"I think that you know Elon is gon' crash and burn it" — Charlamagne refuses to believe Vivek Ramaswamy's reason for leaving DOGE

On Monday, January 27, politician Vivek Ramaswamy was invited to talk on Charlamagne Tha God's podcast, The Breakfast Club. The conversation took place after Ramaswamy had announced his decision to exit the DOGE, leaving Elon Musk as its sole in-charge.

When Charlamagne Tha God first asked Ramaswamy about his reason behind leaving the DOGE, he mentioned a transformation of vision along the way. Vivek then went on to say that while his area of expertise lay in the constitutional and legal areas, the project evolved to assume a "technology-first approach."

Ramaswamy continued with:

"And so Elon [Musk] and I were on good terms, good personal relationship, slightly different approaches to the project. And what he and I both concluded — and I think this is right — is given my focus on law, on legislation, the right way to realize my vision is through elected office, so that’s what I’m gonna be pursing.”

Charlamagne clarified how unconvinced he was of Vivek Ramaswamy's reasoning, adding:

"I hear you, Vivek. I don’t believe you. I think you either got pushed out or you know that it’s going to implode. I think that you know Elon is gon' crash and burn it, and you’re a smart guy, and you said, 'You know what, let me get out of Dodge and go do my governor Ohio thing.'"

Vivek Ramaswamy had first planned to run a campaign for governor in Ohio in early January, as per NBC News. With balancing both parts of the work seeming difficult for Vivek, he stepped back from the DOGE.

---

Vivek Ramaswamy claimed his decision to exit DOGE was "mutually" taken

When Charlamagne brought up the subject of an exclusive report posted by The Washington Post, which claimed that Ramaswamy was kicked off from DOGE, the 39-year-old referenced the Hatch Act, saying:

"I would say that we arrived at it pretty mutually. I mean, I think when it came that DOGE was in the government-, so there’s actually a law, it’s called the Hatch Act, boring stuff, but you literally can’t run for office while you are an employee of the government unless you’re the president or vice president," He said, seemingly telling his plan of running for Ohio's governor in the future.

Since that path would have been unattainable for him had he continued with DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy decided to leave the organization's leadership designationn.

When asked if his exit had anything to do with the roll-back of the DEI initiatives put forward by Trump, Ramaswamy replied in the negative. His exit was announced in an X tweet that was uploaded last week, on January 21. It has received more than 9.7 million views, 124K likes, and 13K retweets.

---

Vivek Ramaswamy ran for president in 2024's election

Vivek Ramaswamy's step down from the DOGE comes after the politician has made his aspirations clear in the past. In February 2023, Vivek started his campaign as a primary from the Republican Party, launching his candidacy on Tucker Carlson's show.

Per a Politico article published in February 2023, Vivek's intention was to apply Trump's theory in the 2016 elections, which was to "enter the race with an entrepreneurial spirit, unorthodox ideas, and few expectations, and end up developing a major following that will carry him to the presidency — even if it seems like a long shot at the moment."

However, Ramaswamy's campaign was suspended in January 2024, as an outcome of the Iowa caucuses. Before running for president, Vivek had also considered running for the Senate election in Ohio (in 2022), but opted out of it in the end.

---

Ramaswamy was born to Indian immigrant parents - a father who was a General Electric engineer, and a mother who was a geriatric psychiatrist.