DeWine Told Ramaswamy to Pull the Ad Where Amy Acton's Mother Calls Her a Liar. Trump Told Him to Keep It Up.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, is spending $4 million to air an ad in which his opponent's own mother tells voters her daughter can't be trusted. "She is a liar; she lies about her past," Donna Arthur says of Democrat Amy Acton, per CBS News. On Thursday morning, Ohio's outgoing Republican governor, Mike DeWine, asked Ramaswamy to pull it. That afternoon, President Trump told him to keep it running.

"The Press is trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it's so good!" Trump wrote on Truth Social at 2:38 p.m. Eastern. "Who wouldn't use such an Ad? I would, it's called, 'hitting pay dirt.'" He called the spot "very powerful" and said a mother speaking that way about a daughter "would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in Office, let alone the Office of Governor," in the full post.

Then he turned on DeWine. "Our RINO Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, who I unfortunately helped get elected years ago, when he was losing by 16 points prior to my doing a Rally for him was, as usual, disloyal to the Republican Party," Trump wrote. "He probably wants a Dumocrat to win."

What DeWine asked for

DeWine called the Statehouse press corps to the Capitol rotunda to make his case. "The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling," he said, and he urged the Ramaswamy campaign "to take this down," NBC News reported. He pointed to the family's history: court records show Arthur's husband, Cledith Arthur, was indicted in 1978 on a charge of raping Acton when she was 12, then left the state before trial. Arthur went with him and lost custody of Acton and her brother, the Statehouse News Bureau reported.

But DeWine stopped short of pulling his endorsement. "I'm not changing the endorsement. I endorse the whole ticket," he said. He even admitted his opinion may not move much: "People are voting right now as you and I are talking," he said, so "what Mike DeWine thinks or who he endorses is pretty irrelevant," News 5 Cleveland reported. It was a referee throwing a flag, then telling the team he's still rooting for it.

DeWine is hardly a neutral party. Acton was his health director, the face of Ohio's 2020 COVID shutdowns, and he has defended her against Ramaswamy's attacks on her pandemic record. He never wanted Ramaswamy as his successor in the first place: he backed Jon Husted, then floated his own lieutenant governor, former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, as a primary challenger, NBC noted.

Who went after a mother first

Ramaswamy's campaign says this fight didn't start with his ad. "Governor DeWine is correct that the first and only candidate to attack the mother of her opponent in this race was Amy Acton. She slanderously lied about Vivek's mother this fall, without shame," spokesperson Connie Luck said. "We refuse to accept the media's double standards when Democrats have regularly used family members of President Trump, RFK Jr, and other Republicans in ads. Voters shouldn't buy it," per the Statehouse News Bureau.

She was referring to an earlier Acton attack that cited a report on Geetha Ramaswamy's role at a drug company her son ran; Acton and Democrats accused him of "hiring his own mother to manipulate clinical trial data," the AP reported. DeWine himself said that attack was wrong too, because "family members have always historically been off limits." His complaint was that it never had a multimillion-dollar ad buy behind it.

Luck also drew the line Ramaswamy is standing on: "Acton's mother is speaking out about her clear pattern of lying — not abuse — and it should be covered as such," she told CBS. Ramaswamy put it plainly on Tuesday: "Every person who appears to know her the best … have told voters not to vote for her but to vote for me instead."

Vance: 'stop whining'

JD Vance, who held an Ohio Senate seat before becoming vice president, settled where he stands while campaigning in the state on Wednesday. "Politics is a tough business," he 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," CBS reported.

Not every Ohio Republican agrees. Sen. Jon Husted, in a tight race with Democrat Sherrod Brown, said he would not have run the ad. Ohio GOP chairman Alex Triantafilou answered the hand-wringing with a warning: "The final days of a tough campaign are always the best time to find out who is really with you and who just posts and pretends. Yes—we are keeping score," the AP reported.

Acton called the ad "despicable" and has answered with a spot of her own featuring her brother, Philip Stearns, the BBC reported.

What happens next

The ad stays up. Ramaswamy's campaign says it will keep running, with the $4 million buy behind it, the Statehouse News Bureau reported. Early voting is already under way, and Election Day is Nov. 3. Ohio hasn't elected a Democratic governor in two decades.

Trump's argument comes down to this: voters are allowed to hear from the person who has known a candidate the longest, and then decide for themselves. DeWine thinks they shouldn't have to. With ballots already being cast, Ohio is about to settle the question, and Ramaswamy is betting $4 million that Trump is right.