Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Saturday President Joe Biden is not actually “running” the country, or even really running for president, but is instead being “wielded” as a “puppet” by another force entirely.
Ramaswamy spoke in Atlanta at conservative conference The Gathering, an annual event from pundit and radio host Erick Erickson that this year featured most, but not all, of the 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls.
The two were discussing the topic of age when Ramaswamy argued that Biden isn’t really the one calling the shots in the Biden administration.
“You know, I think that there are legitimate questions to ask of, who, is somebody too old to be president? I actually think not. You know, plenty of older people who are sharper than many people my age and may still yet have their best days ahead of them,” said Ramaswamy.
“Just to be clear, that’s not the president,” Erickson quipped.
“That’s not Joe Biden,” agreed Ramaswamy. “I mean, the deeper problem with Joe Biden is he’s not really even the person running the country. I truly believe that. It is the managerial class wielding him as a puppet.”
Ramaswamy then said he doesn’t talk about Biden much on the campaign and offered as his reason the theory that Biden won’t actually be the nominee anyway, but essentially is a decoy candidate.
“I don’t believe I will be running against Joe Biden in the general election. I’ll be running against somebody else,” he said. “I think it’s a sort of form of the feigned retreat to sort of lead us to criticize one man for his age or his failures when the deeper problem is the cancer that sits underneath him.”
Also at the conference, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie got applause from the conservative crowd when he attacked Trump for bragging about being the “apple of Putin’s eye,” while former VP Mike Pence said Trump’s spending was as reckless as Biden’s.
ERICKSON: I’m like, Gosh, he’s not just younger than me, he’s like a decade younger than me, that’s, aagh. But, you know, okay, so in that regard, I mean, it does open you up from the opposite side of of Joe Biden is ancient of days that how are you going to respond to people say, well, you might just be too young to run for president?
RAMASWAMY: You know, I accept that question. I think it’s a legitimate, we’re talking about a very serious question here. This is a job interview of eight – seven, eight good people, whatever it’ll be starting next week. And, you know, I think that there are legitimate questions to ask of, who, is somebody too old to be president? I actually think not. You know, plenty of older people who are sharper than many people my age and may still yet have their best days ahead of them. And so.
ERICKSON: Just to be clear, that’s not the president.
RAMASWAMY: That’s not Joe Biden, but. Well, I mean, the deeper problem with Joe Biden is he’s not really even the person running the country. I truly believe that. It is the managerial class wielding him as a puppet. Right? And so, I think that’s the deeper reason — you don’t hear me talking that much about Joe Biden. I don’t believe I will be running against Joe Biden in the general election. I’ll be running against somebody else. And so I think it’s a sort of form of the feigned retreat to sort of lead us to criticize one man for his age or his failures when the deeper problem is the cancer that sits underneath him, that we have to open our eyes and actually see that truth in order to get to the other side of it. But back to your question about am I too young? I don’t think so. If I did, I wouldn’t be in this race. But I’ll remind you that I’m in this race to revive those 1776 ideals of this country. Well, who wrote those 1776 ideals on a page? Thomas Jefferson when he signed that Declaration of Independence, he was five years older than me right now. He was 33 years old.
