Vivek Ramaswamy Is Out of the Trump Admin After Claiming American Workers Have a ‘Culture’ Problem

The second administration of President Donald Trump only started on Monday, but there is already one high-profile exit from the commander-in-chief’s team.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination, was initially supposed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk, but now he is officially out of the project.

That development occurrs as Ramaswamy considers his own run for office, but also after his comments about American culture raised eyebrows among much of the Trump base.

“Vivek Ramaswamy played a critical role in helping us create DOGE,” agency representative Anna Kelly said in a statement on Monday to the Associated Press.

“He intends to run for elected office soon, which requires him to remain outside of DOGE, based on the structure that we announced today,” Kelly added.

“We thank him immensely for his contributions over the last two months and expect him to play a vital role in making America great again.”

The ouster of Ramaswamy, who lives in Ohio, came days after Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced that he would appoint Lt. Gov. Jon Husted to take the United States Senate seat vacated by now-Vice President J.D. Vance.

Some speculated that Ramaswamy was a contender for the appointment. But he now intends to succeed DeWine in the 2026 gubernatorial race in Ohio, for which DeWine will be term-limited, according to NBC News.

But some have wondered whether a recent controversy over legal immigration, for which Ramaswamy was at the center of the fray, played a role in his ouster from DOGE.

Amid a debate between leading Republican influencers over the H-1B visa program, which arguably imports tech workers from around the world to work at rates lower than what could sustain many middle-class American households, Ramaswamy mounted a blistering criticism of American culture.

“Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” Ramaswamy wrote on X just after Christmas.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he added.

Ramaswamy even argued that American families should have “fewer sleepovers” and “more weekend science competitions,” claiming that American parents wrongly view parents who push their children toward academic achievement with skepticism.

“If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve,” he continued. “Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.”

There is definitely an element of truth in this argument from Ramaswamy. There is certainly a cultural decline in America with respect to academics and education, and parents should push their children toward greater excellence.

But that does not need to come at the expense of having a normal childhood, and most certainly does not necessitate mimicking the cultures of Asian countries which may be more academically rigorous, but which are also notoriously miserable and which struggle to match the same sort of creativity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship that make the American economy special.

The new Trump administration did say that Ramaswamy abruptly left DOGE because of his run for office while not mentioning his recent comments.

But the Trump base is by no means pleased with Ramaswamy, and his political future has never been more uncertain.

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