WATCH: Vivek Has Fascinating Response to Pastor About Racism at Town Hall

One of the things that presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has demonstrated is a talent for dealing with difficult questions in a one-on-one town hall kind of situation. He's shown that he can turn away wrath while listening to what the person has to say, giving them the ability to vent, and then giving his response.

As he notes, this seems to be a lost art when no one appears to be able to have discussions on topics anymore. As a leader, you need to not only have ideas but also the ability to hear what people are saying as well as the ability to communicate your thoughts. One of the many problems that Joe Biden and many of the Democrats have is that they only want to tell you what you should think.

A young black pastor named Samuel had two questions for Ramaswamy.

A black pastor in Iowa challenged me yesterday: Am I just ignoring historical racism in the U.S. when I say “reverse racism is racism”? He’s a good man. I answered him honestly.
📍 Warren County, IA pic.twitter.com/G01D660Pga
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 30, 2023

The pastor first asked him a question about his belief that "reverse racism is racism." The pastor said that he had always believed that racism and discrimination were tied to unequal power in institutions and structures, so if you believe that reverse racism is racism, how would you go about reconciling those structures?

His second question was that as a pastor, he believed pastors need saving as well, and part of that involved fitness. Would Vivek mind doing ten pushups with a pastor as he did with Logan Paul on Instagram?

Vivek answered the second question first, getting down on the floor with the pastor as he counted off ten push-ups that both did without trouble. Vivek joked that his wife must have called the pastor to have him do that because she thought he wasn't exercising enough on the campaign trail.

Then, they got to the second question. Vivek said we hadn't been perfect as a country, that we had slavery for 160 years, and we had a Civil War fought over it. "Some people learned that later than others," he said, taking a shot at fellow GOP candidate Nikki Haley and her Civil War comments controversy, as the audience laughed.

"The question is what do we do about it now," Ramaswamy said. He spoke about it getting small enough to "atrophy into irrelevance," comparing the question to an immune system reacting to the virus that's no longer so powerful and starting to attack the body's organs. "That's what I see happening in the country," he explained.

"Today, the best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Vivek declared. He thought we'd created more racism in the name of "anti-racism." "If we drive with our eyes in the rear-view mirror, we're just going to keep crashing the same car and recreating the thing we wanted to eradicate."

Ramaswamy said he thought we were on thin ice and in a "cold cultural civil war" right now, that he hoped it would not turn hot. But we had to continue to"aspire" to those ideals.

A great conversation with a focus on how we resolve the issues moving forward by truly trying to embrace the ideals that we claim to espouse.

WATCH: Vivek Ramaswamy Has Terrific Response to Disruptive Woman at Town Hall