Trump turns the GOP’s Ramaswamy ad headache into a migraine

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump has been undermining his own party for months, continuously causing more headaches for Republicans even long after most presidents would’ve taken the Election Day cue to rein themselves in.

So why would that stop on the eve of those elections?

Trump’s latest move is trying to bully Republicans into embracing a highly controversial political ad that seeks to weaponize a situation involving alleged child sexual abuse. The ad has clearly rubbed many GOP officeholders the wrong way, from both a moral and a political perspective.

The ad from Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, calling Acton a liar. Acton has previously 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.

Trump not only defended the ad on Thursday, but he also urged his party to own it and put pressure on Republicans to fall in line. During an Iowa rally that night, he even told the crowd that Ramaswamy had called him asking for advice on whether to take it down, and the president told him he needed to leave the ad up.

“Look upstairs and say thank you, God, very much. I appreciate it,” Trump recalled saying to Ramaswamy.

In a social media post earlier in the day, Trump praised the mother for having the “courage” to speak out against her daughter. And he attacked one of the Republicans who has criticized the ad, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, as “disloyal to the Republican Party.”

Trump doubled down even when reporters noted his fellow Republicans’ concern about a situation involving alleged child sex abuse.

He said twice that he knew “nothing about” the backstory between Acton and her mother, but he argued that the mother had to be taken “seriously” regardless.

“Even if it’s a little bit true, you don’t want her as governor,” Trump said.

Looking beyond the fact that he’s clearly willing to dismiss credible abuse allegations, there are some real ironies here.

First, if a mother calling her child a liar is inherently disqualifying, that would be bad news for the man Trump made Defense secretary: Pete Hegseth. Hegseth’s mother wrote him an email in 2018 saying he “ belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” according to a New York Times report.

(Hegseth’s mother disowned those sentiments and defended her son during his confirmation process.)

Also, Acton’s mother essentially accuses her of being an inveterate liar — including about her political opponent and her upbringing. For Trump, that is really casting stones from a glass house .

But even setting that aside, it’s a highly questionable political tactic. The Ohio governorship is important, but is it critical enough to risk tarnishing the party’s brand more broadly and causing an intra-party feud less than two weeks before an election?

Other Republicans aren’t just standing down here, and it’s permeating outside Ohio. The same afternoon that Trump made these comments, we learned the Iowa GOP Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson became the latest Republican to call for the ad to be taken down. She told ABC News it was “ absolutely terrible ” for Acton to have “to relive that trauma.”

It’s one thing for Sen. Jon Husted and other Ohio Republicans to speak out against the ad and worry about what it could mean for them; it’s another for a key GOP candidate from outside Ohio’s borders to openly criticize it.

And even if the ad doesn’t blow back on the GOP, is there much to be gained here? Is it worth the risk?

The last time we saw an ad this brutal from family members of a midterm candidate was a 2018 ad featuring Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar’s six siblings all denouncing him . He went from 71% of the vote in 2016 to 68% in 2018 — a small shift likely spurred by a worse environment for the GOP rather than the ad.

Even that kind of shift might not be enough for Ramaswamy, who trails by around five points in the average of recent quality polling. And it’s worth restating: the Gosar ad didn’t involve credible abuse allegations.

Trump is essentially asking his party to own something that it’s clearly very uncomfortable owning, just to help one candidate who might or might not benefit from it. His comments make no bones about this being who the Republican Party is these days, and he’s telling his allies to just grin and bear it.

Trump clearly doesn’t share the qualms about the morality of the ad. And maybe that shouldn’t be surprising from a guy who didn’t seem to get the fuss about the Epstein files and even repeatedly floated a pardon for convicted child sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell . Praising the “courage” of Acton’s mother is very much in line with all that.

It’s too early to see credible polling on what Ohioans or Americans think of the ad yet, but Trump has repeatedly shown that he has no problem with forcing his party to deal with overwhelmingly unpopular things . That includes his tariffs, the Iran war, his taxpayer-funded political ads and his happy talk about inflation and the economy, which Trump has stuck with long after it clearly wasn’t working.

He goes with his gut and his impulse, even when those things have repeatedly failed his party politically of late. Now he’s asking his party to swallow something else unsavory that could drag down key candidates, less than two weeks before Election Day.

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

几个月来，唐纳德·特朗普总统一直在破坏他自己的政党，即使在大多数总统都会在选举日之后收敛锋芒很久之后，他仍然不断地给共和党人制造更多麻烦。

那么，为什么会在选举前夕停止呢？

特朗普的最新举动是试图胁迫共和党人接受一则极具争议的政治广告，该广告试图利用一起涉嫌儿童性虐待事件来煽动政治情绪。这则广告显然从道德和政治角度都激怒了许多共和党官员。

俄亥俄州州长候选人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米的竞选广告中，出现了他民主党对手艾米·阿克顿疏远的母亲，她在广告中称阿克顿是骗子。阿克顿此前曾表示，她自12岁起就没见过母亲，当时她的母亲失去了孩子的监护权，而她后来嫁的男子则因涉嫌性侵阿克顿而被起诉。

周四，特朗普不仅为这则广告辩护，还敦促共和党承担责任，并向共和党人施压，要求他们保持一致。当晚在爱荷华州的一次集会上，他甚至告诉支持者，拉马斯瓦米曾打电话给他，询问是否应该撤下这则广告，而总统告诉他，他必须保留这则广告。

“抬头看看，向上帝说声谢谢，非常感谢。我感激不尽。”特朗普回忆起自己当时对拉马斯瓦米说的话。

当天早些时候，特朗普在社交媒体上发帖，称赞这位母亲“有勇气”公开反对自己的女儿。他还抨击了批评这则广告的共和党人之一——俄亥俄州州长迈克·德瓦恩，称其“对共和党不忠”。

即使记者们注意到他的共和党同僚们对一起涉及涉嫌儿童性虐待的事件表示担忧，特朗普仍然变本加厉。

他两次表示自己对艾克顿和她母亲之间的背景故事“一无所知”，但他认为无论如何都必须“认真对待”这位母亲。

“即使她说的有几分道理，你也不希望她当州长，”特朗普说。

撇开他显然愿意驳回可信的虐待指控不谈，这里面还有一些真正的讽刺之处。

首先，如果母亲指责孩子撒谎就足以构成取消资格的理由，那么对于特朗普任命的国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯来说，这无疑是个坏消息。据《纽约时报》报道，赫格塞斯的母亲曾在2018年给他写过一封电子邮件，称他“贬低他人、撒谎、欺骗、滥交，并利用女性来满足自己的权力和虚荣心”。

（赫格塞斯的母亲否认了这些观点，并在儿子接受坚信礼时为他辩护。）

此外，阿克顿的母亲实际上指责她是个惯于撒谎的人——包括关于她的政治对手和她自己的成长经历。对特朗普来说，这简直就是自相矛盾。

但即便撇开这一点不谈，这也是一种非常值得怀疑的政治策略。俄亥俄州州长之位固然重要，但它是否重要到值得冒着损害党派整体形象、并在选举前不到两周引发党内纷争的风险呢？

其他共和党人不仅在此保持沉默，而且这种情绪正在俄亥俄州以外蔓延。就在特朗普发表这些言论的当天下午，我们得知爱荷华州共和党参议员候选人、众议员阿什利·欣森也加入了呼吁撤下该广告的行列。她告诉美国广播公司新闻网，让阿克顿“重温那段创伤”是“绝对可怕的”。

俄亥俄州参议员乔恩·赫斯特德和其他共和党人公开反对这则广告，并担心这可能对他们造成的影响，这是一回事；而一位来自俄亥俄州以外的共和党重要候选人公开批评这则广告，则是另一回事。

即使这则广告没有对共和党造成负面影响，这样做又能获得多少好处呢？值得冒这个险吗？

我们上一次看到中期选举候选人家属制作如此激烈的竞选广告，还要追溯到2018年亚利桑那州共和党众议员保罗·戈萨尔的竞选广告，当时他的六个兄弟姐妹轮番谴责他。戈萨尔的得票率从2016年的71%下降到2018年的68%——这一小幅波动很可能是由于共和党面临的更糟糕的选举环境所致，而非该竞选广告本身。

即使是这样的转变，对拉马斯瓦米来说可能也不够，他在近期高质量民调的平均支持率上落后约5个百分点。而且值得重申的是：戈萨尔的广告并没有涉及可信的虐待指控。

特朗普实际上是在要求他的党派承担一些他们显然非常不愿意承担的责任，仅仅是为了帮助一位可能从中受益也可能不会受益的候选人。他的言论毫不掩饰地暴露了如今共和党的现状，而他却在告诉他的盟友们只能强颜欢笑，默默忍受。

特朗普显然并不认同这则广告的道德问题。考虑到他似乎对爱泼斯坦案的争议毫不在意，甚至还多次暗示要赦免被定罪的儿童性交易犯吉斯莱恩·麦克斯韦，这或许并不令人意外。赞扬阿克顿母亲的“勇气”与他一贯的作风非常吻合。

现在要看到关于俄亥俄州民众或全美民众对这则广告看法的可靠民调还为时尚早，但特朗普已经反复表明，他毫不犹豫地强迫他的党派处理那些极不受欢迎的事情。这包括他的关税政策、伊朗战争、用纳税人的钱投放的政治广告，以及他对通货膨胀和经济的乐观言论——尽管这些言论显然已经失效，但特朗普仍然坚持不懈。

他总是凭直觉行事，即便这些做法近来在政治上屡屡让他的党派蒙受损失。如今，距离选举日不到两周，他又要求党内接受一些令人不齿的事情，这可能会拖垮几位关键候选人。