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GOP Presidential candidate Samuel Ronan gives one-on-one interview with APR

SamRonan.com

A new candidate for the Republican presidential ballot has emerged. Samuel Ronan is the latest person to declare his 2024 bid for the White House.

Prior to this presidential run, Ronan ran for Ohio Senate in 2022, Ohio’s 1st Congressional District in 2018 and Democratic National Committee Chair in 2017. He said the reason he declared he was running so late in the Presidential race is because the current options for President are not ideal.

“What we have is a bunch of people running for office, whether it's on the left or the right, who are effectively offering the American people,” he said. “Nothing new. Nothing inspiring. Nothing to work towards. Nothing to believe in. Just more of the same listen to your masters, follow, obey, etc.,” Ronan continued. “The reason why I'm running for office this late in the game as a regular person, is to prove that it can be done. There are better ways, better opportunities, for our country to thrive, and for all of us Americans, just regular folks like you or me, to actually participate in the process.”

Ronan said he chose to run on the GOP ballot for this election because his policies and values align more with that party.

“I believe my values are actually better received in the Republican Party. So, I am choosing to run as a Republican. Now, taking it a step further, I'm choosing to run as a Republican because the current cadre of candidates do not represent the needs and the ideals of the American people,” he said. “In fact, the frontrunner [Donald] Trump is offering despotism dictatorship and worse, whereas the four other candidates are offering watered down versions of some or all of his policies.”

Another reason Ronan said he chose to run on the Republican ballot is because the party is open to hearing new ideas from their candidates.

“The Republican Party, for all of the faults or all of its good, is open to varying ideas,” he explained. “They do not prevent people from running. They do not close their primaries, and they do not deny the winner their victory so they can have their preferred candidate in place. My values match the Republican Party of yesterday. I feel that I represent the history of the Republican Party, the true value of where the Republican Party thrived back during the [Dwight D.] Eisenhower years,” Ronan said.

One of Ronan’s main policies is the America Works Program. Through this program, Americans would have access to a job board and national training centers for major industries in the nation. Ronan said these training centers would help usher younger people into America’s aging workforce.

“If we can train our soldiers straight out of high school how to fix multimillion dollar aircrafts and multibillion dollar ships, surely we can train our citizens how to get involved in rail, in infrastructure in fiber optics, in helping farmers,” Ronan said. “There are many jobs out there, not all of them labor intensive, that are in desperate need of being sold. We do have an ageing workforce, but we don't have the young people ready and able to fill those positions because our society has detracted from the trades and saying that they aren't as worthy as the bachelor’s degrees and the master’s and doctorate degrees.”

The America Works Program is not just limited to American citizens. Ronan said he wants to allot a percentage of this program to immigrants who are working in America as well.

“We do have a border crisis. It's a humanitarian one. Our foreign policy has disrupted so many Latin American, Central American and South American nations, that they are fleeing their homes; traveling months, weeks, days across treacherous territory to make it to America for the simple hope that maybe they can survive and take care of their loved ones,” Ronan said. “Of course, we can't just open our borders. Not everyone has good intentions, but what we can do is treat it as a humanitarian crisis rather than a criminal one,” Ronan continued. “We can streamline the process: if you work in America and apply to the America Works program and agree to go to wherever America needs you with the skills that you provide and that you showcase, you can earn your path to citizenship, much like enlisting in the military.”

Another policy Ronan feels strongly about is his tax policy. He said he plans on eliminating taxes for people who make under $100,000 a year, canceling all student and medical debt and taxing billionaires 99%.

“My goal is to eliminate any and all income taxes. All of them to include Social Security, to unfold Medicare and put paying for those things, on the wealthy on those who have 90% [and] control of all wealth in America,” he said. “In so doing, we will dramatically improve the spending power of the average citizen. We will raise tens of thousands of millions of Americans out of poverty. We will be able to address the rising cost of living directly. We will be able to fully fund all of our federal and state projects and works directly by making those with the resources pay for it,” Ronan continued.

He said his policy for taxing billionaires 99% comes from Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s tax policy.

“In my tax vision, billionaires will not exist. If you make a billion dollars, either as an individual or a corporation, you will be taxed every single red cent beyond that,” he explained. “That is indicative of the same tax policies of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican president and war hero from World War II, when he himself implemented a 94% upper percent tax rate for the $400,000 and above bracket,” Ronan continued. “Meaning if you made at least $400,000 as an individual or a business, you paid 94% in taxes.”

Ronan said he also plans to reform the police once he becomes President. He said police brutality in America has been a problem for many years. However, in recent years, it has escalated significantly.

“It's because policing is an institution, and our country is directly derived from the slave patrol. Our country has had such a long and insidious history of slavery and cruelty against people of other that we have always had some sort of agency in place to prevent them, the other, from prospering,” Ronan said.

He said the police budget in every state can range anywhere from 30% to 60% of the state’s entire budget. However, despite the high amount of money, Ronan said the police and other law enforcements do not protect citizens. He said defunding the police by half is necessary to have a more functional police system in America.

“When I talk about police reform, I'm talking about that history and our current reality, needing to be fundamentally changed. First, we defund the police. As it is, that 50% should be put toward different social programs. That'll adjust crime and drug addiction, poverty, homelessness,” Ronan said. “Police shouldn't be responsible for all of that anyway, even if they weren't a corrupt institution. It's entirely too many hats to wear for one institution. There's no way you could effectively train one person to handle a psychotic break, a medical emergency, homelessness, poverty,” he continued. “There's no way to address all of that in one. So, first, we take those funds and redistribute it into other programs. We then address the real issues in our communities and in our state.”

Ronan said along with defunding the police, he would also enforce federal standards to ensure law enforcement is protecting citizens.

“Enforcement of federal standards and enforcement of duties is how we reform our policing in America,” he explained. “But it will require some significant changes to the way we view policing in this country and the culture that has permeated policing for our nation's entire history. It won't be easy, but it absolutely will be necessary,” Ronan continued. “Those that do not comply, the officers who resist and refuse to change and be better, will be arrested. They will suffer the consequences of their actions. Because accountability is the primary missing element in our government in our society.”

Ronan said his police reform policy is also related to America’s apparent border crisis.

“The border crisis is simply a continuation of all these atrocities in leading into today and the actions that have been committed by the American federal government and the administration's directive them,” he said. “These are human beings like you and me, who lived lives like you and me, who had jobs like you and me. Hopes, dreams and aspirations like you and me and had been torn from them because of the actions of American foreign policy,” Ronan said.

Ronan said treating the border as a humanitarian crisis would allow Americans to have more empathy for immigrants.

“I think treating [the border] as a humanitarian crisis is not only the ethical and moral thing to do, but it serves all of our interests,” he explained. “As Americans, as immigrants wanting to come to America and embracing the American dream, we are a nation of immigrants. We are the melting pot nation of the world. We are the social experiment. So, why would we stop that now? We should be embracing this opportunity to bring these people into our country. To help build it and rebuild it and reform it in an image that we can all participate in,” he continued.

Ronan said people should vote for him because he understands the problems of today’s America better than the other candidates do. He said the other candidates do not understand the plight of the American people because they have not had to live the experiences of the average American citizen.

“Why take a chance and Samuel Ronan to become the next president of the United States? Look around you. Look at the candidates that are running: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, DeSantis, Rebecca, Vivek Ramaswamy, Governor Christie, even RFK Jr,” he said. “Why would you trust them to have your best interests in mind when they don't even know what it is like to live a day in your shoes? They do not even understand the complexities of suffering and pain and financial limitations that we all go through. They only see the social issues these domestic problems these foreign policies as polling numbers,” Ronan continued. “They don't care, nor do they understand the absolute suffering and pain that Millennials and Gen Z go through with all these steps and these lots of opportunity to get into the workforce to engage in their government.”

Ronan also gave his predictions for the Republican candidates and how the 2024 election will go.

“Vivek will be the first to drop out. DeSantis will be the second to drop out, and what we will see is that Nikki Haley will either close the gap between Donald Trump or she will end up becoming his running mate,” he said. “I do not believe Governor Christie will end up being the nominee for the simple fact that he doesn't offer much different to the American people. His policies and views are Bush Jr., Bush Sr.-esque, and the American people are not interested in that. What they want is some sort of populism, and right now, the only person delivering that is Trump.”

Ronan said if America’s political climate remains the same, there is a chance that the nation will see a second Donald Trump presidency.

“It's not that he's popular because he's a good leader, or a viable candidate, if he's popular, because the other guy, the other person, is so detestable, so unliked and unpopular, that Trump seems like the lesser of two evils,” Ronan said. “Now, on top of that, he keeps getting free media presence by being brazen. If the media treated his brazen behavior with the immaturity that it deserves, then he would not have nearly as much airtime as much presence in people's lives to be seen as viable,” he continued. “The fact that he did try or allegedly tried to facilitate an insurrection on January 6, that he has so many charges and criminal indictments against him currently, this should be disqualifying outright, and yet, it isn't.”

Ronan said he thinks that Governor Ron DeSantis’ current policies in Florida, from a strict abortion law to “Don’t Say Gay” to book banning to less restrictive gun legislation, would not hold up on a national level if DeSantis became President of the United States.

“You have your conflicting ideologies. Your left versus your right, and the left finds that kind of behavior abhorrent, and even many on the right find it abhorrent,” Ronan explained. “No leader in history who burned or banned books has ever been on the right side of history, and Americans are aware of that. So, that wouldn't work,” he explained. “Strict immigration policy is flying in the face of our nation's history and our core ethos in the first place. When you have so many immigrants in America regardless, that's just not going to work. And with the Don't Say Gay [law], gay people, transgender people, and everything in between, have existed for as long as humans have existed.”

Ronan also said he does not believe that current President Joe Biden will remain in office for another four years.

“There is no national or international event that could galvanize him into remaining in the White House,” he said “There is there is not a future in the entire multiverse where Joe Biden wins a second term, and it is because of his lack of agency. It is because of his will lack of inspiration It is because of his blatant corruption in violation of international law by aiding and abetting Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” he continued. “And never mind, the scandal with his son. Never mind his failure to fulfill his promises during the campaign of debt forgiveness. He has done nothing to fundamentally improve the lives of American citizens, and people are not going to be forgiving.”

Ronan said he believes that Biden should retire from politics entirely.

“[Biden] is probably on his way to a nursing home, and I don't even say that derogatorily. We are seeing the early signs of dementia with the man, and I feel like it's elder abuse at this point to allow him to run into stay in office,” Ronan explained. “It's only going to detrimentally impact our own national stability and standing in the world if we can't even trust the agency of our own president.”

Ronan also said that while he does not know who Trump’s Vice President will be if he wins the election, Nikki Haley would be the best.

“For all of his bluster, and for all of his poor views, and how horrifically his administration went… populism is covering the domestic issues platform solidly and that's what people like about him. He says the things that they want to hear, and then does none of them. We are aware of that,” Ronan explained. “However, his foreign policy is just as lackluster but not nuanced in the slightest. And at the very least, Nikki Haley, being an ambassador and having been in the United Nations and having actually engaged with all of these foreign leaders, would be the stability.”

Ronan said overall, if American politics remain the same, there will be another Trump administration which is concerning due to the age of the former president.

To learn more about Ronan’s policies, visit his website here.

Andrea Tinker is a student intern at Alabama Public Radio. She is majoring in News Media with a minor in African American Studies at The University of Alabama. In her free time, Andrea loves to listen to all types of music, spending time with family, and reading about anything pop culture related.

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