Acton was raped by her stepfather as a child, Ramaswamy mocks it

Election season is always an intense battleground where candidates pull out all the stops to convince the electorate of their credentials. Political rivals participate in intense debates and of course they take shots at one another. But is there a red line to how far politicians can and should go? The question arises amid a row over an ad that Republican Governor hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy posted about his Democrat rival Amy Acton. And that ad gets very personal. Well, earlier this week, Ramaswami's camp released an ad involving Acton's estranged mother in which she can be seen calling her daughter, quote unquote, liar, someone who lies about her past. Democrats and even many Republicans have doubled down on the controversial campaign ad, with many calling it insensitive and hits below the belt. But U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has stood firm by Ramaswamy, calling out his own party lawmakers for whining about it. Listen to this. When I see Republicans, people in my party reacting so strongly, especially elected officials, look, have the opinion you want to have on that ad. If you think it was too tough, say it was too tough. If you think it wasn't tough enough, say that. But I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country 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. Vivek Ramaswamy is in a tough race with Amy Acton in Ohio's gubernatorial race. And this is not the first time he has hit out at the Democrat candidate in a personal way. The Republican candidate had previously taken a swipe at Acton over her traumatic past of being raped in her childhood. While addressing supporters earlier, Ramaswami said, and I quote, we have a chance to elect a governor who has a positive vision for our state versus a governor who has none at all other than what someone else did to her. Amy Acton had been vocal in the past as well about her challenging childhood and being raped by her father. There are court documents which show that Acton's stepfather was arrested for raping her as a child. And that is when her biological mom lost custody. The Blue Camp lawmaker has been estranged from her mother ever since, with no contact since walking out of the courthouse. Acton reacted to Ramaswamy's jibe and the controversial ad as well. In an interview, this is what she said, I think it was a terrible thing to do, to do this to someone who is not well, as my birth mother isn't. I know my opponent will stoop to anything to get ahead. Lincoln Mitchell is a political analyst and professor in School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He's now joining us live from New York. Professor Mitchell, welcome to the show. Ramaswamy now says he's taking responsibility for the controversial ad. Even though it's too late, the damage has been done. When does a politician cross the red line, especially during campaigns? And what are the consequences when a contender muddies the waters just days before polling? And before you respond to that, your reaction to Trump and Vance's statement over this issue. Before I react to that, well, Trump and Vance's statement, from their perspective, is reasonable. Trump is a serial sexual assaulter. Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress have done everything in their power to bury the Epstein files because it reveals the extent of Trump's connection with this man who was involved in raping girls for years. So that Trump and Vance support the sexual assaulter in this, which is to say her stepfather who raped her, you know, and her mother who enabled that, is like, you know, that's the sun rising in the morning. That's not surprising at all. As far as the red lines here, you know, this is entirely subjective. In my view, this crosses a line. In other people's view, it doesn't. That, to me, is a disagreement about opinion, although I believe this clearly crosses a line and is deeply offensive. But as far as what the consequences are, there's only one consequence in an election. You win or you lose. So the question for Ramaswamy here is, is this ad going to help him? And I find that extremely unlikely. The only way this ad could have helped him is if nobody ever finds out the whole story. And they just think, huh, this is strange. This is a candidate whose own mother doesn't like her. But, of course, that's not the real story here. So this will probably backfire. I would just add, you know, maybe on a lighter note, that when I heard about this, what struck me is that even before this ad, Ramaswamy had what was broadly understood to be the worst campaign ad of the season when he went to a batting cage, which, you know, India is not a big baseball country, but, you know, it's a little bit like cricket. And he was trying to make a point about how he was going to, you know, what he was going to do as governor. He kept swinging this baseball bat, and it was clear he'd never swung a baseball bat before. It was kind of, you know, any high school kid in America knows how to do it better, apparently, than Ramaswamy does. Mr. Mitchell, when it comes to J.D. Vance and the way he has backed Ramaswamy and the statements that have been made, there are divisions within the Republican camp. What is your assessment on that reaction? How does it reflect on Ramaswamy or the larger Republican Party, the GOP? And at the same time, also talk to us about this below-the-belt campaigning. Is it getting more and more normalized in U.S. politics? Well, I'll try to answer the second question first. I think what's getting, we've always had very nasty campaigns, you know, for at least the last 50 years, I mean, very nasty, very personal, playing the race card, playing gender cards, you know, homophobia, there's nothing, anti-Semitism, that is not new, Islamophobia, those things aren't new, what's new here is when you overlay that with the things that we can do with AI, so no one even knows who's saying what anymore, as well as it being kind of encouraged from the White House, so that's what makes this new this particular ad is a low it's one of the worst most offensive disgusting i've seen but and that's saying a lot but it's i think that's a difference of of degree not of kind as far as trump and vance look they're desperate to win these elections the fact that this election in ohio is close for governor really reveals the weakness of the republican party at this time the election the midterm elections that we're all talking about are 12 days away. We're recording this on a Thursday. Polls close, you know, a week from this coming Tuesday. And they're worried about a state that should be solidly Republican. If they were, you know, getting deeply involved in the governor's race in Wisconsin, I would understand, or Michigan, because those are competitive states. Ohio is understood to be a Republican state. This is a party that is desperate to hold on to what they can. Ramaswamy, you know, while he has a lot of money and did grow up in Ohio, is completely untested political candidate. He had a brief moment in his presidential campaign but basically was that wasn't also ran and he hasn't really shown in this race either and i see you're showing a sign for sherrod brown that's the race uh that many democrats are focused on and the governor's race almost an afterthought but now Democrats I talk who think that they can win that too Mr. Lincoln Mitchell, thank you so much for joining us here. As far as Ramaswamy is concerned, he was supposed to be part of DOGE when it started that never happened. We'll need to see how this one goes for further for him. As for the next two weeks are concerned, I think it's going to be extremely eventful and a lot of below the belt jabs perhaps expected as we move further towards the midterms. Let's wait and watch how this one goes. Thank you so much for joining us here on Race to Power. Thank you for having me