President Donald Trump continued to defend Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad that featured the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, telling reporters he didn’t know “anything” about the stepfather who was accused of sexually abusing Acton when she was a child.
“I know that recently a mother got on television and said that her daughter should not be governor of Ohio,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. “And she said, ‘I love my daughter, but my daughter lies all the time.’ … This has nothing to do with the stepfather or anything else.”
Ramaswamy’s campaign released a divisive ad on Tuesday featuring Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, who called her daughter a liar and urged Ohioans not to vote for her.
Acton said the pair has been estranged for more than 40 years: She was removed from her mother’s custody at 12 after her stepfather was arrested and charged with raping Acton. Donna Arthur stayed with the stepfather even after the allegations.
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The president told a rally crowd in Iowa on Thursday that Ramawamy had come to him for advice, and that he told the gubernatorial candidate to stand by his message.
“I told him, ‘Leave it up,’” Trump said Thursday. “And look upstairs and say, ‘Thank you, God, very much — I appreciate it!’”
Trump’s interaction with an NBC News reporter who asked about the ad on Friday turned hostile, with the president telling her to be “quiet” and calling her a “horrible little reporter.”
Ramaswamy also defended the ad, repeating Trump’s claims that it had nothing to do with sexual abuse.
“We ran an ad about lying. Amy Acton is lying,” Ramaswamy told NBC News on Friday. “It had nothing to do with childhood abuse, which I will be the No. 1 governor to prosecute when I am the governor of this state because it is wrong.”
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