CNN town hall with Vivek Ramaswamy in Iowa

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told a crowd of Iowa voters in a CNN town hall Wednesday night that the federal government has “lied systematically” to Americans.

The Ohio entrepreneur’s parroting of a series of far-right conspiracy theories — and the pushback from CNN moderator Abby Phillip — showcased his efforts to appeal to a Donald Trump-aligned, conspiracy-minded element of the GOP electorate just weeks before the January 15 Iowa caucuses kick off the party’s 2024 presidential nominating process.

In the town hall at Grand View University in Des Moines, Ramaswamy turned a question about abortion medication into a critique of the federal bureaucracy. He also staked out conservative positions on immigration enforcement and railed against affirmative action efforts.

Here are takeaways from the town hall:

Vivek Ramaswamy took the stage on Wednesnday night in a CNN town hall in Iowa ahead of the state’s caucuses next month.

The Ohio entrepreneur showcased his efforts to appeal to a Donald Trump-aligned element of the GOP electorate just weeks before the January 15 Iowa caucuses kick off the party’s 2024 presidential nominating process.

See photos from the event:

Asked about the growth in income inequality in the US during Wednesday’s CNN town hall, GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said the American Dream is not alive and well right now. 

“Prices are going up. Interest rates, including mortgage rates to buy your home, are going up. But wages have remained flat,” he said. 

Facts First: While there are several government measures of wage growth, at least two main reports show that this is not true. Wage growth now outpaces inflation. 

In November, workers’ real average weekly earnings grew on an annual basis by 0.5%, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, which looks at inflation-adjusted earnings. That means that wage growth outpaced inflation. It turned positive in June for the first time in 26 months. 

Likewise, the bureau’s Employment Cost Index showed that inflation-adjusted wages and salaries for civilian workers increased 0.9% for the 12 months ending September 2023, the most recent data available. It also first turned positive in June. 

The quarterly index tracks changes in employers’ labor costs for wages and salaries but is not subject to the same distortions as other measures, such as average hourly earnings, because it keeps the composition of the workforce constant.��

To back up his false assertion that government agents entrapped Trump supporters on January 6, Ramaswamy pointed to the kidnapping case involving Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. He repeatedly said three defendants were acquitted because they were entrapped. 

Facts First: As CNN’s Abby Phillip pointed out during the town hall, those numbers only tell part of the story. Nine other men charged in the plot were ultimately convicted. 

There were federal and state charges stemming from the kidnapping plot against a total of 14 defendants. According to past CNN reporting, nine were convicted either by pleading guilty or at trial, and five were acquitted. 

Testimony from the cases established that undercover FBI agents played a role in the plan, though that is a common tactic in investigations into criminal groups and gangs. Some of the defendants raised an entrapment defense at trial. 

There were indeed split verdicts, but more were convicted than acquitted. 

When asked about growing inequality between the richest Americans and the middle class during a CNN town hall on Wednesday, Vivek Ramaswamy claimed the Federal Reserve’s policies over the past two decades were to blame.

He implied that the Fed’s policies of keeping interest rates relatively low over a majority of that period disproportionately benefited the wealthy, saying the central bank has been “raining money from on high, like manna from heaven” and that “it’s really flowed down through the top 1%.” 

Facts First: This is misleading. While higher-income Americans may have stood to benefit from lower interest rates more than middle-class and lower-income Americans, the latter may also have been able to reap some benefits.  

For instance, when the Fed slashed interest rates to near-zero levels to stimulate the economy — after the pandemic brought a surge in unemployment — many Americans were able to refinance their mortgages and lock in record low rates.  

Watch Tom Foreman's fact check here:

President Joe Biden’s campaign called Vivek Ramaswamy’s CNN town hall in Iowa an “exercise in bombastic rhetoric."

Khanna also called the Republican party “an unserious party” and accused Ramaswamy of engaging “in sensationalism for clicks.”

Khanna serves on the Biden campaign’s advisory board.

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he is proposing giving some concessions to Russia in Ukraine to end the war and expressed confidence that President Vladimir Putin would accept his plan.

During the CNN town hall in Iowa, the tech entrepreneur said he is proposing a “reasonable end” to the war in Ukraine, emphasizing that it is his position that the war is not advancing American interests.

He said his deal would “allow Ukraine to come out with sovereignty intact,” but there would be “some territorial concessions of the Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine.”

Ramaswamy also said his proposal would also include a commitment not to admit Ukraine to NATO — and would have the stipulation that Russia "exits its military alliance" with China.

Asked what makes him think Russian President Vladimir Putin would be responsive to this plan, Ramaswamy said, “So do I trust Vladimir Putin? Of course not. Is he a craven dictator? Absolutely, he is. But we will trust him to follow his self interest just as he will trust us to follow ours."

Pressed that if Putin still does not agree to the territorial concessions in the east as Ramaswamy laid out and decided to take the entire country using force, the GOP candidate asserted that he is confident in his ability to negotiate.

“I think that's a fictitious scenario for a lot of reasons. Part of the reason Putin has been able to seize eastern Ukraine is they have not had the same level of resistance as the rest of Ukraine,” Ramaswamy said, doubling down that people who live in some eastern parts of the country “don’t even view themselves really as part of Ukraine.”

Vivek Ramaswamy reiterated his claim during a CNN town hall Wednesday that January 6 was an instance of “government entrapment,” offering as evidence that “we know there were federal law enforcement agents in that field.” 

Facts First: FBI Director Christopher Wray, a lifelong Republican appointed by Trump, has repeatedly rejected claims that federal law enforcement agents were in any way responsible for the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on January 6.  

In July, Wray told Congress: “This notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hardworking, dedicated men and women.” 

And just last month, Wray was once again asked about alleged federal involvement in January 6 and pushed back strongly saying, “If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and/or agents, the answer is emphatically not. No. It was not violence orchestrated by FBI sources or agents.” 

However, Wray has resisted attempts by GOP lawmakers to provide an exact number when asked how many government agents were in the crowd on January 6, if any. 

The conspiracy theory that the FBI orchestrated the attack emerged in summer 2021 in a series of articles and TV segments from pro-Trump news outlets. The false and self-serving narrative claims the US government sent undercover FBI agents to trigger the violence so they could frame Trump supporters and make Trump look bad. 

The supposed evidence backing up the theory is nothing more than a conspiratorial web of unproven claims, half-truths and inaccurate drivel from Trump supporters who have aggressively tried to absolve him of responsibility for the deadly assault that day. 

About 850 rioters have been convicted of crimes stemming from January 6, according to the Justice Department. Most of them pleaded guilty, and many acknowledged that they were at the Capitol because they supported Trump. 

Ramaswamy has a history of peddling disinformation about January 6, including at last week’s GOP debate, where he called the insurrection an “inside job.” You can read CNN’s previous fact check of that here.  

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he aligns some core principles of his Hindu religion with the “Judeo-Christian values” shared by many Iowa voters, but acknowledged he would not be “the best president to spread Christianity.”

When asked by an audience member his response to those who believe he “cannot be our president” because his religion “is not what our founding fathers based our country on," Ramaswamy said he “respectfully disagrees.”

He laid out why he believes his upbringing in Hinduism aligns with the core tenants of Christianity, while also highlighting his connection to Christianity through his education at St. Xavier — a Catholic high school in Cincinnati.

Ramaswamy conceded that as a practicing Hindu, he would not be “the best president to spread Christianity throughout the country,” but said his own relationship to faith and his commitment to upholding the First Amendment protection for freedom of religion would be a focus of his presidency.

“I think it's my responsibility to make faith and patriotism and family and hard work, cool again in this country, I think they're pretty cool and I think that's my job as your next president,” he added.

Ramaswamy has sought to ease potential concerns of voters who have doubts about his religious background, making particular effort to share details of his faith at recent campaign events in Iowa, where a significant constituency of Republican voters are Evangelical Christians. He often evokes anecdotes from the Bible, as he did at the town hall Wednesday.

"We don’t choose who God works through. God chooses who God works through. So we get to the Old Testament, a little bit further along, we get to the Book of Isaiah. I don't know if many of you are familiar with that one. God chose Cyrus, a gentile all the way in Persia, to lead the Jewish people back to the promised land,” Ramaswamy said.

“And so yes, I believe God put us here for a purpose. My faith is what leads me on this journey to run for president,” he said.