Four little words on an Ezra Klein podcast, uttered in October 2024, are going to haunt Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP candidate for Ohio governor, from now until the November election.
Asked by Klein whether or not he believed the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, were mistakes, Ramaswamy answered without hesitation.
“I believe they were,” said Ramaswamy, who was still months away from becoming a candidate for Ohio governor.
Rest assured, those four words (said at roughly the 7-minute mark in the above video) will be the stuff of 30-second campaign ads for the Democratic candidate for governor, Amy Acton, the former Ohio Health Department director.
We’d be willing to wager that the 30-second spots are already in the can, ready to roll.
Acton’s running mate, former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper of Cincinnati, is already beating Ramaswamy on the head over those four little words at every chance he gets.
Millions of Ohioans, most of whom vote, will be most interested in hearing Ramaswamy’s views on the social safety net programs they benefit from each and every day.
Not all Republican politicians share Ramaswamy’s views about Medicare and Medicaid. In fact, former governor John Kasich expanded Medicaid coverage in his second term to cover nearly half a million more Ohioans.
But pre-candidacy Ramaswamy expanded on his views in the podcast, and, to date hasn’t changed his mind, apparently.
We wanted to ask him if he wanted to “revise and extend” his remarks, as they say in Congress, but his press handlers did not respond to requests for an interview.
So all we have is what he said to Ezra Klein in October 2024.
Medicare and Medicaid were mistakes, he said, “particularly Medicaid, particularly the welfare state, without the work requirements attached to it.”
“In the 1960s, we traded off our sovereignty for the stuff and eventually the stuff is going to run out, in the form of our national debt crisis; and we are going to be left with neither sovereignty nor stuff.”
By “stuff” he means the social safety net programs of Medicare and Medicaid.
Three months after making these remarks, Ramaswamy spent a couple of weeks under Elon Musk and his DOGE budget-slashing effort (under which government spending actually increased). Then Ramaswamy ran back home to Ohio to try to convince Gov. Mike DeWine to appoint him to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by now-Vice President JD Vance.
But DeWine was having none of it. Instead, he appointed his lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to the Senate seat. Husted is running this year for the remainder of Vance’s term.
Spurned by DeWine, Ramaswamy decided to run for governor instead, despite never having spent a day in state government. And he hired most of Vance’s old Ohio staff to run the campaign for him. Potential serious GOP challengers fell by the wayside, scared off by Ramaswamy’s Trump ties and his seemingly unlimited campaign money.
And here we are.
Acton, despite the fact that she will be outspent many times over, is not impressed by Ramaswamy.
“Another day, another dangerous take from my opponent that threatens the wellbeing of Ohioans,” Acton said on social media after Ramaswamy’s “four little words” podcast became public.
“Over 2.5 million Ohio seniors and people with disabilities rely on Medicare, and more than 3 million families depend on Medicaid,” Acton said. “These are our parents, grandparents, neighbors and kids. A billionaire who flies around Ohio on a private jet calls these lifesaving programs a ‘mistake.’ ”
Ramaswamy has sworn off posting on social media for the duration of his campaign — probably a wise move, since nearly every time he did, it backfired on him. Such as with his plan for a 365-day school year for kids — an idea so far out that even many Republicans called him out on it.
In fact, nobody liked the idea. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not the Flat Earth Society. Not teachers, not school boards, and especially not the kids.
We've got to give Ramaswamy credit, though, for bringing to light the one issue that can unite all Ohioans in these fractious times.
Vivek Ramaswamy: peacemaker.
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