Candace Owens and DC Draino (also known as Rogan O’Handley) joined forces to encourage Vivek Ramaswamy to check THE GATEWAY PUNDIT for trustworthy and up-to-date election reporting.
In an episode that promises to be remembered, Candace Owens hosted a heated debate between conservative influencer DC Draino and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy on her well-known podcast, Candace Owens Podcast.
The podcast provided a platform for the two to face off directly.
DC Draino grilled Ramaswamy by calling out his alleged flip-flopping on critical topics, including:
- Initially believing the 2020 election wasn’t stolen through ballot fraud
- Supporting former Vice President Mike Pence on January 6th
- Expressing interest in re-entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
- Advocating for “no cap” on educated immigrants
- Encouraging everyone to get vaccinated
The questioning was fierce and according to DC Draino, led to some remarkable shifts in Ramaswamy’s viewpoints.
“And just like magic, Vivek changed many of his positions and now claims: -there was 2020 ballot fraud -only wants bilateral trade deals -regrets getting the vax,” Draino wrote on Twitter.
“But he stuck to his guns on “no cap” immigration for high-skilled immigrants Nobody has been asking Vivek the tough questions even though he’s a Big Pharma exec that appeared out of nowhere, so I did,” Draino added.
2020 Election Fraud
DC Draino expressed his concerns about Ramaswamy’s past statements, including quotes from his book that seemed to criticize President Trump regarding the January 6 incident and called him a loser.
Draino directly questioned Ramaswamy’s stance on the 2020 election’s fairness, and whether the election was rigged.
Draino said, “I started to dig a little deeper on Twitter, and I came across some passages from your book. And I don’t know which book it is. It’s one of the two. But it talks about January 6, and it says, “It was a dark day for democracy. The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again. I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.””
The quoted passage is from Ramaswamy’s book Nation of Victims, published in 2022, in which he lambastes Trump for refusing to concede the election’s outcome, dubbing him a “loser” and and detailed Trump’s futile efforts to overturn the results.
ABC News reported:
However in his 2022 book, “Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence,” Ramaswamy sharply criticized the former president for not conceding the election.
“It was a dark day for democracy. The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again.” Ramaswamy wrote. “I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.”
He wrote that Trump “filed scores of lawsuits over various claims of fraud … but they came nowhere close to changing the outcome in a single state, let alone the several swing states whose results he needed to overturn.”
“In many cases, judges the president himself had nominated ruled against him, a sign of health in our nation’s institutions,” Ramaswamy wrote. “Accepting the outcomes of elections and having a peaceful transition of power is part of what it means to be a constitutional republic: Sometimes your team loses, but if you accept the result and prepare for the next election, eventually the scales will tip your way again.”
“We fought, we lost, and I accepted the result,” he wrote.
Draino continued, “Do you think that the 2020 election was fair? Do you think that Joe Biden got the most votes in American history? Or do you think 2020 was rigged?”
Ramaswamy provided a comprehensive response. He explained the nature of the quoted passage from his book, which he claimed had been taken out of context. According to Ramaswamy, he was actually referring to Stacey Abrams.
“Those exact words I’m referring to, of course, Stacey Abrams, that was literally the opening paragraph of that chapter. And it turned out that those words were literally borrowed from a description of somebody else criticizing Donald Trump that I then cut and pasted,” Ramaswamy said.
Regarding the 2020 election, Ramaswamy believed that it was rigged by Big Tech.
“I think 2020 was rigged specifically by big tech,” Ramaswamy said.
“The 2020 election was stolen principally by big tech, the Google search algorithms that suppressed actual stories that you could have read on Donald Trump Hunter Biden laptop story suppressed on the eve of an election.”
“There’s definitive data showing that that actually would have changed the outcome of the election. I personally find that data, just like in terms of the raw numbers, even stronger than the data that’s yet been presented on ballot fraud, though I think both existed. I’ve been very clear about where I stand on ballot fraud.”
DC Draino, a vocal supporter of Trump and critic of Ramaswamy, pushed further on the issue of ballot fraud, referencing a documentary, “2000 Mules,” and Gateway Pundit’s work on exposing the irregularities in the election process.
“My main point is that Vivek does not believe there was actual election fraud with the ballots, that he can watch something like 2000 Mules.”
Vivek admitted he had only seen part of it. According to Draino, any presidential candidate who doesn’t believe in ballot fraud should be disqualified.
“I highly recommend you go watch it because it’s probably one of the most important documentaries in recent history that showed massive systemic election fraud across this country.”
“And to me, as a vocal supporter and just a voice for the MAGA base, I will say if you do not believe that there was election fraud beyond what big tech suppressed, that they are not muling around hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ballots, that if at 03:00 am in the Detroit TCF arena they didn’t drop off hundreds of thousands of ballots on video, that the Gateway Pundit has exposed, that they were banned from Twitter, that there were no Republican supervisors, that we saw vote spikes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania overnight in the dead of night, that they shut down Georgia for a water pipe break, and then suddenly they pull out ballots under the table and start counting. If you don’t think that there is election fraud, in my opinion, that is disqualifying for anyone running in the GOP because this is not politics as normal,” DC Draino said.
Ramaswamy clarified his views, acknowledging the possibility of ballot fraud, but emphasizing that his expertise lay elsewhere, and his views on Big Tech’s influence were more definitive. He expressed openness to data that might convince him further on ballot fraud.
Candice Owens told Ramaswamy he needs to check The Gateway Pundit for election fraud reporting.
“First and foremost, I will say that I believe that there was election fraud,” said Owens. “Mail in ballot fraud 100% agree with Rogan on this point.”
“Rogan, you’ve done a great job of sharing The Gateway Pundit stuff over the last couple of days. Vivek, I really would recommend that you really dive into it, because you are correct, Gateway Pundit did fantastic work. They were banned from Twitter. And it is something that I feel in my heart and my soul to be true, that there was massive mail-in ballot fraud,” Owens said.