'Not running to be pastor of Ohio': Ramaswamy turns Hindu faith question into viral constitutional moment

At a Charlie Kirk event, presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy transformed a pointed question about his Hindu faith into a viral, mic-drop moment.

When participant Liam Birmingham asked why a “polytheistic ideology” like Hinduism would share “Christian values,” Ramaswamy responded by clarifying his beliefs. “With due respect, I’ll just cut in right there because it’s one thing I have a little bit of authority on. I believe in this one true God from the Vedanta tradition of Advaita philosophy,” he said.

He elaborated: “I believe there's one true God. He resides in all of us and he appears in different forms, but it's one true God. So I'm an ethical monotheist. That's the way I would describe my faith. Now I will tell you, I'm not running to be pastor of Ohio. I'm running to be governor of Ohio. And I didn't run to be pastor of America. I ran to be president of the United States of America.”

Ramaswamy drew parallels between Hinduism and Christianity, noting similarities between the concept of divine manifestations in Hindu thought and the Christian Holy Trinity. “Doesn’t make you a polytheist, does it?” he asked, highlighting how both faiths reconcile “the one and the many.”