Comedian Andrew Schulz roasted Vivek Ramaswamy, the DOGE alum turned de facto candidate for governor of Ohio, over his controversial tweet that inspired a MAGA civil war.
The exchange on Wednesday’s episode of the Flagrant podcast began with Ramaswamy articulating his plan for taking the Ohio River Valley “to the next level where Silicon Valley isn’t.”
One of Schulz’s co-hosts then asked if he intended to do that by getting “a lot more H-1B visas,” referencing a tweet Ramaswamy fired off last month that torched American culture for venerating “mediocrity over excellence,” and touted the work ethic of “foreign-born & first-generation engineers.”
“How do you do it with these retard Americans?” inquired Schulz facetiously. “We just got retarded Americans here in this country, there’s no way we can figure out engineering!”
At that point, the whole gang joined in to mock Ramaswamy.
“We’re too dumb!” added Schulz.
“You know what the sad part is? We’re actually-, some people say that,” lamented Ramaswamy.
“I know, you’re sitting on the couch right now,” shot back Schulz. “You’re sitting right here, the guy who says it.”
“So the thing is, I actually, the thing that pissed me off is actually a lot of people started saying the thing that you were saying,
“We’ve gotta be the smartest,” interjected Schulz.
“I think that, if anything, we are because we have a good selection bias of who comes here, but, but, but there’s a big problem,” continued Ramaswamy. “So if we have at least no less smart, and probably smarter on average than most countries, if not all countries, because of the selection bias of who comes here, yet in eighth grade-”
“You’re still saying it’s the immigrants that come here that make us smart,” interrupted Schulz again.
“Well, let me ask- no!” protested Ramaswamy.
“You’re still saying that!” insisted Schulz. “If you want it to be fine, just say white Christians are the smartest and everything will be okay! Okay? Just say it! Just say Christ is King and we’re the smartest!”
In his widely panned December tweet, Ramaswamy wrote the following:
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: 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). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.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.“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. Andif we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it.
Watch the full exchange above.