Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh
Vivek: Kicked out of DOGE? Elon Beef? Trump Relationship and More
Wed, 29 Jan 2025
YERRRR, Vivek Ramaswamy is BACK on Flagrant to breakdown his departure from DOGE, talk about his possible plans for Ohio, what he thinks about China's new AI technology, AND why he needs someone to monitor his tweets. All that and much much more on this episode of Flagrant. INDULGE 00:00 Intro 00:45 What happened at DOGE? 9:21 Weren't Vivek and Elon unelected? 11:23 What's a technology led approach? Public eye on events 18:01 Different goals and visions + stand on his way 19:15 What would Vivek do? Vision for Ohio 22:18 Vivek's tweets + Outcompeting China 25:59 Deep Seek, Why use H-1Bs? "Auction them off" 39:21 Overcoming people not liking Vivek for being Indian? 41:45 Was Vivek shocked at racial blowback for tweets? 48:00 Dealing with causes of issues + Teacher Unions 57:57 Family values + No-one strives to be on welfare 1:06:57 Why CEO pay is so high? 1:09:47 Akaash = right about Cowboys + Super Bowl picks 1:16:12 Is Vivek a radical? Acknowledge the ridiculousness 1:29:50 UBI investments for kids 1:34:10 How did Vivek make his money? Smear campaign? 1:47:11 Believing narratives to satisfy own pre-conceptions 1:50:44 Who is Vivek fighting against? 1:54:20 Addressing American inequality + Financial Education 2:06:07 That's so Ohio, Corporate money + Conflict of interest 2:17:22 Are there successful States? 2:18:55 What policies would Vivek run on? 2:20:49 Immigration policy 2:26:39 Access to quality healthcare Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened at DOGE?
what's up everybody and welcome to the podcast and today we are joined once again listen this is not the case at all he's definitely not running for governor of ohio i know that for sure i mean he'll tell you in a moment that he's definitely not going to do that give it up for vivek ramaswamy definitely not going to be the governor of ohio right people loved you in ohio man we uh
This guy's coming to bring the comedians, first the comedians and then the industry.
He's going to save the cats and dogs, man. Alex! Already? Everybody. All forms of life. All forms of life.
Okay, okay. So there's a lot of things going on here. Yeah, there's a lot going on.
A lot of things.
A lot of things going on. I need to know about Doge. What happened? You're on this podcast. You give us this beautiful soliloquy about the managerial class. Thank you. And it was so important that I was like, I need you to break it down dumb. Obviously, you're a very smart guy.
You guys say that, break it down dumb, but I know you're into the center of it. I remember that conversation. Sixth grade. I'm a moron. We're sixth graders. You know, I'll tell you, if you can't explain it to a sixth grader, it means you don't understand it yourself. That's what Epstein said.
Okay. Okay. Okay. So this, I see you just deliver this amazing thing. It's crazy on Twitter.
Everybody's like, you got it. Then after we met where one of the core chapters was about dismantling the administrative state. So this is my passion.
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Chapter 2: What is Vivek's vision for Ohio?
And the way it's gotten started, and you could see this publicly as well, is much more of a technology and digital technology focus.
Okay, so just slow down for a second. So you were going to use the Constitution to remove legislation.
Well, to remove regulations. Sorry, regulations.
So you're going to use legislation to remove regulations.
Yes, and I've written about this for the last year, right? Can you give an example of that? Yeah, I can give a good example of that. So, you know, not to get too academic too quickly, but basically, Congress is supposed to pass the laws and the executive branch is supposed to enforce the laws.
But it turns out that most of the laws that decide what you can and can't do in your life were actually never passed by Congress. Right. They were passed by people who were never elected to their position. The managerial class. The managerial class. The bureaucrats in D.C. What's a law? Give me an example. So they don't call laws. They call them rules, but they have the effect of laws. Right.
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Chapter 3: How does Vivek view AI technology from China?
Let's say the amount of fees that fishermen have to pay to the government to have a license to be able to fish in a particular area.
Hmm.
Let's say it is the registration requirement before a bank or an asset manager is allowed to do business. Let's say it is the procedural hoop that a biotech company has to jump through before advancing from phase one to phase two of the development process.
Let's say it's the permission that a coal miner or a nuclear energy plant has to get as permission from the government before they build a new nuclear energy plant, which, by the way, has not happened in 20 years in this country because the red tape associated with doing so is so impossible. Now, I imagine none of those were passed by Congress. Yes.
None of those were passed by people that we the people elected. Right. They were written into law. They call them rules, but effectively into law. Yeah. By unelected bureaucrats. Right. And the thing is, that's not a democracy. Right. It might be something else, but it's not a democracy. Because in a democracy, if somebody makes a law that affects you. Yeah. You get to vote them out.
That's what it makes a law. These are more like edicts. Yeah. Edicts come from a king. Yeah. Because you can't vote them out. This doesn't come from a king, but it's a new kind of. edict of a bureaucracy.
So just so I can understand, you're not against regulation as long as it's decided by democratically elected officials.
That's my most foundational principle. It so happens in my own politics. I'm generally pretty libertarian. I tend to be against, I think most of these regulations tend not to be productive. But sometimes you need regulation. But the most important principle is if you're going to have it, at least let the people who it affects. Yeah.
To say, if it's not working out for me, I want to be able to vote you out. I need to be able to vote you out. That's the most important principle.
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Chapter 4: What are Vivek's thoughts on tweets and public perception?
They're running into a fire. And it's the same thing you see, and it's such a great example because you see that same type of incentive structure show up all the time where someone at the FDA- They rarely will get hauled in front of some hearing if they fail to approve a drug that saves lives.
But if they do approve a drug that has some unintended side effects, then they're going to be in the public eye. So their incentive is to go in one direction, not the other. Does that make them an evil person? No. Most human beings just respond to the incentives that they have while still in their heart of hearts believing that they're doing good. So this is your idea for Doge, right?
And we laid it out. So there was a Wall Street Journal op-ed that we co-authored soon after it was written, focused on, A, this constitutional approach, where the Supreme Court in the last couple of years came out and said, actually, most of those rules are actually unconstitutional because they didn't go through Congress. That's a big freaking deal. Huge. Happened a couple of years ago. Yeah.
So we got that toolkit. And then if you want to really tackle government spending, which is a separate prong, the budget's set in Congress. There's no way around that, right? The budget is set by Congress. If you want to cut trillions of dollars, you got to go to the core of that budgeting process. So that was where my focus and our focus was.
I think if you look at, you know, now it's taken off and I think it could be great. It's very much a digital technology first approach. What does that mean? Well, I mean, you can, I'll let you read the executive orders that came out last week. And like I said, I'll be- No, we're not doing that.
We got the guy right here.
I know, I know that's what, you know, I- So I'll leave it at what I'm able to say, which is sort of what you can see publicly. Very technology-focused approach and that there's nobody better to take a technology-focused centric approach than Elon. And by the way, we ended up having a pretty open discussion.
amongst all of us, that if my focus is on the legal constitutional policymaking functions, that's where my passion has been. The right way for me to realize my own vision is through elected office. And by the way- But not the governor of Ohio or anything. All of those except that one position. Announcement will be coming of some kind in the next couple of weeks. Got it.
But I will say that even some of the regulations you brought up, right? The fireman example. Yeah. Most of those regs aren't just federal regulations. In fact, most of them that affect people at everyday lives are also at the level of the state.
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Chapter 5: What is Vivek's stance on American inequality?
So you're not going to make any rules. You're just taking away rules.
I think if you're rolling back, if you're rolling back rules and actually cutting bureaucratic overgrowth, it's one thing to come in and say you're going to hire a million federal bureaucrats without any authorization from Congress to do it. It's another to say there are 4 million, many of whom were hired without that authorization. We need to scale that headcount back.
It's another thing to say all these regulations showed up with Congress never authorizing them. It's another to say they're illicit unless they go through Congress, right? So that was the premise. It's a one-way ratchet. If there's been a federal government overgrowth and a lot of that was never authorized by the democratic process,
then it's one thing to say, okay, then all of that, in order to comply with the Constitution, has to be rolled back. You can't make it without authorization.
But how would you apply all of these new tech... You said Elon's trying to do, like, tech-driven rules. Yeah, so I'm going to let... Wouldn't that be new rules? Why?
I shared with you my outlook was in what brought me to the project. And I'm super rooting for success and hopeful for success for what's going to come from a technology-driven approach.
But that's a different philosophy and approach and emphasis. Yeah, yeah. Talk that shit. No, it's talk that shit. Me and my wife had different philosophies about dinner last night.
The truth of the matter is, I think there's nobody better in the world to run a technology-focused approach to fixing the federal government than Elon. And if that's where the focus is, I'm rooting for their success. And similarly, when I'm thinking about my legal, constitutional, legislative focus in downsizing government...
It's hard to argue the best way to do that isn't through actually being elected in my own right.
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Chapter 6: How do immigration policies impact the economy?
I can't believe people lost their minds over that. No, it looks nothing like it. People are so crazy, aren't they? People are so dumb for seeing that and thinking it was something else. What fucking retards we got, right? Your words, man.
I think that there was a evolution in any new project, right? Yeah. Something like this has never been done. I'll give you one example. Yeah. Initially, this was supposed to reside outside of government. Yeah. Now, you know, late in the lead up to starting, ended up in the government. And by the way, here's another thing that happened. That's Alex's point. When it's in the government.
This is Animal Farm, bro. When it's in the government. government. Also, I can't run for office at the same time. There's a rule. It's called the Hatch Act that stops you from independently engaging in your own political activity or running for office while you're in the government. If you're outside the government, it's a different constraint.
So there were a lot of things that obviously was supposed to be on the outside for a lot of reasons, ended up moving inside, ended up having a technology first approach. And so when something like this has never been done and you set it up, obviously there's going to be some evolution and it made a lot of sense given the way things evolved.
for me to say, you know what, this is the right way for me to achieve my vision and goals for the country and to wish success in taking a technology-driven approach within the federal government. And that's where we landed. I think that that seems like you guys had a, what is it called, amicable breakup? Is that? We're super friendly on a personal level. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just sometimes a different outlook. It was a mutual decision, isn't it? Yeah, very much so.
Exactly. That's what I say when I get dumped. Yeah. What do you say to that? I think both parties say that.
Yeah. No, no. But what do you say that when you see that, you know, I'm sure you saw like tweets or articles or something like that where it's like, oh, the administration is pushing Vivek out. Yeah. And what is the reaction to that? Do you call up Donnie and you're like, oh, it's good. I mean, the kind of African guys telling me what to do.
I ran for president. I ran for president and you get, I mean, the number, the amount of online shit that you will read about yourself if you put yourself in the public eye, at some point you just sort of get used to it and deal with it. It's a price and cost of doing business if you want to change the country. Right. But, you know, look, I think it is.
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Chapter 7: What are the issues with the H-1B visa system?
And a lot of the people who worked on my campaign actually ended up joining Trump's campaign. A lot of people joined, you know, and myself too. I endorsed Trump and worked my tail off over the last year to make sure he got elected because I think it was necessary.
And he's incredibly loyal to the people who support him. And I understand that because if you support him in any way, you're going to be ready for him to call out. And you went all out. So I cannot fathom, like when I saw you- No, we're good.
We're good.
Yeah.
We're good.
But you and Elon, there might be some- No, not on a personal level. You can send him back home.
But there's a different- Good. He's a fucking migrant. Do you know what I mean? I'm probably paying for him to stay in some hotel in New York right now.
You're paying for a lot of people to stay in hotels in New York. I am. Yeah. That's changing very soon.
So what's going on? What digital efficiency is going to fix that?
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Chapter 8: How should America address the rise of bureaucracy?
It doesn't work.
All right, guys. We also got dates. First of all, Sacramento, thank you guys so much. Nine sold out shows. I literally just didn't have time to add more. So thank you, man. It was such a fun weekend. This weekend, I'm going to be in West Des Moines, Iowa on Friday and Saturday, the January 30th version, February 1st. and taking a couple weeks off.
And then February 21st and 22nd, I'm in Brea, California. One of those shows is already sold out, so just buy your tickets. Then February 27th and 28th and March 1st, I'm going to be in Zanies in Nashville. March 21st and 22nd, Omaha, Nebraska. March 28th and 29th, Columbus, Ohio. And these dates have changed, guys. I was going to be in Toledo, Ohio in April, but we're going to move that show.
I got to make up for everybody who I had to cancel on last minute in Tampa. So Tampa, If you missed your shot last time because I didn't make it, well, you didn't miss your shot. I fucked up. I apologize. Flu got me. April 10th through 13th, I will be in Tampa. Guys, get your tickets at akashsingh.com. Now let's get back to the show.
What's up, guys? Mark Agnon's Arena Tour continues, all right? February 27th, Baltimore. I will be in McGuby's. That's right, McGuby's Joke House. McGuby's is great.
it's like a house but it's really like an it's a small arena of a couple hundred people yeah it's amazing i'll see you guys there baltimore february 27th don't please don't do that because people have tried to do this and after the show they've come up to me they said akash said i had to sell your day i said please don't do it only men men only yeah no that's the only who's coming no please don't then don't even really it's not even cheating
No, because there would be other people there that don't know about this, and then they go, oh yeah, Akash said to suck your dick. And then the other people would be like, what? Why are they trying to suck your dick?
Because Akash said, they just told you.
Anyway, please don't do it. You can just come to the show, have fun, get a drink, and laugh with people that like jokes. I'll see you guys there, Baltimore, February 27th.
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