affiliated groups as well as business groups, farm associations, parent groups, young professional organizations, religious groups and conservative advocacy organizations. guests of mr. ramaswamy and grand view university are here tonight but they won't ask questions. we have asked everyone here to be respectful to each other and mr. ramaswamy so the voters in the room and at home have a chance to hear from the candidate. please, welcome vivek ramaswamy. [ applause ] i want to get right to the audience and bring simone from cli clive, iowa. she served on the board of a christian school. she's undecided. >> thank you. first of all, welcome to iowa. merry christmas from iowa. >> thank you. >> thank you for really adding some important conversations to the campaign. some local commentators refer to you as maybe the younger trump, not a politician, which would place you running in the same lane as president trump for getting votes. other than being younger, how would you differentiate yourself from president trump? >> look, i appreciate that question. i get it frequently these days on the campaign trail. it's not just being younger. i think we are reaching a new generation of voters in this country. we have been to most of the college campuses across this state. i don't think that's something the republican party has done a great job of. there's a reason why these revolutions, these revivals are often led by the next generation. thomas jefferson was 33 years owed old when he wrote the declaration of independence. i'm an old man compared to him. it's going to take a president who comes from the outside, a businessman. i believe it will take an outsider to come take on the federal bureaucracy, to shut down agencies that need to be shut down, to implement that 75% head count reduction i want to see in the federal bureaucracy. it is also going to take a president who has a deep first personal understanding of the law and the constitution. those two things don't usually go together. i have hired many people in my career over the many companyiesi started -- those two skills -- that's what gives me my sense of purpose in this race. i think i'm the only person in the race who brings both of those attributes, an understanding and commitment to the constitution, but combine that with being an outsider who can get things done. i think that's going to take the combination that actually takes to revive this economy and revive our constitutional republic. >> her question was about how you would be different from donald trump. how specifically would you differentiate yourself from trump? >> i think some are policy areas. take the iowa carbon capture pipeline. it doesn't affect many in the national audience but it affects many in this room. you are familiar with this issue. they are using eminent domain to build a carbon capture pipeline. i'm the only candidate who has taken a stand being against those policies. we can go into other specific examples. it comes down to a commitment to the constitution. a deep understanding of the constitution. swearing an oath to the constitution and keeping it and combining that with being an outsider. yes, reaching and inspiring the next generation of americans. i think i'm the best person in this race to do those things. >> let's bring in jacquelin. she's a health care i.t. manager. she's a republican who says she's undecided. >> thank you. welcome. >> thank you. >> i'm going to switch it up. with the number of illegals -- illegal aliens crossing the border daily and being bussed to cities across the united states, how do you plan to secure our border and remove illegals from the u.s.? >> that second part is the harder part. let me start with the first part. these are basic things. the country that put a man on the moon can get this done. it's a question of political will. one thing i said is we will use our own military to secure our own border. we can use it to secure somebody else's board. let's use it to secure our southern border and our northern border, too. our northern border has seen more illegal crossings this past year than the last 12 years combined. that's where this front is going. i visited both in the last several months. if we're able to do that, use our military, complete the border wall, stop federal aid to any central american country until they have secured their own borders for every country between venezuela and mexico, then i want to implement the best border policies of all, which is ending the illegal incentives to be here. end birth right citizenship for the kids of illegal migrants to whom the 14th amendment does not apply. end federal funding to sanctuary cities using our own taxpayer money to pay effectively for breaking the rule of law. then there's the hard question. i don't want to leave you hanging. many people still this. this is the hard one. i do believe that anybody who is in this country illegally needs to be returned to their country of origin, not because they are all bad. many of them are good people. many of them, if we're honest, if we were in their shoes -- there's a president of the united states who has been giving them a wink and a nod to come over if we were in a tough stop we would have done the same thing. had i we are founded on the rule of law. as a father of two sons in the white house, i can't look them in the eye and tell them they have to follow the rules when our own government isn't following its own rules. then there's the question of how. this was the part many republicans skip. there's 6,000 or so i.c.e. agents. there's a provision in the law -- we don't need new laws. it's an existing law. it allows you to actually serve an i.c.e. agent to allow local law enforcement to serve warrants. that's a million law enforcement officers. we can get that done. again, all it takes is a president with a spine. if i swear an oath to the constitution, i intend to keep it. that's how i'm going to lead this country. i think that's how we solve not only the border crisis but the abandonment of the rule of law in this country. that's how i expect to lead. >> you said you would end birth right citizenship. >> for kids of illegal migrants. >> there are millions of such people, children, some of them adults. would you retroactively strip them? >> i'm glad you asked that. prospectively. january 20, 2025 forward. there's a concept in the law known as a reliance interest. we will not retroactively date that. from january 20, 2025 going forward, if i'm the president, if you are born in this country as the kid of an illegal immigrant, you will not enjoy birth right citizenship. that's what the 14th amendment says. it says it only applies subject to the jurisdiction thereof. that's in the opening section of the 14th amendment when it talks to birth right citizenship. in the same way -- i want people to understand this. some people call this a controversial view. the kid of a mexican diplomat who is here legally and he is born in the united states, that person doesn't enjoy birth right citizenship. nobody contests that. if the kid of a mexican diplomat here legally does not enjoy birth right citizenship, neither does the kid of an immigrant here illegally. one case agrees with me. the current supreme court agrees. we need a president with a spine. i go back to the first question, understands the constitution. i better have read it. >> you suggested the courts would have to weigh in on this. would you agree? >> i expect it will go to the supreme court and they will agree with me on this. >> let's turn now to mike. he is an insurance company ceo from west des moines and a trustee here at grand view. he is a republican who says he is deciding between you and florida governor ron desantis. >> what makes you think that putin would be responsive to your ukraine solution? >> before you jump in, i just want to ask you to remind the audience here what the solution is that he is referring to. >> that's fair. thank you for coming prepared. i appreciate. i proposed a reasonable end to the ukraine war. i don't think it's advancing our interests. we're spending $200 billion of our taxpayer money that would be better used to defend our border. even worse, i believe it's increasing the risk of world war iii. it's driving russia further into china's hands. i proposed a reasonable deal that would allow ukraine to come out with sovereignty intact. yes, with some territorial concessions of the russian speaking regions in eastern ukraine and a hard commitment nato will not admit ukraine to nato only if putin exits its n military alliance with china. do i trust vladimir putin? of course not. he is a dictator? absolutely. we will trust him to follow his self interest just as he will trust us to follow ours. i will go into this. nixon did this in 1972. he pulled mao out of the ussr. that was an alliance back then. did we trust mao? of course we didn't. there were kinks in the armor then. there are kinks in the armor now. when putin and xi met, putin sends weapons to india and vietnam. that's sending a signal to china. china wants to complete a railroad in northeast china to the ocean. russia is not letting them. there are kinks in the armor. it's going to take a visionary leader who will say, we will use the ukraine war as an opportunity to say to russia, we will reopen some economic relations with russia as nixon did. but we will require no more joint military exercises, no more military sales between russia and china. weaken that alliance. reduce the risk of world war iii. i want you to understand, i'm the only presidential candidate talking about that russia/china alliance. that is the single greatest threat we face to the united states of america today. i do think it's going to take a leader coming from the outside of the existing foreign policy establishment. i will remind you, the one that got us into the wars in iraq and afghanistan, where thousands of our sons and daughters went to die, adding $7 trillion to our national debt, with taliban still in control and iraq still a broken country. if that isn't a sign we need fresh blood in our foreign policy establishment, i don't know what it is. >> staying on the ukraine topic. you want to suspend support for ukraine in this war and get the united states out of that. >> as part of this deal that i laid out. >> if putin doesn't take you up on that deal, would you allow putin to use force to take all of ukraine if he wanted to? >> we will do -- i think the deal we will do now is going to allow ukraine to come out with its sovereignty intact which is not the path ukraine is on. >> if putin doesn't take you up on deal, would you -- >> i'm convinced on my ability to negotiate. >> if he decided to march into kyiv, take all of ukraine, would you as president of the united states allow that to happen? >> i think that's a fictitious scenario. part of the reason putin has been able to seize eastern ukraine is they have not had the same level of resistance. what i would say -- >> he tried to do it. >> he failed. >> he failed do it because the united states backed ukraine. >> he failed for a deeper reason. this gets into details in the ukraine war. i think we should go there. the eastern regions of ukraine -- these are russian-speaking regions. most of the people who live there don't even view themselves really as part of ukraine. they have not been represented in the ukrainian parliament for the better part of the last decade, almost the entire last decade. there was no counterinsurgency or resistance. there's a lot of scenarios we can't map out. russia is in a military alliance with china. i will require that russia weaken or exit its military alliance with china. we also have to stand by a few things that commitments we made that nato should not actually admit ukraine. we made that commitment. gorbachev made it. it was made by james baker in 1990. we haven't kept that. i think that level of diplomacy avoids us using -- look at the alternative. we talk about sending $61 billion to ukraine. it's unclear to me or anybody else what the next $100 million is going to do that the first 100 didn't. i don't think throwing bad money after bad is the solution. diplomacy is the solution. it's going to take somebody who is committed to advancing u.s. interests to get this done. my foreign policy is avoid world war iii, declare independence from china, and focus on securing our own homeland. >> i want to get back to our audience member. we have a question now from nicole. she's from des moines and is a college admissions counselor. she's registered as a democrat but now intends to switch parties and is planning to participate in the republican caucuses and register as a republican. she's undecided on which candidate to support. nicole? >> thank you. welcome. i'm going to throw it back to the united states and talk a little bit about how you feel about the growing differential between the top 1% and middle class in the united states. >> great question. i don't feel great about it. a lot of this is the product of the federal reserve. seems like a technical subject. people don't like to talk about it. this is fundamental. the federal reserve has the late '90s has taken on the role of playing god. raining money from on high. we have been skiing on artificial snow. it's flowed through the top 1%. a friend of mine has a funny expression. if you are a nurse, you go home with extra latex gloves. a teacher goes home with extra pencils. a banker, a few extra dollars. that's the way it worked through the federal reserve system. trickle down economics i believe does work when it's driven by gains in the real economy. it doesn't work when it's created by artificial paper wealth generated by fed reserve policies. i put the fed back in its place. the reason real wage growth has not gone up for the bottom 99% adjusted for inflation, the reason why is the federal deserve treated it as though it's a leading indicator of inflation and try to tamp it down. you get what you pay for. my view is i will put the fed back in its place. a single mandate for the u.s. fed. what is that? dollar stability. peg the dollar to commodities. that ties the hands of our government. that's a good thing. we had our gdp growth in the country before we left the gold standard. that's telling. when the dollar is stable, that's how you actually help the bottom 99% in the country. that's how you see real wage growth. i want people to understand, you hear tales, methodology about the economy. make it simple. what's going on? prices are going up. interest rates, including mortgage rates to buy your home, are going up. wages have remained flat. i'm not going to be the person who comes in here and tells you -- some people say, am i too pessimistic? i'm a realist. i will not tell you the american dream is alive and well. it's not. it's alive and hanging on for life support. i believe it can be. i do think it's going to take now more than ever a ceo in the white house, somebody with fresh legs, somebody i believe from the next generation to look at this differently. apply basic economic common sense. that starts with reform of the federal reserve. thank you for that question. welcome to the republican side. >> let me ask, mr. ramaswamy, two years ago you floated the idea to dramatically increase the inheritance tax up to 59%. you said then, we shouldn't allow people to become billionaires just by having rich parents. would you push for that as president? >> that's not part of my policy platform as president. one thing people should know is that i'm not a standard candidate. i have written three books. they are not candidate books. i brought up thomas jefferson. he was one of the few truly intellectual presidents we had. i like to explore ideas. an english teacher t er taught you don't understand what you think unless you can offer the best statement of an alternative view. my view is this, what we need is a 12% flat tax across the board. ordinary income, capital gain, corporate, flatten it out. here is how we get money back. end the crony deductions, the deductions in the loopholes and rebates that corporations, special interests have lobbied in. it's $700 billion a year, the tax compliance costs, the out of pocket costs, not counting the time you spend preparing your taxes. >> you are very wealthy. you have made a lot of money. do you want your wealth -- do you believe it should pass down to your children? >> that's an important question, actually. i want to speak on behalf of my wife and i. she wanted to be here. she's not here because she was treating cancer survivors at ohio state's hospital. that's where she's kept her full-time job while we go through this. in many cases, our health care system or our sick care system is so broken she doesn't get paid for many of the procedures she does to improve patients' lives. that works for us because we are in the position that we are in. i tell you this, we spend immense amounts of our family's fortune on this campaign. we didn't inherit our wealth. that's the inheritance we care about giving our kids. it's not about green mpieces of paper. it's the country that allowed us to live the american dream. my parents came to this country 40 years ago with no money. yes, in a single generation, i have found multiple multimillion dollar companies. raised our two sons. following our faith in god. that's the american dream. that's the inheritance we care to give our kids. speaking honestly, i stand by it. i've gone to college. i went to harvard. my dad was working at ge. he faced layoffs. we had a middle class upbringing with ups and downs along the way. i went to school with kids of billionaires. i will tell you something. it's interesting. they weren't -- many of them weren't happier for it. to the contrary, i was actually able to follow my hunger and my passion and my ambition maybe more freely than many of my other fellow peers. i'm grateful to others who may not have access to basic education. there are those that don't have access to having their own ability to live the american dream because they are incumbered by the inheritance. i want to give them the country that allows them to live the american dream through mathis. >> i want to go back to the audience. we have here riley. he is a law student at drake university and a clerk in the marion county attorney's office. he is a republican who is currently undecided. >> thank you. on the debate stage you have somewhat of abandoned the tact and diplomacy that i would look for in a president. i'm all for keeping it real and dogging the establishment. but there's a gravitas that i look for in those that represent the country. how do you see the balance between keeping it -- being authentic and maintaining that presidential demeanor? >> i appreciate the question. it's very candid. this is what i love about iowa. i get tougher questions from you than the media. it's why we are here. i appreciate that. here is the standard i use for holding myself to or any president to. i want us to be able to look our kids in the eye and tell them that i want you to grow up and be like him. it's been a long time since we held our presidents to that standard. that's a high standard. i think about that in judging the way i comport myself. am i going to tell me kids to be a bully? no. but if somebody hits you or bullies you, hit back harder. you have to be -- as we say in our family, you have to be strong enough to protect your kindness. if you watch the debates, i don't engage in four letter words. others have called me dumb, scum and worse that i will not repeat. i didn't go after them. if they come after me, i'm not going to be a president -- whether it's xi or putin or anybody, that i will roll over. if you hit us, we hit back ten times harder. it's not for the sake of being a bully. it's protecting our inner kindness. it'