Vivek Ramaswamy, a health care and tech sector entrepreneur, conservative commentator and author who has become a crusader in the culture wars, declared his candidacy for president on Tuesday in a live interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

"We are in the middle of this national identity crisis, Tucker, where we have celebrated our differences for so long that we forgot all the ways we are really just the same as Americans bound by a common set of ideals that set this nation into motion 250 years ago," he said.

"That's why I am proud to say tonight that I am running for United States president to revive those ideals in this country," Ramaswamy said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

"I think we need to put ‘merit’ back into ‘America’ in every spirit of our lives," continued Ramaswamy, who said he will end affirmative action in "every sphere of American life."

The 37-year-old Ramaswamy, author of "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam," has been on what he’s described as a "listening tour" in recent weeks that took him earlier this month to New Hampshire, which votes second in the Republican presidential nominating calendar.