President Biden met this week with leaders of Japan and South Korea for their first Camp David Summit of his presidency the trio announced their intention to hold trilateral meetings aimed at strengthening alliances in the face of mounting tensions with China and North Korea the leader's pledge to hold military exercises together and share missile warning data on North Korea also this week Republican presidential candidate Vivek ramaswamy unveiled his foreign policy Vision at the Richard Nixon L
ibrary in a wide-ranging conversation with Simone Sanders Townsend just hours before that speech ramaswami expressed opposition to multilateral agreements like the bite Administration has made and emphasized his nationalist approach to protecting U.S interests here's their discussion for this week's on the ballot series you talk about reducing economic independence on China through what you're calling stronger relationships with other Asian countries like India like Japan and South Korea isn't w
hat you are describing similar to the indo-pacific framework that the Biden Harris Administration announced in 2022 no I think that's actually loaded up with a lot of other orthogonal goals like climate change that have nothing to do with my objectives I want strong bilateral trade agreements with Japan with South Korea with even India these are countries that actually have strategic interests that are aligned with ours if we're able to deal with them bilaterally so these multilateral agreements
end up with a lot of bureaucratic nonsense in them but I think those bilateral agreements will focus on reducing our economic independence on China itself that's where my focus is and I think if we're serious about declaring economic independence from China it is going to involve real onshoring to the United States which I'm absolutely in favor of but if we're serious about doing this in a relatively short time Horizon as I am it will require allies around the Pacific including India and South
Korea and Japan I just want to follow up on that sir the countries that you named India and South Korea and Japan they are part of the indo-pacific Alliance so is Australia Brunei Malaysia Singapore I can go on I think all the countries together account for about 40 percent of the world's GDP and the pillars say that they're about trade the pillars of the framework or the supply chains a clean economy Fair economy is that not what you're describing the clean economy Fair economy is just a nice s
ounding buzzword for agendas that are actually hostile to for example carbon emissions in the United States so I am a big fan Simone of abandoning the anti-carbon cult that's shackling the United States well actually being much lighter on other countries who are on the other side of those trade relationships I personally believe we need to abandon the cult of climate change in the United States altogether that is shackling the United States while leaving Nations like China untouched and that's w
hat you get in these multilateral bureaucratized Arrangements I'm deeply skeptical of multilateral agreements that the U.S should enter I think our relationships with our allies should be bilateral with each Nation without these transnational climate and other unrelated standards that find their way into these trade agreements Ukrainian leaders including Parliament members that I have spoken to have told me directly that when it comes time to negotiate with Russia they will accept nothing less t
han full sovereignty to end Russia's war in their country now your plan allows Russia to keep the territory that it has seized in Ukraine can the but the war can't end without Ukraine right well to be clear Ukraine is like a client state of the United States right now we are literally paying their government employees the people who work in the bureaucracy of Ukraine's government are paid by U.S taxpayer dollars today and so I do think the U.S is in a position to determine how this war comes to
an end here's how I would do it the deal with Putin is this we freeze the current lines of control the same way the Korean war ended it's a Korean War style Armistice a further commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to Nato but in return Ukraine does come out with its sovereignty intact not without parts of the donbass region but the rest of Ukraine comes out with its sovereignty intact but most importantly I will require Vladimir Putin to exit his military partnership with China the china-
russia military partnership that Alliance is the single greatest military threat that the United States faces today and I think it is shameful that neither politician in either party is actually talking about it Mr ramaswami I want to talk about the debate the first Republican presidential debate is on August 23rd you have qualified for that debate stage and I would note the second debate as well how are you preparing for the first debate well I'm traveling eight states in the seven days leading
up to the debate I want to be careful not to over prepare I've been at my best in this campaign the way we've been running this campaign is by speaking the truth in a way that is unconstrained by the members of the donor class or the political consultant Handler class my bet is that's going to be a competitive advantage on the stage but the truth is that every other candidate in this race has been a professional politician for a long time they've been in professional political debates and prima
ries and general elections before I haven't and so I'd be the first debate is a bit of a warm-up I've qualified for the next few we're doing great in this race I think my honesty and transparency and the fact that I'm actually able to speak freely in a way that many other established professional politicians aren't that's my competitive Advantage you know you talk about your campaign I think I've just heard a preview of your debate strategy you talk about your campaign travel you've spent about
19 days campaigning in Iowa 15 days campaigning in New Hampshire only three days in South Carolina but you've appeared on on more than 70 podcasts is is this your strategy to to reach voters I'd say our strategy in this campaign is talk to everyone I'm not running to lead a political party I am running to lead a nation and so I'm going into places where people don't go you are you are running to lead a political party you're running to be the Republican nominee the United States of America actua
lly I'm running but but this is really important Simone is the way that I'm running this primary is a little bit different than the other candidates because I'm already planning for our ultimate destination leading a national Revival I was going to mention I've been to the south side of Chicago I've gone to Kensington in the middle of Philadelphia these are places where any Republican politician or consultant would tell you you'd be crazy to waste time there in the middle of a primary I don't se
e it that way many people might even say that about coming on MSNBC there are other candidates who have said that they won't talk to NBC News because NBC News is not nice to Republicans my view is if I'm not willing to sit across the table from folks like you I'm not ready to sit across the table from Xi Jinping and I believe I am but which is I think I reject the comparison of me to Xi Jinping I want to ask you you we talked about uh you talked about climate change a little bit earlier and I wa
nt to ask you about uh Maui there's still a lot of questions about uh the the government's response to the deadly wildfires in Maui You released a statement this morning blasting people you say that delayed the approval of extra water to fight the fires and you link that to what you're calling the Dei agenda uh so you think Dei is responsible for Wildfire deaths in Maui I think a big part of sadly what is responsible for those debts and my heart goes out to those people I think it is shameful th
at the Biden Administration has not done more that they'll do more for Ukraine than they're doing for our own fellow Americans in Hawaii right now a president who has not even showed up in Hawaii since that catastrophe I think that's shameful but the reality is what did contribute to those debts and this is a hard truth is the delay in providing water despite multiple access multiple requests that were made for Access and the person who was stonewalling it is an Obama appointee who has a world v
iew that is belief based on water protection it's a climate activist and so I think it's a sad story Swami I I think we could do this all day I'm looking forward to speaking with you again soon thank you very much for your time today appreciate it [Music] thank you [Music]
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