‘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 teacher of Vivek Ramaswamy has confronted the Ohio gubernatorial candidate over his attack ad featuring the mother of his challenger, 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 & sincere apology!”
The ad, which Ramaswamy took credit for, features Acton’s mother, Donna, calling her daughter a liar. It has faced severe pushback, as Acton has long said she was sexually abused as a child by her late stepfather, as her mother, Donna, remained married to him.
Ramaswamy has not backed down from the ad.
Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS
Pogue told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he was “disappointed” to see what Ramaswamy had become.
“This latest attack on Dr. Acton hits home,” Pogue told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I had too many students who were raped.”
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Ramaswamy had defended the event, going so far as to say he was just taking a page out of Donald Trump’s combative political playbook.
“You never start a fight, but when you find yourself in one, you finish it,” he said on Fox News last week.
Ramaswamy has seen severe fallout from the cruel ad.
Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS
He also has proclaimed that the ad actually has “nothing to do with childhood abuse [or] sexual abuse.”
“We condemn that as forcefully as anyone,” Ramaswamy told reporters last week. “Our ad was about a consistent track record of Amy Acton telling lies, including during this campaign.”
Still, his tough talk about not backing down comes as his campaign quietly has the original 60-second version of the ad with a simple 30-second edit, dropping footage of Acton’s mother disputing her account of childhood homelessness to only call her daughter a liar.
Acton would be the Buckeye State’s first Democratic governor in nearly 20 years.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Ramaswamy is also reeling from fallout from the ad, as every living former Ohio governor, the seat he is running to hold, have disavowed the campaign, with current Gov. Mike DeWine calling the ad “wrong” and urging Ramaswamy to withdraw 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 set to appear, while Republican politicians are distancing themselves from him.
Trump is still standing by Ramaswamy.
Still, the top of the Republican Party, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, have defended it, with Vance telling Republicans to simply get on board.
“Now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what?” Vance declared at a rally last week. “Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial, which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.”
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