Welcome back to State of the Union. Most of the Republicans running against former President Trump defended him after his indictment this week, but only one has gone as far as my next guest. Here with me now is Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Thank you so much for joining me. So before you heard any details of the allegations in the Trump indictment, you put out a statement saying, if you become president, you would pardon Donald Trump on day one. Now you've seen the allegations and you've seen that he's store highly classified information like nuclear secrets and others in unsecured areas of his country club. Given everything that you've seen, do you stand by your promise to pardon him if he's convicted? Reading that indictment and looking at the selective omissions of both fact and law, then I'm even more convinced that a pardon is the right answer here. Why? Even actually we should be asking is what did Biden tell Merrick Garland? What did Merrick Garland tell Jack Smith? Because what I see in that document is deeply politicized. Now the single mention of the Presidential Records Act, the most relevant statute to the actual alleged crime here, selective statements from President Trump's statements on the campaign trail in 2016 about classification and how he'd treat it without one mention of the fact that he actually after he was elected in 2016 said he would not prosecute Hillary Clinton and would not want to see her prosecuted. And by the way, no one's mentioned this yet. This was what stood out to me. The classification scheme itself was defined not by statute, but by executive order, which is interesting because executive orders, appellate courts have held, do not bind a US president with the force of law. So this is selective prosecution. I think it's irresponsible not to have included any treatment of those facts or law in this indictment. It wreaks of politicization, which is why I want to go back to the top question that the media actually should be asking, what did Biden tell Garland? What did Garland tell Jacksonmouth? That's what you need to begin to the bottom up. The White House insists that he has absolutely no connection to this, that the whole reason the special counsel was put in place is to take it out of politics. But I want to read something that Bill Barr, President Trump's own attorney general, said just this morning on another network. He said, quote, if even half of it is true speaking of the indictment, then he's not going to be in the police. He's toast. It is a very detailed indictment and it's very, very damning. This is the former president's own former attorney general. I think we have to be able to draw a distinction between bad judgments. I would not have made the judgments that President Trump made. It's a big part of why I'm in this race is I think that I would have made different judgments that Trump made. Like what? What would you have done differently? Why would not have taken those documents with me and I would have returned them on demand because that would have actually set up for a much more constructive discussion. But there's a difference between a bad judgment and breaking the law. And when especially the federal police apparatus conflates the two, that's a threat to liberty for everyone, not just President Trump, but every American where every misjudgment is treated as a violation of law. What really matters is the relevant law, including by the way how Judge Jackson interpreted the Presidential Records Act in 2012 in the Clinton-Sok Drawer case. Not a single mention of the most relevant statute in the document means that indictment is a politicized document. So I want to get back to the bottom of the politics behind it and we need transparency there. According to the indictment, quote, the classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries, United States nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. So we are talking about very, very sensitive information, which again, Trump allegedly stored in a bathroom, ballroom, in his bedroom. Isn't it more than just bad judgment? It's very bad judgment, no doubt about it. Do you have issues with that? I do, if those allegations are true. By the way, the reason we have a court of law is, and I am personally deeply skeptical of everything in that indictment. So I will not believe it until we actually see it aired in a court of law. And the reason I don't believe it, Dana, is the selective omission of a bunch of other facts that should have been in that indictment, a treatment of a bunch of other statutes that are relevant to this alleged crime that were mentioned nowhere, that I personally have no faith whatsoever in those vague allegations. So if those are true, yes, I think that's reflective of very bad judgment. I'm skeptical that it even is true, but the bottom line is we cannot conflate a bad judgment with a violation of the law. That's what it's about. As you know, when an indictment is, in order to get an indictment, it has to be approved by a grand jury. What they taught us in law school is that you can get a grand jury, a guy to ham sandwich as well. Just on principle, do you think it would be a mistake for the Republican Party to nominate somebody who is facing serious federal criminal charges? Look, I'm in this race to win this race because I think we need to move forward as a country. I think we go forward with the agenda if we're grounded in first principles and moral authority. That's why I'm in this race. But that's not for you or I, or certainly the federal administrative police state to decide. That's for the people of this country to decide. Federal administrative police state, that's pretty strong. That's exactly what is, what's at work here, right? If a federal administrative state, the police arm of that state is for the first time in US history, not only in writing a former president, but in writing currently a lead candidate against the US president. That is not the stuff of the United States of America. That is the stuff of banana republic. So if there was ever going to be a case brought against a lead political rival for a sitting US president, it better be locked down and airtight, not an indictment that fails to mention the most relevant statute that's actually at issue. Well, it is, and obviously, as you said, it is unprecedented. I should say that there have been democracies that have put criminal prosecution of former leaders because those times have been so extraordinary. It's you in the middle of an election. And there is, and this obviously is very extraordinary. I disagree with the allegations. I just think I do not believe those allegations because of, I think, the intellectual dishonesty in that indictment. So I think the federal court is actually, I think based on the precedent of the Clinton sock drawer case, where effectively Judge Jackson said that it is at the president's her language, not mine, sole discretion as to what is and is not covered as a presidential record. I think the court will acquit him. But that's beside the point of the judgment that President Biden made. And if Trump's judgment was bad, President Biden's judgment is worse for actually bringing a prosecution. He should have done what Trump did. President Biden didn't bring a prosecution. The Department of Justice reports into the president of the United States. And so this is a fairly, which is why I think the media needs to get involved. But there's no evidence. There's absolutely no evidence. Unless you can show me some that President Biden has had anything to do with this prosecution. That's why he put two layers in between with the media. With respect, I think it is shameful that I as a competitor to President Trump in this race have to ask questions that the media isn't asking. The job of the political media, if it has one job, is to hold the US government accountable. We know that. Instead, we're doing the bidding. You're saying the media doing the bidding of the US government. Now, ask the question. Get to the bottom of what Biden told Garland and what Garland told Jack Smith. The same shoe foot, the other foot, you would not take their word at face value. Do not take their word now. Get to the bottom of it. Let's actually restore journalism in this country. That's what's actually missing is getting to the truth. Okay. Thank you for that. We are absolutely asking these questions. And we know how to be good journalists because we do it every single day. Last question is on the fundamentals. Do you believe that Donald Trump should be above the law? Or should he be held to the same standard as every citizen in this country? Every citizen in this country is held and should be held to the same standard. That includes Joe Biden. That includes Hillary Clinton. That includes Mike Pence. That includes me. That includes every citizen across this country. What we're seeing here, though, is a selective prosecution. And there's a difference between Donald Trump when he left office as president versus Joe Biden, who is a US senator. Hillary Clinton is a secretary of state. None of whom are covered by the Presidential Records Act. It couldn't be true that it's not so much as a selective prosecution. It's just that the allegations of what Donald Trump did is just different and allegedly much more egregious than what we've seen anywhere else. There are a few things that are just different about the presidency. We have to accept that we have this as law in this country, Dana. And if you don't like the law, we should change the law. But the law says there's a Presidential Records Act that specifically gives US presidents gut jurisdiction and authority over deciding what isn't as a Presidential Record. And executive orders, buying to the rest of the country, that's the classification scheme, they don't buy in the US president. Again, these are questions for the courts. So I'm not substituting my opinion for the judgment of the court. But I'm saying the fact that those distinctions did not even appear in this indictment to meet reek of politicization, which is why I am deeply skeptical of the face value claim that the White House wasn't involved. That's what I want to get to the bottom of. The vague Ramaswami candidate for the Republican nomination. Thank you for your time, sir. Thank you, Dana. Appreciate it.