Hannity Asks Ramaswamy if He Launched Presidential Campaign for “Name Recognition”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Feb. 23, 2023) — In one of the last segments of his show Thursday night, “Hannity” host Sean Hannity spoke on camera with Vivek Ramaswamy, who declared his presidential candidacy on Tucker Carlson’s show Monday night.

Hannity asked Ramaswamy if he were “running for name recognition” or “running to win,” pointing out that during the primary, he will face “some of the biggest names” in Republican politics to determine the party’s eventual 2024 nominee.

One of those names, Hannity stated, will be “Donald Trump.”

“Donald Trump’s a friend; I’m not running against him,” Ramaswamy responded. As he had tweeted earlier Thursday, Ramaswamy told Hannity that while Trump launched the “America First”effort, he, Ramaswamy represents “America First 2.0.”

Since launching his campaign, Ramaswamy has visited the early primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa, he tweeted Thursday. “I have yet to hear any objection to one of my top foreign policy priorities: decimate the Mexican drug cartels,” he wrote, including a video from an interview he conducted with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

Ramaswamy’s platform includes eliminating Affirmative Action, “decimating the drug cartels” which ferry deadly drugs such as fentanyl across the Mexico-U.S. border, eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, issuing a “Declaration of Independence from China,” and “securing the border unapologetically and eliminating lottery-based immigration in favor of meritocratic admission.”

“I say this as the kid of immigrants,” Ramaswamy concluded his tweet.

As The Post & Email reported, it is seeking to learn whether Ramaswamy’s parents became U.S. citizens, and if so, when. Ramaswamy’s website contact form did not work properly when we attempted to ask the question Wednesday morning.

Ramaswamy’s life narrative states he was born in Cincinnati, OH on August 9, 1985 and attended St. Xavier High School, the son of parents who “immigrated from Vadakkencherry, Palakkad, Kerala, India.” As a young entrepreneur and law school student, he founded not only a technology company, but also a pharmaceutical company and Medicare guidance service.

Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen,” which most Americans believe means, “born in the United States.” However, when hammering out the Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation, in contrast to the requirement of “Citizen” for members of Congress, the Framers agreed upon the term, “natural born Citizen” reserved solely for the president, likely at the urging of the future first U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay.

On several occasions The Post & Email interviewed the late Atty. Mario Apuzzo on his understanding of the term as well as the ramifications of the 14th Amendment, which many believe justifies their understanding that the president need only have been born in the United States, regardless of his parents’ citizenship at the time, to serve.

“The original definition of ‘natural born Citizen’ gives our Constitutional Republic the best chance of having a President and Commander in Chief of the Military who has sole and absolute allegiance, loyalty, and attachment to the United States,” Apuzzo, an immigrant himself, wrote on August 7, 2009. “By satisfying all conditions of this definition, all other avenues of acquiring other foreign citizenships and allegiances (jus soli or by the soil and jus sanguinis or by descent) are cut off. Having all other means of acquiring other foreign citizenships or allegiances cut off is unity of citizenship which is what the President must have at the time of birth. Additionally, by requiring the child’s parents to be U.S. citizens best assures that those parents most likely will have absorbed American customs and values which, in turn, they will transmit to their child.

“The ‘natural born Citizen’ clause serves a critical purpose today and must be enforced in every Presidential election. The President has immense power, both civil and military. The clause assures the American people that their President does not have any conflicting allegiances or loyalties. In our nuclear world, it will avoid having a President who may hesitate to act quickly and decisively in a moment of crisis due to some internal psychological conflict of allegiance or loyalty. It will avoid any foreign nation expecting and pressuring the President to act in their best interest instead of that of America. The clause gives the American people the best chance that they will not be attacked from within through the Office of President. Knowing the President is a ‘natural born Citizen,’ the American people will trust their President with their lives. Finally, such a President can expect that the military will give him or her full trust and obedience.”

Legal scholar Joseph DeMaio has written extensively on what is believed to be the “de Vattel” definition of “natural born Citizen,” referencing the writings of Swiss scholar and historian Emmerich de Vattel, as opposed to the more “modern” interpretation of the term as simply a birth within the United States regardless of the parents’ citizenship.

“First, a name not heretofore frequently mentioned in all of the nbC debates – David Brearley – plays a significant role,” DeMaio wrote in a column published December 17, 2022.  “At the time of the Constitutional Convention, Brearley was serving as the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.  When the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia convened, he was in attendance as a delegate from his home state of New Jersey.  While there is some clouding on the precise date, it is widely recognized that on or about August 31, 1787,  New Jersey Delegate Judge David Brearley was elected Chairman of the “’Committee on Postponed Matters.’

“As the name suggests, that committee was charged with tackling some of the more difficult questions facing the convention delegates.  One of those questions involved what qualifications, if any, were to be put in place regarding the Commander-in-Chief, ultimately to be labeled the “President.”  Whereas originally it had been proposed that the president need only be a ‘citizen’ subject to an age and residency requirement, in its Second Report to the Convention, delivered on September 4, 1787 by Chairman Brearley, the ‘natural born Citizen’ (“nbC”) restriction and ‘citizen grandfather clause’ exception was recommended by the Committee for insertion into the final draft of the Constitution.” 

Years later, the ratification of the 12th Amendment would require all vice-presidential candidates to possess the same qualifications as the president.

With those arguments, many contend Joe Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, is ineligible to serve given that her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born in California in 1964.

Barack Hussein Obama, whose presumed father was a British citizen at the time of his claimed 1961 birth in Hawaii, is also ineligible under the interpretation.

Going back farther, many believe Chester A. Arthur, who served as president from 1881 to 1885, was ineligible given the claim, supported by documentation located by Leo Donofrio appearing to demonstrate, that Arthur’s father did not naturalize as an American citizen until 1843, when Chester was 14.

The exact location of Arthur’s birth has never been established by definitive proof, and some reports suggest he may have misstated the year of his birth. The day before he died, Arthur ordered burned the family Bible containing the family’s records.