'You're Indian': US author on why she wouldn't vote for Vivek Ramaswamy

Chandigarh, May 10

Indian-origin multimillionaire and former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy–who once was running for 2024 Republican presidential bid, but later, faded from the race, in a post on the microblogging website X said he respected American author Ann Coulter because “she had the guts to speak her mind”.

He said Coulter in his podcast that she wouldn’t have voted for him in the US presidential election because he is an “Indian”.

“Ann Coulter  told me flat-out to my face that she couldn’t vote for me ‘because you’re an Indian,’ even though she agreed with me more than most other candidates. I disagree with her but respect she had the guts to speak her mind. It was a riveting hour. The TRUTH podcast is back,” Ramaswamy said in the post. “Ann Coulter challenged me. I challenged her. This episode will challenge you. You’re not going to want to miss it,” he had posted on X

Ramaswamy, 38, was born in Ohio to immigrant parents from southern India. He was raised in the Hindu faith of his parents, but went to a Roman Catholic high school. He earned a biology degree at Harvard University before attending Yale Law School.

Ramaswamy worked as a hedge fund investor and says he had already made several million dollars before graduating from Yale. In 2014, he founded his own biotech company, Roivant Sciences, which bought patents from larger companies for drugs that had yet to be fully developed and marketed. He resigned as CEO in 2021. In 2023, the business magazine Forbes estimated Ramaswamy’s wealth at $630 million.

Ramaswamy wants to greatly expand the powers of the presidency and dismantle much of the federal government, including the FBI, the Department of Education and the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service.

He opposes NATO membership for Ukraine and has said Kyiv should make concessions to Russia to end the war, including allowing it to retain parts of Ukraine it already occupies.

with Reuters inputs