The 2024 GOP primary field continues to grow more cluttered with presidential hopefuls, even if it doesn’t seem to be getting any more competitive. One of the candidates who has remained mired in the mid-to-upper single digits is businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. But those lower numbers don’t appear to have deterred him from going all in on assuming the presidency. During an interview on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, Ramaswamy told Steve Hilton that his only interest was in winning the nomination and then the general election. And if he comes up short, he has no interest in taking a position in Donald Trump’s cabinet or anyone else’s for that matter. Or at least that’s what he’s saying for the time being. (Daily Mail)

Longshot 2024 hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy said that he would not take a Cabinet position in a Donald Trump administration.

The candidate’s comments are from a podcast appearance with conservative host Steve Hilton earlier this month and were previously unreported.

Since the recording of the interview, former President Trump told Fox News that he would consider Ramaswamy for his vice president or a cabinet position if he becomes president again.

To be fair, Vivek didn’t specifically call out Donald Trump, even though Trump is currently leading the field by a wide margin. The actual question Hilton asked was whether he would take a position “in the administration of any of your rivals.” (You can watch the podcast here.) He responded by saying that he would not and that if he failed to secure the nomination he would probably return to the private sector and work to get his anti-woke message out.

I’ve had the opportunity to watch a number of interviews with Vivek at this point and I have to admit that I’ve been very impressed. He strikes me as a very smart, savvy person who has a great personal backstory as a self-made business executive and a solid command of the issues. He’s not all that far from Trump when it comes to policy questions, though he is far more restrained in his temperament. Some might call him “a Trump clone without the mean tweets,” but they’re not exactly in line on everything.

I’m not sure if I believe that Vivek is truly ruling out any positions lower than the presidency. He may just be avoiding any discussion of the possibility because such an admission could sound as if he’s already prepared to concede defeat. Of course, he could always change his mind later, as many others have done before him. Look no further than the current administration which is littered with people who attempted to gain the nomination in 2020 but eventually fell to Joe Biden. They include positions from the vice presidency to the Transportation Department and beyond. Also, Vivek has time to regroup and try again. At 37, he’s the youngest hypothetically viable candidate in the field and should have plenty of additional opportunities in the future.

With all of that said, any of Ramaswamy’s supporters should be prepared to deal with a dose of reality. It’s true that a recent Echelon Insights poll showed Vivek finally breaking through the 10% mark, but overall he is still toward the rear of the pack. His RealClear Politics average is still at 8 percent. He’s stuck at 5 percent in New Hampshire, 3 percent in Iowa, and 2 percent in Ohio. No matter how good of a candidate you may find him to be, he just doesn’t seem to be breaking through anywhere in a way that suggests he’s building the momentum he would need to seriously challenge Trump.

Of course, I can’t conclude an article like this without the usual caveats that most of you are already no doubt aware of. We are still a month away from the very first debates and it will be more than six months before a single vote is cast. That’s an eternity in the world of American politics and every news cycle holds the possibility of some new twist that could turn everything on its head. So we’ll keep an eye on Vivek and see how he performs and whether or not he begins attracting a larger following. As I said, he’s an impressive guy with a lot of energy and solidly conservative positions.