Vivek Ramaswamy is the author of “Woke Inc.” He spent a long career in business and has taken a break from that because he thinks the country is in trouble, not least because of things like this. Vivek, thanks so much for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.
So, what should we make — what lesson should we draw when politicians exempt themselves from their own rules? When Barack Obama has his guests, 500 guests and 200 servants to his oceanfront home in Martha’s Vineyard at a time when the rest of us aren’t allowed to do that — what should we learn from that?
VIVEK RAMASWAMY, BIOTECH ENTREPRENEUR AND AUTHOR, “WOKE, INC.”: We should learn, Tucker, that the guiding principle is, “Do as I say, not as I do,” when it comes to government officials policy on COVID-19. It is funny, it reminds me a lot of a white-collar criminal in the 1980s, Leona Helmsley who famously said, “We don’t pay taxes, only little people pay taxes.”
Well today, only little people are the ones who are expected to abide by these COVID-19 restrictions. It is laughable if the consequences weren’t so serious and the government has given the public absolutely zero reason to trust anything they have to say, Tucker.
The government did not trust the public at the start of this pandemic and now, the public doesn’t trust the government in return and that’s a problem.
CARLSON: Well, it is a problem particularly in public health. I mean, you’ve been in public health. You ran a pharma company, a successful one developing new drug treatments for disease. If the public doesn’t believe physicians or public health authorities, like what kind of country do you have over time?
RAMASWAMY: That’s absolutely right, and now we see the censorship to top it off. I’ll tell you this, Tucker. I was a Harvard trained scientist. I started a biotech company. I care about the integrity of science and science is not what some government official says on a given day depending on what side of the bed he woke up on.
Science is a method. It is a method of pursuing truth that requires free speech, open debate, and skepticism. Yes, skepticism is part of science and instead, science — we’ve seen science transform into becoming this institution. I think of it as a church, what I call the church of scientism.
And ironically, the church of scientism has put science itself on the altar as a sacrificial lamb. What we really need is a revival of the open discourse that allows us to discover what of our ideas will be proven wrong in the future, and without open debate, without open dialogue, we can’t do that.
CARLSON: And isn’t that why — I mean, you would know, since you started a biotech company, but the United States has led the world in scientific innovation for a hundred years because it is the most open country.
RAMASWAMY: That’s right. I mean, we have to be humble about what we do know and what we don’t. History teaches us that most of our beliefs will either be proven false or modified in some way, but the only way we get there is not through censorship, it is not through government government- coordinated censorship with these so-called private companies, but through open discourse, and honesty, and humility, and skepticism. That is what science depends on.
And now, in the name of science, the worst kind of betrayal of science, Tucker, is in the name of science itself and that’s what we’re seeing.
CARLSON: That’s totally right. Humility is the root of wisdom and it is the root of science, and thank you for reminding us of that. Vivek Ramaswamy, great to see you tonight.
RAMASWAMY: Thanks, Tucker.
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