Vivek Ramaswamy went digging into his political opponent’s painful childhood, recruited her estranged mother for an attack ad and apparently thought Ohio voters would applaud. Political commentator Lurie Daniel Favors was disgusted.
“That’s grimy,” Daniel Favors told her listeners after playing the ad. “That’s Republican leadership right there.”
The Republican gubernatorial candidate is facing backlash after his campaign released an advertisement featuring Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of Democratic opponent Amy Acton, who has publicly discussed surviving childhood sexual abuse, neglect and homelessness.
“She is a liar. She lies about her past,” Arthur says in the ad. “My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself.”
Acton and her younger brother were removed from their mother’s custody when she was 12.
“I wanted to make sure you understood how detestable I find this clip,” Favors told viewers.
Daniel Favors also questioned the hypocrisy of Ramaswamy attacking Acton’s family while facing scrutiny over his own business history and his mother’s involvement in his former pharmaceutical company.
“Him and his mama are trash,” she declared while discussing allegations surrounding the failed Alzheimer’s drug intepirdine.
Ramaswamy defended his campaign ad, telling reporters, “It is an ad from our campaign,” and calling for a race focused on “the substantive issues that impact Ohioans.”
Acton refused to dismiss the personal attack.
“I won’t normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is something I’m just complaining about,” she said. “The words our leaders use matter.”
Her brother, Philip Stearns, also spoke out.
“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” he said. “Shame on Vivek.”
Daniel Favors said the controversy should make voters question Ramaswamy’s fitness for office.
“If this is the decision-making prowess” he explained, she warned, Ohioans should consider “what that would mean for the state of Ohio.”
“He certainly ain’t fit to lead a medical company,” Daniel Favors added. “He ain’t fit to lead much, but he is the candidate.”
Watch Lurie break it all down in the clip below.
