H-1B Visas Are The One Topic Vivek Ramaswamy Refuses To Talk About
MARIETTA, Ohio — You may remember him from the 2024 presidential debate stage or from cable news promoting his book on “woke,” but who really is Vivek Ramaswamy, and why does he want to run Ohio so badly?
To help answer this question, the Daily Caller News Foundation traveled to Marietta — a city of about 13,000 in the state’s Appalachian southeast — where the billionaire-turned-Republican Ohio gubernatorial nominee was holding a town hall with veterans and Gold Star families on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. After the event, the Cincinnati-born Ramaswamy sat for a 15-minute interview with his surgeon wife, Apoorva, at his side, during which he discussed a variety of topics, including the campaign, artificial intelligence, data centers and the impact of the war with Iran.
The entrepreneur’s chances of adding “governor-elect” to his already-long resume in November, however, are effectively a coin flip. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, for one, rates the race between Ramaswamy and his Democratic opponent — public health official Amy Acton — as a “toss up.”
An increasingly favorable midterm environment for Democrats is not the only hurdle Ramaswamy needs to overcome to realize his gubernatorial dream. Despite his landslide primary win and backing by President Donald Trump, the candidate still has his share of critics on the political right — particularly immigration hardliners — for his support for maintaining, albeit reforming, the country’s H-1B program. The program allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals over American citizens for highly skilled “specialty occupations.”
On the day after Christmas 2024, Ramaswamy provoked criticism from conservatives when he joined the debate over the visas by arguing in a lengthy X post that many companies are forced to turn to foreign talent because “American culture has venerated mediocrity” for the past few decades. He pointed to Saturday morning cartoons and the popular 90s sitcom “Friends” as examples.
The DCNF sought to give Ramaswamy the opportunity to set the record straight on the issue but his campaign said prior to the interview that he does not answer questions on H-1B visas. The candidate himself confirmed this to the DCNF, and instead offered to discuss immigration policy “holistically” without mentioning the heavily-scrutinized guest worker program.
“I think there’s two different views in the attitude towards success in our country,” the candidate told the DCNF. “On one view — the socialist view — success is a sin, something that we should penalize. On the actual American view — that’s my view — success is something that we should celebrate.”
“I want the success that I’ve enjoyed to be something that every kid and every family in the state can really enjoy as well,” Ramaswamy said.
“Success” is indeed a word that has been a part of 41-year-old Ramaswamy’s lifetime trajectory. He founded his first company, StudentBusinesses.com, in 2007 while studying at Harvard University. In 2014, he started Roivant Sciences, a now-multinational biopharmaceutical and technology company which has a market cap of almost $29 billion. In 2021, Ramaswamy also authored a New York Times best-selling book, “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” which helped make him a frequent Fox News guest and increased his name recognition among the political right.
In February 2023, he announced his bid for president. Despite having never previously sought electoral office, he polled well enough to make it to a Trump-less debate stage, only to drop out following a distant fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. In his current run for office, however, the conservative poured in $25 million of his own money and won the GOP primary in May 2026 with more than 82% of the vote.
‘An Heir To Nothing’
During both his interview with the DCNF and the preceding town hall, Ramaswamy underscored his middle class upbringing, stating that he got where he currently is due to hard work and merit.
“I wasn’t born a billionaire. I wasn’t born a millionaire. I wasn’t born an anything-aire. I was born an heir to nothing,” the candidate, who now has an estimated net worth of at least $2 billion, said. “I’ve achieved what I have … because I know what that takes to build businesses, to employ thousands of people, to sign the front of a paycheck, not just the back of one.”
Less than an hour earlier, he had delivered the same “anything-aire” line verbatim in response to a potential voter’s question.
https://dailycaller.com/2026/09/21/vivek-ramaswamy-ohio-governor-interview-amy-acton-success-iran-war-data-centers-immigration/