'Disconnected from reality and unworkable': Twitter tanks fringe GOP candidate’s plan to axe the FBI
Vivek Ramaswamy, a conservative entrepreneur whose net worth is estimated at $500 million, became the third declared contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on February 21st, 2023. His announcement followed former President Donald Trump and ex-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley launching their respective White House bids.
Right off the bat, Ramaswamy began demanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation be disbanded and rebuilt into a new law enforcement agency. This sentiment has percolated among right-wing lawmakers as the criminal probes into Trump appear to be close to issuing indictments.
On Sunday's edition of Meet the Press, NBC News moderator Chuck Todd challenged Ramaswamy on his vision.
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"One of your big applause lines that is a bit of a head-scratcher for me is 'defund the FBI,'" Todd noted.
"I didn't say defund the FBI, I said shut down the FBI and replace it. Something new," Ramaswamy interrupted.
"Okay... so you wanna shut down the FBI?" Todd asked.
"Yeah," Ramaswamy confirmed.
Todd was openly skeptical.
"What are you replacing it with?" he wondered.
"I think it's a new apparatus built from scratch that actually respects the law instead of making it up. And the funny thing, Chuck, is if you look at over the last..." Ramaswamy replied.
Todd cut him off.
"You think the FBI constantly is making up the law? That is a huge charge. They, they have just stopped major fentanyl, you know, been able to get rid of, there's a lot of work the FBI does, I think, other than respond to complaints from elected officials who don't like investigations," Todd explained, alluding to the aforementioned anger inside GOP circles over the United States Justice Department's pursuit of Trump.
"Well, actually, if you look over the course of the last sixty years, J, Edgar Hoover, what he did to Martin Luther King, that was an affront. It's still the J. Edgar Hoover FBI that people walk into down the street here in Washington, DC and I personally believe that somebody who's running to actually run the executive branch of the government, when you have a bureaucracy whose culture becomes so ossified, every once in a while you need to turn it over," Ramaswamy said. "And I think that, yes, we need federal law enforcement, but that institution has, in a bipartisan way, become so, I think ossified in its own norms, in its own corruption, that we need to rebuild it from scratch and have something."
Todd was unconvinced.
"So you're gonna replace the FBI with the F, with a new FBI?" he pressed.
"Well, with a new institution built from scratch to, to carry out federal law enforcement because the existing FBI, the people who work there have worked there for so long that actually they're gonna get, be getting in their own way. I think that that's actually important, and by the way, I also support this," Ramaswamy said.
"All right. It does sound like, it does sound like you're just replacing the FBI with the FBI," Todd quipped.
Ramaswamy then revealed the crux of his argument.
"Well, the problem is there's people who have worked there for decades, and so what I say is if I'm the US president and I can't work for the federal government for more than eight years, which I think is a good thing, then none of those bureaucrats reporting into me should either," he opined. "That's the point I'm making."
Like Todd, the social media audience found Ramaswamy's plan a bit vexing. And users saw right through it.
chalin: "So much for valuing experience and expertise."
Mme K: "It's suspicious this guy wants to replace all the bureaucrats who know their jobs."
Honest Man: "He wants to fill the department with people that the @GOP can use to weaponize the department for their benefit. Republicans are now scared of accountability."
40YrsRepublicanNeverAgain: "He's right on top of concepts there. People working somewhere for years is bad. How MAGA is that? All the blue-collar layoffs were for the good of the corporations. Yep, he's got the pulse of the blue-collar there."
Tommy B: "How much influence does J. Edgar Hoover really have these days? He has been dead for over 50 years."
Luke Zaleski: "Vivek's talking points are totally disconnected from reality and unworkable. Vivek is not a serious candidate worth platforming on NBC. He's Trump 2016 redux in disguise. A complete bullsh*t artist and media huckster. Dude is a collection of focus-grouped talking points and salesman schtick curated to paper over his anti-government pro-autocracy campaign. Vivek would like to rule your country now and personally dismantle your government, America. He's asking nicely but firmly. And he's wearing a suit. So I say you should give it to him. What's the worst that could happen—A state of nature without a functional system of governance?"
Ramaswamy's MLK reference also fell flat.
Cat Escalara: "These con artists are trying to pretend that the right was on the side of MLK."
Watch Ramaswamy below or at this link.
\u201cWATCH: GOP presidential candidate @VivekGRamaswamy\n says he wants to "shut down the FBI" and develop a new replacement.\n\n@chucktodd: "It does sound like you're just replacing the FBI with the FBI."\n\nRamaswamy: "The problem is there's people who have worked there for decades."\u201d— Meet the Press (@Meet the Press) 1682862143
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