Ramaswamy was featured at a recent TPUSA event at Ohio State University, where an Indian-American student, Aaryan Pathak, asked the Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate some tough questions about the “hypocrisy” of the Republican Party. Pathak, who introduced himself as a student at Oregon State University, asked Ramaswamy that a TPUSA reporter had recently mocked a Hindu temple in Texas, but that Hindu Republican leader Ramaswamy was sitting at their event. He also told Ramaswamy that Charlie Kirk opposed Ramaswamy on the H-1B visa program.“How can I call myself a true Republican when more and more people see me as not part of their heritage because of the color of my skin, my faith, and my religion?” Pathak noted that on the one hand, Asian Americans have grown in numbers in the Republican Party, and on the other hand, hatred against them has also grown. He asked whether this was the Republican strategy in the post-Trump era.Ramaswamy said he criticized both the woke left and the radical right. Ramaswamy said: “I am not anyone’s pawn, I am my own person. I don’t report to anyone but myself and God, who I believe has a purpose for each of us here, and the other thing is I will never defend someone who is indefensible.”“When I was CEO of all the companies that bought into the left, I criticized the woke left. I went the other way. I’m not going to apologize or mince words about the same kind of quasi-socialist, quasi-discriminatory, self-hating ideology that’s emerging on the right. I’m going to call it out 360 degrees wherever I see it,” Ramaswamy said. He added that he believes in true conservative policies, which means believing in success.Regarding Charlie Kirk, who opposed the H-1B visa program that Ramaswamy supported but now largely distances himself from it, Ramaswamy said hypocrisy is everywhere in life. “You can nitpick and match someone’s words to their party, and that’s not a good point. One of the beautiful things about the conservative movement and one of the reasons I’m working to get Donald Trump elected in 2024 is that I believe there’s a big tent that has room for healthy disagreements like the one we have tonight.““Charlie and I became very close,” Ramaswamy said. “We would agree on 95 percent of things in debates. We disagreed on 5 percent of things but showed a culture of mutual respect and at least a commitment to America’s founding principles.”