Trump doubles down on defending Vivek Ramaswamys attack ad against Amy Acton

President Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his support of a widely condemned attack ad against Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, saying that he won’t change his mind about the $4 million ad campaign by her Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, that features her estranged mother calling her a “liar.”Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump was asked if he has changed his mind about defending the minutelong ad, now that he knows the backstory about Acton’s late stepfather, whom Acton has said sexually abused her as a child.“No, it’s a mother speaking badly against Amy Acton,” Trump said.“If it were my mother speaking badly about me, you’d be making it the No.

1 story on the news.”Trump also criticized an NBC News reporter who pressed him further about the situation, calling her “a fresh person” and “horrible little reporter.” Asked by NBC News about Republicans who have denounced the ad, Trump said “They don’t know the facts.” “A mother is saying, ‘Don’t put my daughter there, because she’s a terrible person and she’s a liar.’ Why shouldn’t somebody use that?” he added.The president first voiced support for the ad in a post on Truth Social Thursday, suggesting that Republicans were being treated unfairly.

“If my mother, the legendary Mary MacLeod Trump, said anything bad about me, the Fake News would play it up,” Trump wrote.“The Dumocrats would be totally supportive, and it would go down as the Ad of the Decade — Maybe the Century!” He then addressed the controversy in remarks at a campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa at night, claiming that Ramaswamy asked him what to do amid the media firestorm.

“I said, ‘You got to ride with it,’” Trump recounted.Ramaswamy defended the ad at a campaign bus tour stop in Strongsville, Ohio, Friday morning.

He accused the “flawed and failed media” of “lying about an ad that is about lying.” His campaign told NBC News on Thurs...