Entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy made headlines at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, asserting that pervasive censorship led to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Ramaswamy voiced his views during a comprehensive interview, broadcasted by The Blaze and conducted by the former host of Fox News, Tucker Carlson. The exchange took place during the summit aimed at debating salient political challenges that America grapples with.
Carlson prompted Ramaswamy to reflect on the occasion when fervent Trump supporters breached the Capitol.
Ramaswamy laid some of the blame squarely on online censorship, stating that when people in the United States are denied their right to express their views, they resort to destructive behavior.
He criticized the federal government for mandating vaccinations under threat of job loss, restricting citizens from questioning the origins of COVID-19, and condoning violent protests during the pandemic lockdown. In his view, these actions amounted to stifling the voice of the people, leading to the upheaval on January 6.
The 37-year-old entrepreneur emphasized that the information vacuum, notably with regard to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, was a crucial factor in triggering the Capitol riot.
“You want to know what caused January 6: pervasive censorship in this country in the lead-up to January 6,” Ramaswamy, 37, said. “You tell people in this country they cannot speak, that is when they scream. You tell people they cannot scream, that is when they tear things down.”
He added:
“And so the reality is, we were told that you could not question where the virus came from when we all knew it came from a lab in Wuhan, which now they admit. We were told that you could not send a private message to someone on the eve of an election that Hunter Biden’s laptop story was actually a true story worth considering before an election.
“You were systematically suppressed. So think about this. You were told you had to be locked down, had to take a vaccine that was mandated and forced down your throat, stay locked down in your home while Antifa and BLM roam and burned the streets of this country. So that’s the lead up. of one full year of telling people you have to shut up, sit down, and do as you’re told.”
The issue of censorship extended to social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which stifled sharing of this story and other contentious issues challenging official narratives.
Ramaswamy, known for founding the biopharmaceutical firm Roivant Sciences and co-founding Strive Asset Management, has cited his commitment to free speech during his presidential campaign.
