Selecting the 39-year-old Ohioan would be the clearest sign yet that Donald Trump is done with neocons and NeverTrumpers in all but name. The American Conservative can confirm that President-elect Donald Trump’s search for secretary of State has narrowed to four candidates: Richard “Ric” Grenell, his former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence; Marco Rubio, the Florida senator and runner-up to be Trump’s vice president; Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee senator and his former ambassador to Japan; and Vivek Ramaswamy, the former presidential candidate–turned –fierce Trump surrogate.
While Ramaswamy is by far the most surprising entrant in the sweepstakes, his selection would be a callback to history.
Trump shocked the world by selecting ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to head up Foggy Bottom back in 2016. This time, however, the selection process is expected to be far more expedited, with a decision and announcement possible as soon as Monday. And far from being a former Jeb Bush donor, Ramaswamy has staked out ground since his 2023–24 presidential bid as a Trumpist par excellence, pushing the envelope as the party under Trump seeks to jettison figures with Bush wing baggage.
Those around Trump have been reporting in recent years that, perhaps in contrast to the case in his first term, the once and future president has grown focused on his legacy. A shock selection of Ramaswamy would be the clearest indication yet that Trump intends to become the ideological standard-bearer of the American right for decades to come. A tough- minded commitment to foreign policy realism and restraint, limited and controlled immigration, and an adult approach to trade is poised to supplant not only the discredited Bush project, but also sideline Ronald Reagan (now dead 20 years) as the most significant Republican inspiration of the still-young 21st century.
At a time when Republicans are winning surprise converts, Ramaswamy has cast himself as a generational warrior and uncompromising antiwar figure within the Trumpian fold. “Our message to millennials, speaking as one myself: Yes, it’s true,” the 39-year-old told the Republican National Convention in July. “Our government sold us a false bill of goods, with the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis loading up our national debt that falls on our generation’s shoulders.”
Ramaswamy’s 2021 book. Woke, Inc., initially shot him to fame. But the Ohio entrepreneur has unusually, but consistently linked his cultural views to foreign policy:
You are free to speak your mind at every step of the way. That is the American dream. That is what won us the American Revolution. That is what reunited us after the Civil War. That is what won us two world Wars and the Cold War. That is what still gives hope to the free world. And if we can revive that dream over group identity and victimhood and grievance, then nobody in the world, not a nation, not a corporation, not a virus, not China is going to defeat us.
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