US Vice-President JD Vance has urged fellow Republicans to stop "whining" about a controversial attack ad that featured a Democratic candidate's estranged mother calling her a liar. While campaigning in Ohio for Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor, Vance said he was "a little bit disgusted" by criticism from members of his own party. In the ad, Donna Arthur, the mother of Democratic candidate Amy Acton, said her daughter "lied her entire life".
It does not mention that Arthur's husband was charged with raping Acton when she was a child. The Ramaswamy campaign have claimed credit for the ad, and have paid millions to have it advertised around the state. Acton's brother is among those who have condemned the ad, saying turning alleged sexual assault into "a political talking point" was a "despicable low".
Acton and her brother were removed from their mother's custody when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged in 1978. That is when she last spoke to her mother, Acton said in an interview with The Vindicator, an Ohio news outlet. The Arthurs fled Ohio and Cledith Arthur was never prosecuted on the rape charge.
When the ad featuring Donna Arthur was initially released to social media on Monday evening, it did not say who the video was paid for or authorised by. Ramaswamy confirmed on Tuesday that it came from his campaign, and he later pledged to spend $4m (£2.9m) to further air it. The move has drawn a bipartisan backlash.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, said "he's a bad guy. It's a shame he continues to get away with it". Vance, when asked by BBC News if he thought the ad was appropriate, answered: "It's not really my concern." "What is my concern is who's going to govern the next generation of American government." He also said he was "a little bit disgusted" by members of his own party who "are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America".
Vance, a former Ohio senator, later defended the ad at a rally for Ramaswamy, saying: "Now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is, and calls Amy Acton a liar." When asked about Ramaswamy's ad on Wednesday, Trump said: "I know nothing about it. I heard the mother went very rogue on the daughter." He added: "It's a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much.
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