US President Donald Trump on Thursday backed Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for Ohio governor, over an attack ad featuring his Democratic rival's estranged mother, whose husband was charged with raping the candidate as a child.
Ramaswamy faced a firestorm of criticism over the ad featuring the mother of Amy Acton, who remained married to the man who the candidate says sexually abused her for years.
But Trump on his Truth Social network defended the "very powerful" advertisement and accused the media of a "well coordinated attack" aimed at getting Ramaswamy, a former presidential hopeful, to stop running it.
"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!" Trump wrote.
"I only wish the mothers of my opponents would be so brave as to come forward and explain that their son or daughter is a liar, and much worse."
Trump, 80, added: "If my mother, the legendary Mary MacLeod Trump, said anything bad about me, the Fake News would play it up."
The ad comes amid increasingly bitter rhetoric ahead of the November 3 US midterms, when a number of governors and senators plus all members of the US House of Representatives and dozens of US senators are up for election.
Ramaswamy, a billionaire biotech entrepreneur who ran in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries against Trump, is facing off against Acton, a medical doctor by training and former state health department director, in the race to be Ohio's next governor.
In the Ramaswamy ad, Arthur says her daughter has "lied her entire life."
Arthur's husband fled before he could be tried on the sexual assault charges and is now dead. Acton said she had not seen Arthur since 1978.
On Tuesday, Acton issued a statement saying she and her brother "endured abuse, hunger, and neglect" as children.
Democrats and some Republicans have criticized the ad, but US Vice President JD Vance defended his "good friend" Ramaswamy while on the campaign trail in Ohio, his home state.
In Ohio earlier this month, Vance leaned into other attack ads accusing Acton of alcohol problems.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)