(Photo illustration by The Bulwark / Photos: Jim Swift)Columbus, OhioLIVE, UNSCRIPTED QUESTION-AND-ANSWER SESSIONS are a uniquely high-risk proposition for marquee events. Failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, now running for governor of Ohio, received an opportunity to reflect on this fact anew when, in an appearance at Ohio State University on Tuesday night, he found himself being questioned by a mime whose eloquent gestures were being translated into audible English by a clown.OSU’s Mershon auditorium often serves as a venue for comedy shows—but not usually quite like this Turning Point USA-sponsored event.
The balcony was cordoned off with pipe and drape, meaning that in a venue with about 2,500 seats, something short of 1,000 people came.I found much of the programming amusing, as did a buddy I ran into there, independent journalist D.J. Byrnes. If you don’t know Byrnes, all you really need to know is that he once tricked Ramaswamy into meeting him in a Raising Cane’s parking lot by leading him to believe he was going to address the OSU football team there.Ramaswamy’s whistlestop—part of TPUSA’s “This is Turning Point” campus tour series—had already been through a rough sixteen minutes before the pharmaceutical-entrepreneur-cum-presidential-candidate-cum-co-DOGE-boss-cum-gubernatorial-candidate took the stage.
The ostensibly student-focused event had drawn a mostly older audience, whose patience had worn thin after a cavalcade of erratic speakers.Byrnes and I had watched with growing discomfort as the itinerary, which began with a guy who pitched his delinquent private student loan restructuring company, progressed to a local TPUSA organizer, and then to Savannah Chrisley, the reality TV star (The Masked Singer, Chrisley Knows Best) who became a MAGA darling after successfully lobbying Trump for pardons for her reality-TV-star parents following their convictions on tax fraud charges.Here’s how she opened on Tuesday night:What’s up, everyone? I swear, every time I come to a Turning Point event, I get more and more excited because this is exactly what Charlie [Kirk] would have wanted to happen.
Coming into this, it is bittersweet because trust me, I would much rather see Charlie up here than me. But we do have to keep his mission alive.And first off, I want to comment on my outfit. It is a very loose outfit.
And the reason being is because I just went through surgery on Friday for my egg retrieval, because I do believe in bringing more children into this world and teaching them. . . . [Confused applause.]This was just the first moment of whiplash in a speech that careened so hard throughout that it became all unexpected swerve, from complaints about biased AI to motivational speaking about Charlie Kirk’s mission to a tubthumping endorsement for Ramaswamy’s campaign. She concluded by inviting conservative audience members to take libs out for coffee, change those friends’ minds about things, and then charge the drinks to Chrisley via Venmo.Join Bulwark+ with a FREE 14-day trialChrisley introduced Ramaswamy, and he gave a vaguely Reaganesque (rather than explicitly Trumpy) stump speech.
But then—then came the Q&A, and with it, the mime and the clown.They waited patiently as Diana—a recent grad, Christian, and mom—asked Ramaswamy pointedly about the AI data centers popping up all over Ohio. She was concerned they were going to ruin Ohio’s farmland aesthetic. She came armed with stats and talking points, and after declaring the candidate’s answer unsatisfactory, she turned to go, smiled, and said “Vote for Casey Putsch!” (“Who’s that?” an older woman in the row in front of me asked her friend.
“The other guy,” her friend responded. “Oh.”) “It’s a free country,” Ramaswamy shrugged.By all appearances, the performance artists who stood up next were not there on behalf of any candidate. They served the cause of spectacle alone.
As his silent, grease-painted friend mimed under the lights, the red-nosed clown offered an account of his meaning. It turned out they were friends in spite of deep ideological differences: “Unlike my Franco Marxist friend over here, I am a red-blooded American clown, right? I’ve never been infected with the woke mind virus.” Come on, Vivek.
You deserve this.They performed a comic filibuster before the question finally came out: “Because [Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Amy Acton is a physician and has health care experience, does she have an advantage over you on health care policy, given your business/biotech background?” The students who recognized the pair, even the conservatives, ate it up.Ramaswamy made their question into an opportunity to attack Acton for her pro-lockdown stance during the pandemic, and waved the wavy pair away.Then the questions got more serious. A student named Ari asked, “How can someone like me call myself Republican when people reject me because of my religion or skin color?” He noted this problem extends to the event’s sponsor, recall