10
Loading video...
By Andrew Stanton and Jennifer Radcliffe
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
President Donald Trump defended Vivek Ramaswamy both on Truth Social and then again at his Iowa rally on Thursday as the Ohio gubernatorial candidate faces bipartisan backlash over a campaign ad featuring the mother of his opponent, Democrat Amy Acton.
“Vivek Ramaswamy put up a very powerful Ad about a mother saying that her daughter, Amy Acton, who is running for Governor of Ohio, is a liar, and much worse. The Press, in a concerted and well coordinated attack, is trying to get Vivek Ramaswamy to ‘take down the Ad,’” he wrote. “Frankly, anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in Office, let alone the Office of Governor.”
Trump wrote that the media “would play it up” if his mother ever said anything negative about him. Such an ad would “go down as the Ad of the Decade — Maybe the Century,” Trump wrote.
Read More on Politics
“But, because Vivek, who will be a GREAT Governor, put it out, the ‘Artificial’ News has teamed up against him in order to damage, demean, and embarrass a Republican who is leading in the Polls,” he wrote.
In the ad, Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, accused her of lying and urged Ohio voters not to elect her in November.
Acton, the former director of the Ohio Department of Health, has been open about facing sexual abuse and homelessness during her childhood. Her brother, Philip Stearns, wrote in a statement released by the Acton campaign that their mother lost custody of her children after her husband, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged with sexually abusing Acton. Stearns said the pair were together until his death.
Trump expanded on his defense of Ramaswamy's ad during a campaign rally in Iowa Thursday night, describing a phone call where he urged the Ohio Republican to keep running the ad.
"What would you recommend? Because I'm getting killed in the press," Trump recalled Ramaswamy asking him.
Trump said he advised Ramaswamy to keep it up.
"The mother said horrible things about your opponent. Why can't I have that happen to me?" Trump said. "The mother is calling the daughter a terrible person and a liar. Everybody should be so lucky. Why would you shield somebody from that? Why would we do that? So I told him, leave it up, and look upstairs and say thank you, God, very much. I appreciate it."
He told the crowd in Iowa that he could "only wish I could have had an ad like that against somebody."
...
He also criticized Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, who earlier on Thursday said Ramaswamy should remove the ad, calling him a "RINO," a derisive acronym defined as "Republican in name only."
“He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he is capable of doing. I suggested, on the other hand, that Vivek should keep it up, and let everyone listen to the mother of a defective, dishonest, and incapable Candidate, explain how the daughter is a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
DeWine told reporters it was “wrong” for the Ramaswamy campaign to run the ad.
“I would urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down. It’s just wrong,” he said, according to WCMH in Columbus.
He also said of his endorsement of Ramaswamy: “What Mike DeWine thinks, or endorses, is pretty irrelevant. What’s not irrelevant is this ad. This ad is relevant, it’s wrong. It needs to be taken down.”
Related Story
Ohio Governor Race Shifts in Amy Acton’s Favor Following Attack Ad
Luck alleged that Acton “slanderously lied about Vivek’s mother this fall, without shame.”
“We refuse to accept the media’s double standards when Democrats have regularly used family members of President Trump, RFK Jr., and other Republicans in ads. Voters shouldn’t buy it,” Luck wrote.
In a statement to Newsweek, Ramaswamy spokesperson Connie Luck pointed to remarks by DeWine that the Acton campaign previously issued a press release criticizing Ramaswamy’s mother.
The August 12 press release said Ramaswamy hired his mother, who allegedly lacked research experience, to “manipulate clinical trial data,” citing a report from the Oligarch Watch Substack published by journalist Caleb Ecarma. The claim has not been independently verified by Newsweek.
...
What Does Vivek Ramaswamy’s Ad Show?
The ad features Arthur speaking directly to the camera about her daughter, urging Ohio voters not to elect Acton.
"I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent—and it's not easy for a mother to say this—but Amy has a serious problem," Arthur says in the video. "She is a liar. She lies about her past."
Arthur also challenges Acton's account of her childhood, including reports that she experienced housing instability and spent time living in a tent.
"Don't vote for people who lie. Don't let her become your governor," Arthur says.
The allegations made in the ad have not been independently verified. Published reports, however, have documented Acton's difficult childhood. Acton has said she was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child and removed from her birth mother's custody at age 12.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, Acton's stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12. He pleaded not guilty and was indicted by a grand jury in 1978. However, he failed to appear at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.
Vivek Ramaswamy Faces GOP Backlash After Acton Attack Ad
The ad sparked criticism from Democrats and Republicans.
Meghan McCain was among the Republicans rebuking the ad.
“This is a dastardly ad. It never should have been created. Shame on whatever consultant firm created this,” she wrote on X.
Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia Mihalik also condemned the ad in a post to X, writing: “I don’t care what political party you belong to or which candidate you support. There are lines we shouldn’t cross, and this is one of them. We can disagree on plenty of things without losing our sense of decency.”
Former Ohio GOP Representative Jim Renacci wrote in a post on X that he believes the “floor may have just fallen out from under” Ramaswamy.
“Vivek Ramaswamy needs to pivot, and quickly. Stop defending the ad and start talking about his policies, his vision for Ohio, and why he believes he is the better candidate,” he wrote. “If he chooses to double down, I don't see anything good coming from it.”
Republican Ohio Senator Jon Husted, who is up for reelection, told the Associated Press that he “would not have run that ad.”
Representative Emilia Sykes, a Democrat representing the Akron area in Congress, wrote on X that Ramaswamy is “despicable.”
“Instead of focusing on the issues impacting Ohioans, he’s using gross tactics to attack his opponent. He should never be Governor. I hope voters across the state join me in condemning this ad and voting for @amyactonoh,” she wrote.
JD Vance Defends Ramaswamy
Former Vice President JD Vance defended Ramaswamy’s ad on Wednesday.
"Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern," Vance told reporters while visiting an FBI field office in Cincinnati. "What is my concern is who's going to govern the next generation of American government?"
He also said he is “a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.”
Amy Acton Fundraises Off Vivek Ramaswamy’s ‘Ugly’ Attack Ad
Acton’s campaign on Thursday sent out a fundraising email discussing the ad.
“We recently learned that Vivek Ramaswamy poured ANOTHER $5 million into his own campaign to help fill the airwaves with ugly and outright false attack ads. So this would have been the worst time to fall short,” the email reads.
The email continued to solicit donations from Acton supporters to "level the playing field" with Ramaswamy.
Amy Acton vs. Vivek Ramaswamy: Latest Polls
Recent polling has suggested the race is close.
A Fox News poll, conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research, showed Acton up 2 percentage points over Ramaswamy, 50 percent to 48 percent. It surveyed 2,005 registered voters in Ohio from October 15-19 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Acton led by 7 points in a Marist University poll of 1,176 registered voters October 15-18. Acton’s support stood at 50 percent to Ramaswamy's 43 percent. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball on Thursday announced that they were shifting the contest from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, though the Cook Political Report still rates the race as a toss-up.
Analysts Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman wrote in the update that they worry about Ohio polls, noting that Republicans have outperformed their showing in the Buckeye state in the past, including in 2018, when aggregate polling data was generally “spot-on.”
“Internally, we have been giving a slight edge to Acton and Brown in our mental ledger, but we also have to continually remind ourselves that Ohio is a clearly red-leaning state now where, among other challenges, Democrats have suffered from sagging Black voter turnout, as we hear from sources and which MS NOW reported on recently,” they wrote.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn
here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech, Gray R. Thomas, Edward T. Cummins
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines