{"id":4943,"date":"2025-01-15T19:03:45","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T19:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ramaswamy-and-dewine-met-to-discuss-ohio-senate-appointment\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T19:03:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T19:03:45","slug":"ramaswamy-and-dewine-met-to-discuss-ohio-senate-appointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/ramaswamy-and-dewine-met-to-discuss-ohio-senate-appointment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaswamy and DeWine met to discuss Ohio Senate appointment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Two months after taking himself out of the running for an Ohio Senate seat, Vivek Ramaswamy is under consideration for the post, according to two people familiar with the matter granted anonymity to discuss ongoing conversations.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy and Gov. Mike DeWine, who is tasked with appointing someone to the job recently vacated by President-elect JD Vance, met at the governor\u2019s mansion over the weekend to discuss the post, according to one of the people.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy enters the mix after going dark on social media for almost two weeks, shortly after making controversial comments that upset MAGA activists online. In a discussion of H-1B visas, he said that tech companies hire foreign workers partly because of an American cultural mindset that has \u201cvenerated mediocrity over excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing of Ramaswamy\u2019s decision to seek higher office has sparked speculation in GOP circles that he is looking for a lifeline after his contentious comments. Not only had he previously removed himself from consideration for the Senate post, he has also taken on a high-profile job co-leading President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s cost-cutting efforts with Elon Musk in the Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy is being considered even as he\u2019s interested in continuing to serve on DOGE and potentially launching a gubernatorial run, according to one of the people.<\/p>\n

Billionaire Elon Musk, co-director of DOGE, Ramaswamy and Trump are all said to be in agreement that the group needs an advocate in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Appointing Ramaswamy to the Senate would offer Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted a cleaner shot to succeed DeWine by eliminating a potential competitor.\u201cDeWine isn\u2019t incentivized to pick Ramaswamy for Senate, but Vivek is also the one roadblock to Husted,\u201d this person said.<\/p>\n

Dewine brought Husted down to Mar-a-Lago last month to visit Trump, Ohio Capital Journal reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dewine has previously said<\/a> he wants someone who can win the special election in 2026 to fill out the remainder of Vance\u2019s term and hold the Senate seat again in 2028.<\/p>\n

One Trump ally, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, warned that Ramaswamy’s comments about American culture might complicate his chances of being tapped for the Senate nomination.<\/p>\n

“The problem now is that he is damaged goods,” the person said.<\/p>\n

DeWine\u2019s decision may come as early as this week, he told reporters at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago day?, standing alongside other Republican governors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither Governor DeWine nor our office has commented on any possible candidates for the pending appointment,\u201d Dewine Press Secretary Dan Tierney told Blue Light News in a statement.<\/p>\n

A Senate appointment would allow Ramaswamy, 39, to work on efforts to cut federal spending from inside Congress while Musk pursues it from the outside, the second person familiar with Ramaswamy\u2019s thinking told Blue Light News. It would also provide Ramaswamy a chance to go fight for DOGE priorities against expected pushback from Senate Democrats, given his penchant for debating.<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy has been uncharacteristically quiet on social media after being caught up in a heated debate between different MAGA factions over H1-B visas at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

His support of the temporary visa program for highly skilled foreign workers, was met with significant pushback from right wing voices including Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec, though Trump ultimately said he supported the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn\u2019t start in college, it starts YOUNG,\u201d wrote Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants<\/a>, on X. \u201cA culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ \u2026 will not produce the best engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramaswamy ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination during the 2024 cycle, but managed to raise his national profile and break through with some GOP voters by aligning himself with Trump and campaigning on \u201cAmerica First\u201d policies.<\/p>\n

As a presidential candidate, Ramaswamy\u2019s proposals ranged from cutting 1 million government jobs<\/a> to ending birthright citizenship to raising the voting age to 25.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two months after taking himself out of the running for an Ohio Senate seat, Vivek Ramaswamy is under consideration for the post, according to two people familiar with the matter granted anonymity to discuss ongoing conversations. Ramaswamy and Gov. Mike DeWine, who is tasked with appointing someone to the job recently vacated by President-elect JD […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}