Vivek Ramaswamy duped into fake Ohio State football team meeting at chicken joint parking lot

On a Friday afternoon in 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy arrived at a Raising Cane’s restaurant on Olentangy Road in Columbus expecting to meet Ohio State head football coach Ryan Day and speak to the team. He brought an entourage of five people, including a security escort, arriving in a black Cadillac Escalade. Neither Day nor any Ohio State players were present.

The meeting had been fabricated — arranged through weeks of text message exchanges with Columbus-based progressive blogger D.J. Byrnes, who posed as a fictional Ohio State football staffer in his newsletter, The Rooster. Ramaswamy is now the Republican nominee for Ohio governor, having won the May 5 primary with more than 82 percent of the vote. He faces Democrat Amy Acton, a physician and former Ohio Department of Health director, in the November general election.

How the prank unfolded

According to Byrnes’ account, published August 25, 2024, the scheme began after a Republican political acquaintance shared screenshots of a prior exchange in which someone had already posed as Day via a Google Voice number and received a cordial response from Ramaswamy. Byrnes decided to attempt his own contact.

On Monday, August 5, 2024, Byrnes texted Ramaswamy directly, introducing himself as “Tim Chitter” — a misspelling of the alias he intended to use — and claiming to represent the Ohio State football program. According to Byrnes’ published account, Ramaswamy responded within minutes. Text message screenshots published by The Rooster show Ramaswamy writing that he would “love to talk to the guys, very proud of them,” and immediately offering to connect Byrnes with his assistant to coordinate logistics.

Later that afternoon, Ramaswamy’s assistant confirmed a meeting for Friday, August 23, 2024 at 2 p.m. at Raising Cane’s at 2823 Olentangy Road — a restaurant Byrnes had proposed as a staging point before the group would supposedly head to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center together. Screenshots published in The Rooster show the assistant confirming the arrangement and noting that Ramaswamy is vegetarian.

On the morning of August 23, a screenshot in Byrnes’ account shows Ramaswamy sending a message at 6:03 a.m. stating he was “looking forward to meeting you today.” Hours later, according to the same screenshots, Ramaswamy asked what themes he should hit in his remarks to the team.

According to Byrnes, Ramaswamy also remained in contact with the Google Voice number he believed to belong to Day throughout the period leading to the meeting — a separate prankster Byrnes says he had no direct coordination with.

The meeting

Ramaswamy arrived at the Raising Cane’s parking lot that Friday, his security escort in tow. Byrnes documented the encounter on video. After a brief exchange — during which, according to Byrnes, Ramaswamy initially called him by the wrong name — it became apparent to the entourage that no coaching staff or team access awaited them. Ramaswamy subsequently attempted to reach the Google Voice number he believed to be Day’s, according to screenshots published in The Rooster.

The Rooster’s account of the prank, published three days after the meeting, included photographs, video, and the text message screenshots documenting the exchange.

The Rooster, the arrest, and Ramaswamy’s response

Byrnes and Ramaswamy have continued to cross paths in the nearly two years since. The Rooster reported in May 2026 that Ramaswamy was turned away by security when he attempted to enter the New York Knicks’ locker room following a playoff game in Cleveland. Ramaswamy denied the report and, in response to Byrnes’ coverage, characterized him as a “leftist blogger with mental health issues,” according to Signal Ohio. His campaign manager, Jonathan Ewing, called the report “100% fake” and Byrnes “a mentally unstable and unhinged left-wing blogger who may suffer from delusions,” according to the Daily Beast.

Byrnes was arrested on Tuesday, June 2 at the Ohio Statehouse while attending a legislative hearing on data centers and held for 23 hours in the Franklin County Jail. As TiffinOhio.net reported, Ohio state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, emailed Kirtland Police Chief Jeremy Fisher in May requesting criminal charges against Byrnes over text messages Byrnes sent him, which included political commentary and a digitally altered image of the cartoon character Shrek. An affidavit in Byrnes’ arrest record describes the image as depicting Shrek “fully nude with an exposed and erect humanlike penis engaged in an act of masturbation.” Byrnes faces a first-degree misdemeanor charge of telecommunications harassment. The arrest warrant was signed by a judge Cirino had previously endorsed.

Cirino initially told reporters he “did not request any such thing” when asked about the arrest. Records reported in the days following the arrest contradicted that denial, showing he had emailed the police chief requesting charges. Cirino declined further comment. A spokesperson for Ohio Senate Republicans said the caucus would not comment due to the ongoing investigation.

The backlash was immediate and crossed party lines. Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin, a Democrat who has himself been a frequent target of Byrnes’ criticism, posted on X: “Didn’t realize having the Rooster thrown in jail for annoying me was an option this whole time??? Seems like censorship to me, unacceptable.”

In a statement, Byrnes said: “I believe that the facts presented in court will show that I’m innocent of the misdemeanor charge of telecommunications harassment.”

A pattern of vetting failures

Questions about Ramaswamy’s vetting of the people in his orbit extend beyond the 2024 prank.

As TiffinOhio.net reported in June, campaign finance records filed with the Ohio Secretary of State show Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign paid $14,000 to its contracted security firm, ARK Protection Group, in the weeks following the December 30, 2025 federal arrest of the firm’s employee Justin Salsburey — Ramaswamy’s personal family bodyguard — on charges of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine. A final $2,000 payment was made to ARK Protection four days after the campaign publicly announced it was severing ties with the firm. ARK Protection Group closed on January 21, 2026, one day after that final payment cleared.

Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to questions about the post-announcement payment at the time of that report.

Ramaswamy, 40, is a Cincinnati-born biotech entrepreneur who ran for president in 2024 before briefly co-leading the Department of Government Efficiency. He resigned from that role ahead of President Trump’s inauguration and launched his gubernatorial campaign in February 2025.

Attempts to reach Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment were unsuccessful.