rioters waltzed into the Capitol without a fight, but only after they had stormed past barricades and, in some cases, even stepped through broken windows. In some areas, police were so outnumbered by the mob that they retreated, stood aside or tried to politely engage with rioters to de-escalate the situation rather than fighting or making arrests, but that is clearly not the same as welcoming rioters into the building.
Ramaswamy says after campaigning, he learned Iowans appreciate people who work hard
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he heard about the phrase "Iowa nice," but while campaigning he learned that Iowans appreciate candor and hard work — a value that he believes can "revive this country."
"I think Iowans — I think one thing I share in common with Iowans is, a level of candor, actually. Everybody told me about Iowa nice. That's what I was told before I came here. What I have actually found is Iowa candor. And I appreciate that because that's the true form of nice," Ramaswamy said.
He then recounted a moment he had while running a Des Moines Turkey Trot in Iowa over Thanksgiving with a woman wished him luck and then asked him if he knew how to spell it — and they spelled W-O-R-K — which resurfaced memories of his upbringing.
"I said, you know, that sounds like something my parents taught me when I was little. I think that that's also something that I found amongst Iowans — is they value people that work hard because many of you do work hard," he said.
"I think that's something we would do well to make a national value in this country again. Embrace hard work, give us back our central purpose. That's how we revive this country," he said.
SCOTUS should rule against FDA on authorization of abortion drug, Ramaswamy says
Asked if he believes the Supreme Court should limit the distribution of a widely used abortion drug — even in states where the procedure is still allowed — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he agrees the court should rule on the power of the Food and Drug Administration.
The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will consider a case that concerns restricting access to the drug mifepristone. When coupled with another drug, it is one of the most common abortion methods in the United States.
The Biden administration and a manufacturer of the drug are asking the justices to reverse a federal appeals court decision that, if allowed to go into effect, would restrict access to the drug. At the same time, groups and doctors that oppose abortion want the justices to go even further than a conservative federal appeals court did and hold that the initial 2000 approval of the drug was also unlawful.
“This is a case about administrative law. This is less about the abortion question and it's more about, did the FDA exceed the scope of its statutory authority when it approved mifepristone on the emergency basis?” Ramaswamy said.
Pressed by CNN’s Abby Phillip on if the court should ban mifepristone, Ramaswamy said it should “put the FDA back in its place” and the Supreme Court should rule on the law that approved the drug in the first place.
Asked to clarify if that meant the drug would be banned nationwide as a result, Ramaswamy said, “I believe it will result in mifepristone being taken off the market until they go through the process that’s ordained for every other drug that doesn’t go through emergency approval.”
Some context: Mifepristone was initially approved by the FDA in 2000, but in 2016, 2019 and 2021, the FDA put in place modifications that would make the drug more easily accessible. Those modifications were related to issues such as dosing and in-person dispensing requirements. The changes also allowed the drug to be taken later in pregnancy.
Challengers – including doctors and groups who oppose abortion — argue that the FDA did not do enough to study the safety implications of the drug when it approved its use and made it more easily accessible in subsequent years.
Ramaswamy repeats conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 when pressed about falsehoods by CNN's Abby Phillip
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy maintained his previous conspiracy theories about the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, that it was an "inside job" when pressed repeatedly by CNN moderator Abby Phillip about the falsehoods.
When asked by Phillip if Ramaswamy was concerned that a convicted Capitol rioter highlighted his comments during sentencing, Ramaswamy began to double down on his assessment.
"The reality is, we know that there were federal law enforcement agents in that field. We don't know how many," he said before Phillip tried to jump in to follow up.
But as Phillip spoke, Ramaswamy also interjected, saying that her interruption is because "the establishment doesn't approve of this message."
Ramaswamy said "this is important to talk about," to which the crowd applauded.
"You were saying there were federal agents in the crowd on January 6. There's no evidence that there were federal agents in the crowd," Phillip said.
But Ramaswamy doubled down on his assertion, saying that he's seen "multiple informants suggesting that they were."
More context: This is one of the most pernicious right-wing falsehoods about the January 6 insurrection. It’s false, unsupported by any real evidence, and has been repeatedly rejected by FBI Director Christopher Wray, a lifelong Republican appointed by then-President Donald Trump.
This particular conspiracy theory emerged in summer 2021 in a series of articles and TV segments from pro-Trump news outlets. The false and self-serving narrative claims the US government orchestrated the US Capitol attack, sending undercover FBI agents to trigger the violence, so they could frame Trump supporters and make Trump look bad.
The supposed evidence backing up the theory is nothing more than a conspiratorial web of unproven claims, half-truths and inaccurate drivel from Trump supporters who have aggressively tried to absolve him of responsibility for the deadly assault that day.
“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and/or agents, the answer is emphatically not. No. It was not violence orchestrated by FBI sources or agents,” Wray said last month.
About 850 rioters have been convicted of crimes stemming from January 6, according to the Justice Department. Most of them pleaded guilty, and many acknowledged that they were at the Capitol because they supported Trump.
Ramaswamy has a history of peddling disinformation about January 6. At a campaign event last week in Iowa, he falsely claimed “the cops were just letting them in,” referring to the rioters. Here’s a previous CNN fact check from January 2022 on this specific lie.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed reporting to this post.