WATCH: Conan O’Brien Says Vivek Ramaswamy Has ‘No Soul’

Former NBC late-night show host Conan O’Brien waxed philosophical about politics in America on the eve of the midterm elections.

Speaking at the 27th annual New Yorker Festival on Monday, O’Brien lamented the state of modern politics.

“I think it’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about lately, about politics and what’s happening lately,” O’Brien told the audience, “I don’t mean this in a strictly religious sense; I was raised Catholic, and this is not how I mean it, but you have to have a soul. You have to have a soul. You have to have a set of things that you will do and won’t do. You have to have a conversation with yourself about who you are. You have to have an inner monologue going all the time about what it is you’re trying to do.”

O’Brien went on to say, “And when I see the way some people are behaving, the ad that Ramaswamy ran, I look at it and I think, well, you have no soul if you do that. You have no soul. And if you have no soul, what are we talking about?”

“And this could be for any faith, or if you have no faith. I’m talking about soul in almost like this biological sense,” the comedian continued, “that’s what I’m seeing now that makes me so sad, is that what’s happening in our culture.”

He then tried to make the quixotic comparison to how anodyne the products of car manufacturers have gotten.

“You saw this with cars, and it’s going to seem like I’m going off the track, but I’m not. Cars used to look wildly different, each one. And then they started using a wind tunnel to design them, and all the cars started looking the same because it turns out that shape is the most aerodynamic. And that’s why a Ford, and a Maybach, and a BMW, and a Porsche all look like this, ’cause it’s the most aerodynamic shape,” he explained.

“I think that in modern politics, we’ve gotten to the point where someone figured out if you don’t have a soul, you’re more aerodynamic and you will go faster… It’s the most nihilistic thing I’ve ever seen. And I’m looking at some of these people who seem to be in control now, or in charge. They’re not in control, but they’re in charge. And they never have a moment, I’m convinced, where they sit and think about what they would do, what they wouldn’t do.”

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