‘I taught you better’
Vivek Ramaswamy’s former teacher said he was “disappointed” to see what his student had become after his twisted campaign ad.
A former professor of Vivek Ramaswamy confronted the Ohio gubernatorial candidate over his attack ad featuring his challenger’s mother, Amy Acton.
Michael Pogue, who says he taught Ramaswamy in eighth grade, protested at a recent campaign event with signs reading “Shame on you, Vivek! I taught you better!” and “You owe Dr. Acton a full retraction and a sincere apology!”
The ad, for which Ramaswamy takes credit, features Acton’s mother, Donna, calling her daughter a liar. The case has attracted heavy criticism, as Acton has long said she was sexually abused as a child by her late stepfather, while her mother, Donna, remained married to him.
Ramaswamy did not back down from this announcement.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Pogue told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he was “disappointed” to see what happened to Ramaswamy.
“This latest attack on Dr. Acton hits the mark,” Pogue told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I have had too many students who have been raped.”
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Ramaswamy had defended the event, going so far as to say it was just taking a page from Donald Trump’s combative political playbook.
“You never start a fight, but when you get into a fight, you finish it,” he said on Fox News last week.
Ramaswamy suffered serious consequences from this cruel publicity.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
He also proclaimed that the ad actually had “nothing to do with childhood sexual abuse.”
“We condemn this as forcefully as anyone,” Ramaswamy told reporters last week. “Our ad focused on Amy Acton’s consistent history of lying, including during this campaign.”
Yet his tough talk about not backing down comes as his campaign quietly packs the original 60-second version of the ad with a simple 30-second montage, dropping footage of Acton’s mother disputing his account of childhood homelessness to calling her daughter a liar.
Acton would be the first Democratic governor of the Buckeye State in nearly 20 years.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Ramaswamy is also reeling from the ad’s fallout, as every former governor of Ohio, the seat he is running for, has disavowed the campaign, with current Gov. Mike DeWine calling the ad “fake” and urging Ramaswamy to remove it. Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted also said he “would not have run that ad.”
Additionally, two venues have also canceled campaign events where he was scheduled to appear, while Republican politicians distance themselves from him.
Trump still stands by Ramaswamy.
Yet Republican Party leaders President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance defended him, with Vance telling Republicans to just get on board.
“Now the media and Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed, because guess what?” Vance said this at a rally last week. “Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to air a TV ad that exposes things as they are and calls Amy Acton a liar.”
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