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Fortune
Fortune
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld

Smoke and mirrors: I’ve been debating Vivek Ramaswamy for 2 years. Here’s how I got past his diversionary tactics

(Credit: Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images)

As the great illusionist Harry Houdini once said, “The secret of showmanship consists not of what you really do, but what the mystery-loving public thinks you do.” Entrepreneurial huckster Vivek Ramaswamy has graduated from being the court jester of corporate governance to now becoming a serious contender for the GOP presidential nomination as some 5% of primary Republican voters indicate they are entertained by his antics.

As one of the few people who have debated Ramaswamy in multiple public appearances and studied the reality of his business resume, I have repeatedly cleared the diversionary smoke he deploys by revealing the reality of his pump-and-dump business playbook. Now Ramaswamy seems to have retrofitted it for politics.

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