Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Friday that Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was copying his ideas from the campaign trail.
“I will tell you this, the biggest joke in American politics though, right now, is the idea that Ron DeSantis isn’t running for president. You see that with this ad now,” Ramaswamy told “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy. “I’d like to welcome him to this race. I gotta be really honest though, I love Ron DeSantis’ message because he got it from me. He is actually reading ‘Woke Inc.’ and putting that in his teleprompter as his message. He is running on a book, it’s not the one he wrote, it’s ‘Woke Inc.’”
Ramaswamy’s book, “Woke, Inc.,” discusses how corporations were involved in so-called “stakeholder capitalism,” was released in 2021. DeSantis announced on Feb. 13 that Florida was leading a coalition of 18 states to oppose so-called Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment criteria.
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“The shot I’m taking against DeSantis is just a factual point, that about a two-week delay of I say campaign trail comes out in Ron DeSantis’ words and makes Joe Biden probably blush when it comes to plagiarism questions,” Ramaswamy said. “When it comes to Trump, we are both outsiders. I do think it’s going to take an outsider in the White House.”
ESG, also known as “sustainable investing,” according to the Corporate Finance Institute, can factor into corporate policies on gun control, environmental issues, abortion or other issue in addition to or instead of strictly looking at a corporation’s profitability.
DeSantis signed legislation protecting parental rights in Florida in March 2022, which came following a spate of lawsuits across the country centered around clandestine social transitions of children in schools.
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Following passage of that legislation, Florida pulled multiple books on the grounds of having explicit content, including “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal.”
“I’m not afraid to make my case for contrast,” Ramaswamy said. “I’m the first millennial candidate to run for president as a Republican, and I’m doing it with a positive vision to actually lead our country forward. I don’t think we can tolerate another career politician in the White House.”
DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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