THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?
SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).
- Nikki Haley revived her feud with Vivek Ramaswamy Wednesday, calling her former presidential-primary rival a “bad guy” over his controversial Ohio campaign advertisement.
- Ramaswamy’s campaign confirmed producing the ad featuring Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother and committed $4 million to promoting it.
- The backlash now includes Haley, former Trump officials and conservative CNN commentators, while Acton’s brother has released a video challenging their mother’s accusations.
LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).
Remember the fireworks between Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy during the 2024 Republican presidential debates?
Apparently, somebody forgot to tell them the primary ended two years ago.
Haley came roaring back into the conversation Wednesday, delivering a blistering personal assessment of her former rival as his campaign for Ohio governor faces a growing controversy over an attack advertisement featuring Democratic opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother.
And Haley wasn’t interested in discussing the finer points of campaign advertising.
“He’s a bad guy,” she declared.
That’s not exactly the sort of endorsement a Republican candidate hopes to receive from a former Republican governor less than two weeks before Election Day.
The latest explosion began when Republican strategist Liz Mair circulated the controversial advertisement and suggested that Haley and her daughters must be enjoying Ramaswamy’s predicament.
After all, Ramaswamy had made Haley’s family part of their own bitter presidential-primary confrontation.
Haley wasn’t amused.
“Not laughing,” she wrote on X Wednesday morning. “Just seeing what we tried to tell everyone back then. He’s a bad guy. It’s a shame he continues to get away with it.”
Well, there goes any chance of a Haley-Ramaswamy unity barbecue before November.
But this isn’t simply another episode in their longstanding political feud.
The controversy involves one of the most personal campaign advertisements in recent memory.
Ramaswamy’s operation has acknowledged producing a video featuring Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton.
In the advertisement, Arthur accuses her daughter of dishonesty and challenges Acton’s descriptions of her childhood.
“Amy has a serious problem,” Arthur says. “She is a liar.”
The problem for the Ramaswamy campaign is the history behind that family dispute.
Acton has publicly described suffering childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. Her mother remained with the man, who was indicted on a rape charge but never tried after leaving Ohio.
Acton and her mother have been estranged for decades.
Now the Republican campaign is using that mother to question the Democratic candidate’s honesty.
And rather than retreating as the criticism intensified, Ramaswamy’s team confirmed that it produced the commercial and committed $4 million to promoting it.
That’s quite a substantial investment in a family disagreement.
The response from Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, made the situation even more uncomfortable.
Stearns released his own advertisement defending his sister and describing the abuse the siblings experienced as children.
“I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Stearns said.
He explained that his sister tried to protect him when they were children and expressed outrage that their experiences had become political ammunition.
“Shame on Vivek,” he concluded.
The controversy has reached beyond the usual Democratic critics.
Former Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke appeared on CNN Tuesday night and urged the Ramaswamy campaign to distance itself from the advertisement.
Dubke described the incident as an October surprise that could reveal how a candidate handles difficult situations.
He argued that the campaign needed to respond proactively rather than allow the controversy to grow.
Unfortunately for Dubke’s proposed damage-control strategy, Ramaswamy’s people were already preparing to spend millions ensuring the advertisement reached even more Ohio voters.
Other conservative commentators were equally troubled.
During CNN’s “NewsNight,” Republican commentators Scott Jennings, Jason Rantz and Shermichael Singleton joined criticism of the advertisement, with panelists questioning both the decision to produce it and the campaign’s refusal to abandon it.
When an attack ad starts producing agreement among Republicans and Democrats on CNN, political consultants generally know they’ve entered unusual territory.
But Ramaswamy’s campaign sees the situation differently.
His team argues that Acton’s credibility is a legitimate campaign issue and that voters deserve to hear from people who know her personally.
The campaign has characterized Acton as a “serial fabulist” and maintains that the accusations in the commercial deserve attention.
Some Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr., have circulated or supported the advertisement.
And Ramaswamy evidently believes the message is worth the political risk.
Haley’s intervention, however, adds another dimension because the two Republicans have a history of ugly exchanges.
During a November 2023 presidential-primary debate, Ramaswamy brought up Haley’s daughter while attacking Haley’s position on TikTok.
Haley responded with two words that became one of the most memorable moments of that primary campaign.
“You’re just scum.”
Nearly three years later, the animosity apparently hasn’t improved with age.
In fact, Haley’s latest remarks suggest she regards the Ohio advertisement as confirmation of the character concerns she raised during their presidential race.
And the timing gives her criticism considerably more weight than another round of political trash talk.
Ramaswamy is facing voters in a competitive gubernatorial election, and the dispute has consumed attention during the final stretch of the campaign.
He wants the focus on whether Acton has accurately described her past.
His critics want to know why his campaign decided that a bitter, decades-old family dispute was appropriate material for a multimillion-dollar political attack.
Haley has already answered that question to her own satisfaction.
She isn’t laughing about her former rival’s predicament.
She’s reminding Republicans that she warned them about him before.
And somewhere in Ohio, a campaign consultant is probably trying to calculate how much of that $4 million will now go toward introducing voters to Nikki Haley’s opinion of the candidate paying for the advertisement.
DBS WIRE SOURCES (I’ve got all day).
- Mediaite — Nikki Haley calls Vivek Ramaswamy a “bad guy” over Ohio advertisement
- Nikki Haley — October 21 X response criticizing Ramaswamy
- Axios — Ramaswamy doubles down on controversial advertisement
- Associated Press via Los Angeles Times — Campaign confirms production and $4 million advertising commitment
- CBS News — Acton’s brother responds to mother’s accusations and campaign controversy
