President Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his support of a widely condemned attack ad against Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, saying that he won’t change his mind about the $4 million ad campaign by her Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, that features her estranged mother calling her a “liar.”
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump was asked if he has changed his mind about defending the minutelong ad, now that he knows the backstory about Acton’s late stepfather, whom Acton has said sexually abused her as a child.
“No, it’s a mother speaking badly against Amy Acton,” Trump said. “If it were my mother speaking badly about me, you’d be making it the No. 1 story on the news.”
Trump also criticized an NBC News reporter who pressed him further about the situation, calling her “a fresh person” and “horrible little reporter.”
Asked by NBC News about Republicans who have denounced the ad, Trump said “They don’t know the facts.”
“A mother is saying, ‘Don’t put my daughter there, because she’s a terrible person and she’s a liar.’ Why shouldn’t somebody use that?” he added.
The president first voiced support for the ad in a post on Truth Social Thursday, suggesting that Republicans were being treated unfairly. “If my mother, the legendary Mary MacLeod Trump, said anything bad about me, the Fake News would play it up,” Trump wrote. “The Dumocrats would be totally supportive, and it would go down as the Ad of the Decade — Maybe the Century!”
He then addressed the controversy in remarks at a campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa at night, claiming that Ramaswamy asked him what to do amid the media firestorm.
“I said, ‘You got to ride with it,’” Trump recounted.
Ramaswamy defended the ad at a campaign bus tour stop in Strongsville, Ohio, Friday morning. He accused the “flawed and failed media” of “lying about an ad that is about lying.” His campaign told NBC News on Thursday that it planned a $4 million push to air the ad.
“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 and we together will fight against that across Ohio. That is the truth — that they’re changing the subject because they don’t want to answer for their own failures,” Ramaswamy told a crowd of supporters.
Documents obtained by NBC News from the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts show Acton’s stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and indicted by a grand jury in 1978 in Ohio for rape involving a child under 13 years old between 1976 and 1978. While the victim’s name is redacted in the records, Acton’s biological father, Gerald Stearns, signed one of the documents.
At the White House, a reporter noted that Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, stood by the stepfather during the trial. “Look, you don’t know that,” Trump said. “You don’t know anything.”
Acton has said she has not seen or spoken to her mother in nearly 50 years. Arthur has not responded to requests for comment.
“Her mother went on television and said that the daughter who’s running for governor of Ohio is a liar and a bad person, and that’s all I know,” Trump said.
Trump continued, “The press is embarrassing themselves. You’re trying to take a horrible situation for a Democrat and make it look better. The mother said really bad things about a person that wants to be the Democrat governor of Ohio. The mother said terrible things. Anybody seeing that would say, ‘No way, I’m voting for her.’”
Trump said that Acton’s mother looks “very lucid” and “very smart” in the ad. After the spot surfaced Monday, Acton’s campaign described it as an “attempt to platform” an “estranged and abusive mother.”
“If my mother said bad things about me, you think the Democrats would put it up? I think so. But my mother thought I was wonderful. Thank you, Mom,” Trump said. “This has nothing to do with the stepfather or anything else.”
While Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended the ad, a number of Republicans have condemned it. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, rebuked it on Thursday, telling reporters, “The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling.” He called on Ramaswamy to take it down, but said he still supports the entire Republican ticket in Ohio, including Ramaswamy.
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, who faces a competitive re-election race, also criticized it, saying he wouldn’t have run the ad. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who has previously spoken about being a sexual assault victim, called it “the most shameful, disgusting, offensive ad this election season.” And Iowa Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, who also faces a tight general election race, condemned the ad.
““It’s terrible. I think about it as a mom and you think about your kids surviving childhood sexual abuse and having to relive that trauma on TV again. I think it’s absolutely terrible, and I think they should take the ad down,” she said in an interview with ABC News on Thursday.
During a campaign stop in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance responded to the backlash from within his party, telling them to “stop whining” about the ad and to focus on winning midterm elections.
“Politics is a tough business,” Vance said. “And my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”