Vivek Ramaswamy Appears on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ To Discuss Socialism vs. Capitalism (09.08.25)

Welcome back to Squawk Box. A new Gallup poll released this morning finding that Americans' positive image of capitalism has fallen to a new low. Just 54 percent of U.S. adults surveyed view capitalism positively. That's down from 60 percent in 2021. It's the lowest level since Gallup began asking that question in 2010. Our next guests are here in New York City today to talk about New Yorkers, about what they say are the dangers of socialism and to share their ideas on how to manage their future if Mondani becomes the next mayor of New York City. We just had, of course, Governor Cuomo, who's running for mayor of Florida. Senator Rick Scott is here, and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Good morning to both of you. Good morning. Morning. Capitalism is good. Socialism is bad. If you like capitalism, move to Florida. When Vivek is the governor, he's going to make it a place where you want to move to Ohio. So the big question, though, is you look at these polls and you look at, you know, even just the Democratic race here in New York City and the way the numbers seem to, and there's clearly a major gap in terms of the favorability and view of capitalism. And what that is, what do you think that actually is about to the degree that you believe it's a misunderstanding or a miseducation or a missomething, how you go about fixing that beyond us having this conversation? Talk about opportunity. I'm a kid that grew up under capitalism. I grew up in public housing, never know my natural father. And I had the opportunity in this country to go build companies and eventually run for governor and run for the Senate. That's what we ought to be talking about, the fact that you can come from anywhere in this country and do something. Under socialism, that's clearly not true. I do think it's a fact of the matter. My parents came to this country as legal immigrants four plus decades ago. They never imagined I'd go on to found multibillion dollar companies now running to be the governor of the very state where I was born and raised. And the extraordinary thing about our country is that Rick Scott's story, my story, are actually not that extraordinary in the United States, that this is the country on God's green earth where that's possible. Now, beyond just talking about it, I think we have to put some more meat on the bone as well when it comes to participating in equity ownership. And I think this is the big difference between the wealthy and everybody else is do you participate in the uncapped upside that capitalism creates? And I think the left with baby bonds and universal basic income, they have a shred of an intuition that they channel in totally the wrong way. What I want to focus on and what we're going to do in Ohio is incorporate financial literacy starting at a young age, engage in what Albert Einstein called the most powerful force in the universe, compound interest starting young, where I want to build a state where every kid who's born, raised, living and working in Ohio grows up to be a millionaire in our state. The best way to combat the popularity of socialism, Andrew, is actually to make everyone a capitalist by making them an owner in those uncapped upside equity accreting assets. Here's the question, though. So here in New York, one of the things that Mondavi seems to have been able to capture is this idea of affordability being a problem. And it is a problem because it is a problem. It's a genuine real problem. And I think it's not just a problem here in New York. I think it's a problem across the whole country. And there are so many families that literally are just scraping to get by every week, every month, every day. You know, you and I went to the U.S. Open yesterday. It was it's a it's a fabulous event. And the truth is most people in America cannot afford to go to something like that. They can't afford to actually go to an NFL game necessarily. They can watch it on TV. But and as a result, I think there is this view of this sort of haves and have nots thing that's happened in this country and how you can create a sort of better system. I don't know if it's a better system, but a way a better system ultimately. And there's clearly have or this to work. It's what government has done is made it very difficult for the poor to get ahead. The cost of everything has gone up. And it's a lot of this government regulation. You can't get a permit. You can't start a business. You can't even get ahead. So if you think my first business was a donut shop, I just got out of the Navy. You know, none. I'd have to have one permit. All right. All right. Today, it would take you months. And in New York City is probably worse than almost any place in the country. So if you think about what we've done and how we've hurt the poor, you made it very difficult because of regulations and permits and fees. And you have to have this standard. You have to have this test. You have to have this degree. You have to have this. Let let me let me go compete. Let me in the game. But you don't even let me in the game if you don't start out rich. The housing is an example of this too. I mean, he's running Mamdani here in New York. And many people across the country would be smart to run on bringing down the cost of housing. You want to bring down the cost of housing? Rent controls aren't the way to do it. The way to do it is increase the supply of what actually matters. Increase the supply of new home construction. What gets in the way? Rent restrictions. Land use restrictions. Red tape in the way. Think about energy. Electricity costs in my part of the country are 50 percent higher this summer than they were last summer. How do you solve the problem? Increase the supply of energy production. And yet a lot of those far left policies, while well intended for the best of them, are actually resulting in hurting the very people they intended to help by creating higher housing and energy. That's why there's a lot of people who say Mamdani would be the perfect solution. Let him get elected. Let people see what happens when you have some of these far left solutions. Do you agree with that? So I think electorally, I mean, out of taking my self-interest out of it, I'm running the 26 cycle. I think Republicans will undoubtedly do better if Mamdani is elected, which appears to be on track to happen. I'm not rooting for that because I think that New York City is a great American city and we want to see New York City thrive and set a positive example rather than a negative one. That being said, some lessons do end up having to be learned the hard way. And you want to combat the popularity of socialism? Well, if you see the result of those socialist policies, people are going to be open to a different alternative. What I want to see, Becky, though, is I want to see Republicans use this as a wake-up call to affirmatively make the case for capitalism itself, the original version. And if we do that, we're going to be successful. I have a maybe complicated, I think, a complicated question for both of you. We are now in a very unique moment in the Republican Party, at least in what Trump's Republican Party, around the idea of what capitalism and free markets are. You look at the transaction that took place with Intel, what's happening potentially with AMD and NVIDIA. We can go down the line when it comes to industrial policy, tariffs and the like. These are not considered free market principles at all. In fact, some people would describe these as socialist principles. What say you? Well, let's go, let's take Intel as an example. Okay. They got, I think, four billion dollars out of the CHIPS Act. I completely oppose the CHIPS Act. So here what we said is, oh, here, you know, until you get four billion dollars, you don't have to actually operate a plant. You can still, and the CEO of Intel said, oh, I'm going to, I asked him in a hearing, are you going to keep doing business in China? Yeah. I said, if they invade Taiwan, you're going to keep doing business in China. Absolutely. So if you look at, look at what it, look at what's happened is, you know, whether any of us would believe, right, that you should get, you know, interest in a company, if that's the way we're going to get a return on the four billion dollars we put up, if that's the only way we're going to get a return, then we ought to get a return. But look, I did economic development when I did as governor. Okay. And I did it by, I said, I will help you, but it's tied to how much, how much do you pay? How many jobs do you create? Do you keep those jobs? That's what we should be doing. And that's not what happened with the CHIPS Act. Well, where do you land on that? Just because it is an interesting phenomenon. We are in an industrial policy world. By the way, this could be busting the myth that there are free markets at all. I mean, some people would argue under Democrats, there wasn't a free market either in so far as there were either giveaways or grants or other things for different industries. I mean, you could go down that line, but it is a different, it's a different approach. Well, here's what I'll say, Andrew. The modern Republican party is a big tent coalition. I have my views within that coalition. I believe that capitalism is the best system known to the history of man to lift people up from poverty. And I give president Trump for unifying what is a big tent coalition. Now to pick up where Senator Scott left off on the CHIPS Act, I'll give you my perspective. I think the CHIPS Act was a mistake. It was based on this false premise that we're trying to imitate China, where China showered a bunch of semiconductor companies with money, didn't go very well. They're being investigated for corruption, which is the sign that it failed. In the US, we shouldn't copy that method by having showered them as we did under the Biden administration. But let's get to the root cause. Why is TSMC slowing down a little bit in Arizona or not as fast as they would have wanted to be? It's in part because we don't exactly have yet the skilled workers to build those sub 10 nanometer leading edge semiconductors, which goes back to deeper root causes that I'm looking to address in our educational system. I mean, the average student right now in the United States is four full academic years behind the average student in China. A seventh grader here is performing at the same academic standard as a third grade student in China. That's unacceptable. And do we need leaders, frankly, if not in the Democratic Party, at least in the Republican Party, focusing on those root causes? Absolutely. And I think we're going to be unified around that. But certainly in Ohio, looking at state leadership, that's where my focus remains. Unfortunately, we're out of time. This is a longer conversation. We could do a whole episode, if not longer. All three days on this. I want to thank Senator Rick Scott for being with us. Vivek Ramaswamy, thank you for being with us as well. Thank you. Appreciate both of you. Great to see you.