‘Take This Down’: Ohio’s GOP Governor Slams Ramaswamy Over Acton Attack Ad

Term-limited Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) unequivocally told the Republican nominee for his job, Vivek Ramaswamy, to take down his controversial attack against Democratic opponent Amy Acton, which has roiled the contentious race.

Ramaswamy sparked bipartisan fury after a Tuesday ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother was released and later tied to his campaign.

In the ad, Acton’s mother calls her a liar and attacks her character. But as the details around Acton’s relationship with her mother emerged, critics and pundits quickly accused Ramaswamy of trying to weaponize the childhood sexual abuse Acton suffered at the hands of her mother’s then-husband, which resulted in authorities removing Acton from her mother’s care.

“The ad on his face is deeply, deeply troubling,” DeWine replied when asked about it by reporters on Thursday, adding:

But when you know the rest of the story, you know, the backstory, when you know that the husband of the mom was indicted by a grand jury after hearing testimony, and then he took off along with the mother, and the children never saw, I guess, the mother. When you know that, it just, to me, makes it more serious. It makes it just more wrong, so it’s wrong to run this ad. And even at this late time, my friend saw the ad run this morning on TV. I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down. It’s just wrong.

Vice President JD Vance defended the ad on Wednesday at an Ohio rally, saying, “And now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because, guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.”

Acton’s brother Phil Stearns taped an ad in reply to Ramaswamy and tried to set the record straight, “I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it. She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that, and that if she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would have ended up. And she was 11 and 12 years old, and to think that that’s somehow a talking point? Shame on Vivek. The contempt he has for Amy is the contempt he has for Ohio. He’s not fit to lead.”

Watch the clip above.

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