Trump Orders GOP to Own Ramaswamy's Mother-Attack Ad

President Donald Trump told his party Thursday to stand behind a campaign ad that features the estranged mother of Ohio Democrat Amy Acton calling her daughter a liar, and he turned on a fellow Republican governor who objected. The ad comes from the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican running for governor of Ohio. Trump urged his party to "own it."

That's a hard ask. The ad rests on a family wound. Acton has said she hasn't seen her mother since she was 12 years old, when her mother lost custody of her children and the man she married was indicted for allegedly sexually abusing Acton. The ad, in the article's words, "seeks to weaponize a situation involving alleged child sexual abuse" and has "rubbed many GOP officeholders the wrong way, from both a moral and a political perspective."

Who Decided

Trump made the call himself. At an Iowa rally Thursday night, he told the crowd that Ramaswamy had phoned him asking whether to pull the ad. Trump said he told him to leave it up. "Look upstairs and say thank you, God, very much. I appreciate it," Trump recalled telling Ramaswamy.

Earlier in the day, in a social media post, Trump praised the mother for having the "courage" to speak out against her daughter. He went after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, one of the Republicans who criticized the ad, calling him "disloyal to the Republican Party."

When reporters raised his fellow Republicans' concerns about a case involving alleged child sex abuse, Trump said twice that he knew "nothing about" the backstory between Acton and her mother. He argued the mother still had to be taken "seriously." His words: "Even if it's a little bit true, you don't want her as governor."

The Resistance Inside the Party

The pushback didn't stop with DeWine. Iowa GOP Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson became the latest Republican to call for the ad to come down. She told ABC News it was "absolutely terrible" for Acton to have "to relive that trauma." Sen. Jon Husted and other Ohio Republicans have also spoken out against it.

So the president is publicly overruling elected officials in his own party, and punishing one of them with a charge of disloyalty. Party discipline, not party consensus, is carrying this ad.

What the Numbers Say

There's no evidence yet that the ad works. Ramaswamy trails by around five points in the average of recent quality polling, and it's too early to see credible polling on what Ohioans or Americans think of the ad.

The closest precedent is a 2018 ad in which Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar's six siblings all denounced him. He went from 71% of the vote in 2016 to 68% in 2018. That ad, the article notes, did not involve credible abuse allegations.

The Establishment Read

CNN's analysis argues that Trump is asking his party to own something it's "clearly very uncomfortable owning, just to help one candidate who might or might not benefit from it," and that he "clearly doesn't share the qualms about the morality of the ad." The outlet ties the episode to his handling of the Epstein files and his repeated floating of a pardon for convicted child sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, and says praising the "courage" of Acton's mother is "in line with that."

CNN also lists other unpopular items Trump has asked Republicans to carry: tariffs, the Iran war, taxpayer-funded political ads, and his talk about inflation and the economy.

The article also recalls that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the subject of a 2018 email from his mother saying he "belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego," per a New York Times report. Hegseth's mother disowned those sentiments and defended her son during his confirmation process.

The ad stays up. The questions about who it helps, and who in the party will say so out loud, don't go away.