CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins has delivered a searing critique of President Donald Trump for defending Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s widely reviled attack ad on rival Amy Acton featuring her estranged mother.
Acton, 60, has said she was raped by her stepfather when she was 12 years old and has not spoken to her mother, Donna Arthur, since 1978 after the latter refused to believe her and instead sided with her husband, whom she stayed with, even after he was charged, until his death in 2004.
The TV spot in question shows Arthur accusing her daughter of being “a liar” and warning the people of Ohio not to vote for her.
It has attracted an angry reaction from the public as well as from politicians on both sides of the aisle, with one man furiously rebuking Ramaswamy at a rally this week.
The candidate’s campaign has so far doubled down and pledged to invest a further $4 million promoting the ad.
Introducing Thursday’s episode of The Source, Collins noted that Ohio’s GOP leaders had been distancing themselves from the ad and commented: “It’s actually kind of hard to find a prominent Republican who is defending the ad other than Vivek Ramaswamy himself, Vice President JD Vance and, quite fervently today, President Trump.”
She then cut to clips of the president taking questions on the matter at the White House earlier in the day to which he initially responded by saying, “Well, I know nothing about it,” before pivoting to a defense of the legitimacy of Ramaswamy’s tactics.
In one exchange, Trump was asked whether personal matters should be “off limits” when campaigning and mused with a grin: “I know one thing: if my mother said that about me, it would be a major news story. You would have hit gold. You would have been very happy about it.”
The president was then asked about Iowa GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, with whom he was set to campaign that evening, calling the ad “absolutely terrible” and saying it should be taken down, which he shrugged off by saying: “That’s her opinion.”
Trump then said he was defending Ramaswamy because of media double standards, insisting the press was attempting to “make it look like a horrible thing” and would have relished such an ad if it had been made about him, adding: “This is a mother saying very bad things about her daughter, and I don’t know why that should be shielded.”
Back in the studio, Collins commented: “The ‘horrible thing’ that the press has been covering is that, first off, something the Ramaswamy campaign has made an issue here and has brought to the forefront; it is that Acton’s stepfather was indicted for raping her when she was 12 years old; it’s her opponent’s campaign that is airing that ad with her estranged mother calling her a liar.”
The host then cut to a clip of herself pressing the president on the issue as part of a press gaggle, at which Trump repeated his point of view, dismissed Acton’s own account of the abuse she suffered and insisted her past was “fair game” because she was running for high office.
Collins then drew attention to the president’s subsequent Truth Social attack on Ohio’s incumbent Republican governor Mike DeWine, who had called the ad “deeply, deeply troubling” and urged Ramaswamy’s campaign to take it down.
In the post, Trump called DeWine a “RINO” and “disloyal,” lamented having helped him win election and speculated: “He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he is capable of doing.”
The president also said in the post he had advised Ramaswamy to “keep it up” and applauded Arthur for being “so brave as to come forward,” again accepting her comments at face value without heeding Acton’s side.
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“The Press is trying to convince everyone the Ad is bad, because it’s so good!” he wrote. “Who wouldn’t use such an ad? I would, it’s called ‘hitting pay dirt.’”
A clearly disgusted Collins closed her segment by showing Trump’s latest comments at his rally in Sioux City Thursday evening, at which he told the crowd Ramaswamy had called him seeking advice on whether or not to pull the ad because he was “getting killed in the press.”
“So I told him, leave it up and look upstairs and say, ‘Thank you God, very much, I appreciate it,’” the president said he had answered, wishing an equivalent opportunity had fallen into his own lap.
The latest Marist poll shows Acton leading Ramaswamy by seven points, on 50 percent of the vote to 43 percent, with his betting odds plummeting since the furore erupted.
The president lashed out at Collins earlier this week when she asked him about a decision to waive sanctions on Russia, calling her “a low-IQ person” and a “dummy,” and has previously urged her to smile more.
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