Let’s talk today about 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. One of the most common questions I get about Vivek is, how is he so good at lying with a straight face? How is he so good at shamelessly reacting when confronted with his own quotes from the past? And never just saying, You know what? I said it and I was wrong. How does he do it? And this is a really great question, because this is actually a broader topic. 

There are a number of different techniques and strategies that individuals, politicians whoever can employ when they’re being interviewed, to get around or circumvent simply having to address and account for what they’ve said in the past. This has happened with Vivek Ramaswamy with regards to his statements about what Mike Pence should or should not have done with regards to January 6, and sending back to the states the election or whatever it was that they wanted them to do. 

This has applied to Vivek Ramaswamy with some of his statements about Israel, for example, or about foreign policy when it comes to Ukraine and Russia or the vague Ramaswamy saying 2 million people have died from converting to clean energy. There’s no evidence of that he was confronted about that, and he was able to get around it. Here are the most common strategies that Vivek will use. This is instructive because many politicians use these techniques. It’s bigger than Vivek, and it’s good to understand. 

One technique Vivek will often use is pivoting. So for example, when Andrea Mitchell said to him, do you have a shred of evidence that 2 million people have died from the conversion to clean energy? That’s what he had said. So that’s why she brought up that quote, Vivek said, listen, Andrea, what I have evidence for is that the number of climate related deaths are down 98%. This is both a pivot and a straw man fallacy, and moving the goalposts and also cherry picking of data. 

What Vivek chose to answer because he had no answer, about 2 million people dying from a conversion to clean energy is saying fewer people are dying from climate disasters. What he really meant was weather. We’re better at predicting weather now. So when there’s a tornado weather alerts go out and people shelter so fewer people die from tornadoes, because it doesn’t come up and surprise you. We’re better at knowing when a hurricane is coming. In the past in the 20s we weren’t good at that. So understandably, now, we have days of pre hurricane coverage, evacuate if necessary, be prepared. That reduces the number of people that are dying in hurricanes, that has nothing to do with people dying from a conversion to clean energy. So like that’s the pivot, the straw man etc. 

Another technique that Vivek will sometimes use is ad hominem attacks, which is attacking the source of the quote, or the person reading the quote to you. Vivek recently did this a bunch of times, when Sean Hannity and Danna bash on CNN and others said, here’s the quote, Vivek, here’s the quote. Vivek would say, Yeah, but those quotes are from headlines from fake news media. So it’s an ad hominem attack, you’re saying, the source of the quote is no good, even if it is a quote at the end of the day. 

A third technique that Vivek Ramaswamy has employed in these situations when he’s confronted with his own statements is just straight up denial. He has said, I never said it, never said it, don’t hold that position. Never said it. Even if there’s clear evidence, he will say, Well, it’s an incomplete quote or whatever the case maybe this one backfired on Vivek. He was being interviewed by CNN, Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan Collins said, hey, you know, here’s what you said about 911 and a private fundraiser, and Vivek said never said it. The quote is wrong. Later, the audio was released, and it was verbatim Correct. From what Caitlin Collins said, it totally backfired. Was it too late for everybody to find out? Yeah, maybe it was, but it’s still something you can do. It’s just straight up denial. 

You can also be ambiguous. That’s another technique that’s often used. So if you are now we’re getting beyond Vivek Ramaswamy I’m gonna give you an A hypothetical. This one is not about Vivek. If someone comes to you and says, Listen, you previously said that a million people died from the COVID vaccine. Do you have any evidence for that? You can respond ambiguously by saying listen, here’s what I can tell you. If you look at the VAERS reporting system, it’s filled with examples of adverse events from vaccines up to and including death. And the problem we have is too many in the media and too many in government don’t even want to have this discussion. We know that sometimes, medications from big pharma can cause really bad side effects including Death. And nobody’s willing to talk about it. 

See how I was incredibly ambiguous? I’m not really addressing head on the issue. The issue head on is, Do you have evidence that a million people died from the COVID vaccine, vaguely citing the VAERS system where anybody can submit anything they want. It’s not even vetted. Anybody can put in there anything they want to the tune of 1000s Maybe, but remember, it’s just claims that don’t actually have anything to do with the vaccines as has been adjudicated. I’m being completely ambiguous and generating an environment of doubt and fear that someone doesn’t want you to know the truth. That’s another technique that is often used. There’s more of these. Understand them in order to know when they’re being used against you, because they are going to keep using them up until Election Day and beyond.