Oct. 21, 2026
Dirty Politics Just Got Filthy; Estranged Mom Bashes Her Own Daughter in Attack Ad
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RSS Feed In the race for Ohio Governor, billionaire Republican and Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy has acknowledged his campaign is behind one of the uglies campaign ads ever released. In it, his opponent, Democrat Dr. Amy Acton’s birth mother calls her own daughter a liar and says she has a serious problem. The real problem, Acton hasn’t seen her birth mother since 1978 when she was 12. Acton was removed from her mother’s home after her stepfather was charged with raping her between the ages of 10 and 12. Her mother chose her husband over her children and now is smearing her publicly.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, October 21st, and what is quite possibly the ugliest campaign in the country just got uglier. Where is it going down? In Ohio. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. This is why people hate politics. This is why they hate this time of the year. They hate midterms. They hate election cycles. Because, Robes, it's almost unbelievable that someone would put this attack ad out.
00:00:29
Speaker 2: Yes, this one is appalling, horrific, disgusting. You name the adjective and you can apply it to this ad. Look, we've all been subjected to these ridiculous over-the-top campaign ads.
00:00:44
Speaker 3: Depending on what state you live in, some might be worse than others. Most of them are laughable.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: You see a candidate or someone accusing their opponent of being literally the worst person in the world. Like, they love criminals. They want to see America fail. Like, just outlandish stuff. Yes, we're used to that.
00:01:02
Speaker 3: This is another level.
00:01:04
Speaker 1: It's weird, ain't it, Rob? It's hard to set a new standard when it comes to attack ads. And you're right. Even some attack ads. You and I travel quite a bit, and it's one of our favorite things to do around this time. We travel to different places sometimes. You turn on local news and every ad is some local attack ad. So we get to laugh and learn a lot about some of these things.
00:01:24
Speaker 4: Right.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: And they do follow a typical pattern. As voters, don't we at this point know it goes one end and out the other almost?
00:01:31
Speaker 2: Because it's so insane, like some of the accusations, like, They want criminals to take over your streets.
00:01:38
Speaker 3: Of course a candidate doesn't want that.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: He wants child murderers to be able to work at daycare.
00:01:45
Speaker 3: He wants you to lose your job and never be able to pay your bills. This is what we hear. These types of stupid, silly, outrageous accusations.
00:01:54
Speaker 1: So it takes a lot to get your attention and go, what the hell? And right now, everybody is saying, what the hell is happening in... Ohio, that gubernatorial race robes that for years a lot of people have kept an eye on because in particular, one of Trump's homeboys, close ally, jumped into the race, and he made clear a couple years ago. So that's why it's gotten a lot of attention already.
00:02:17
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:02:18
Speaker 1: He's been on our radar.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: We're talking about biotech billionaire and, yes, Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy. He ran for president, so his name is unique, and you might remember him in some of the early debates.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: Made some impressions in those debates. Sharp guy, sharp tongue, had lines ready. He was one of the more entertaining and impressive performers. Give him credit for that.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:02:38
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: He definitely stood out among the other contenders. And a lot of folks looked at him and thought, wow, he might have a bright political future.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: And so, yes, he went back to his Ohio after he dropped out of the race. Didn't have a good showing, I think, in Ohio early on. Got out early. But folks were keeping up with his political career. So, yes, he announced he's going to be the guy in Ohio. Trump immediately endorsed him, kind of cleared the pathway for him in the Republican nomination, and here we are. So he's going up against a woman, though, who hasn't been wrote necessarily a national name. I wasn't that familiar with her before all this.
00:03:14
Speaker 2: I wasn't either. She's a physician. She has a doctor in front of her name, Dr.
00:03:18
Speaker 3: Amy Acton.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: She was the former Ohio public health commissioner. So she has experience in public service. And certainly has a very impressive resume.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: So what happened this time is that Ohio has... I'm going to forget, not get the number right, but I think it's five of the last seven governors have been Republican. This is a place that's been seen as a swing state, but Trump won this thing three times. And he won it all by at least eight points. This has been safely Republican territory. So for him, for Ramaswamy to be struggling here is of note. And Robes, he is struggling... and all the latest polling pretty handily outside the margin of error.
00:03:59
Speaker 3: That's right. The latest polls show that Dr.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: Amy Acton has a seven-point advantage over Vivek Ramaswamy, and that's deeply concerning to Republicans, obviously a lot at stake for the midterms, and especially when you have a state that has typically gone Republican. This is not the headline that Republicans or that Donald Trump hope or were hoping for. So yes, it's one of those moments where you're desperate. And that's what this ad reeks of.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: There you go, baby. This is what they say happens when it gets to the end of a campaign. He is down. He is desperate. So he is pulling out anything he can. Now, what is this ad? It got going in the first place, Robes. It wasn't even on television. This is amazing how something that didn't even get on TV gets online in one spot and it goes like wildfire. So it starts spreading all over the place. People start talking about it. So what is the big deal? Well, Robes, it features... her birth mother. So if you have someone who's a candidate and the woman who gave birth to her is on camera saying you can't vote for her, she's a liar. She's messed up. She's been messed up for a while. She can't help you if she can't help herself. Robes, based on what I just said, that information is kind of jaw-dropping when you look at an ad as a voter. Holy hell, her own mom?
00:05:21
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:05:22
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like it before. Obviously, there's just this sacred bond. Even if you're estranged, you don't publicly go out and bash your own child and call them a liar, say that they can't be trusted, say that no one should vote for their child to be governor.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: That is a.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: That is a shocking thing for any mother to say, regardless of the current status of their relationship.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: And the mother is Donna Arthur. We're going to let you hear the ad first. Then we'll explain why there's so much more to this story. But you're going to hear at the top, our name kind of gets cut off when she says it. But her name is Donna Arthur. And this is the roughly one-minute ad that's got everybody talking.
00:06:10
Speaker 4: My name is Donna Arthur, and I'm Amy Afton's mother. I worked at Children and Family Service Association, building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America. I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent, it's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She's lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and she can't help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn't doing that. Don't vote for people who lie. Don't let her become your governor. If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: It will only get worse.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: Robes, that is the Democratic governor's candidate, the Democrat who is running for governor of the great state of Ohio. That's Obama. Robes, just based on those facts alone, that's damning and that's heavy.
00:07:37
Speaker 3: It's emotionally gutting.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: I think just anyone can put themselves in that position and recognize just how horrific that is to experience that to hear your own mother just stab you in the back publicly.
00:07:53
Speaker 1: So, now, Robes, the details. That woman, the mother we're talking about there, Robes, we keep referring to as her birth mother, because this is not a woman who has functioned as her mother in 50 years. And Robes, what is left out of that ad is, is a very painful, disgusting, vile, and even criminal history tied to this family robes that you have to hear to understand how disgusting that ad is.
00:08:30
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: The last time Amy Acton saw her mother was in 1978, and she was 12 years old, and it was in a courtroom.
00:08:41
Speaker 4: Okay?
00:08:42
Speaker 2: So Amy Acton is the victim of child rape. at the hands of her stepfather, which her mother, that was her mother's husband, obviously, and her mother, Donna Arthur, stood by her husband rather than support her own daughter.
00:09:04
Speaker 1: Robes, that was 1978. And I thought maybe this was the last time in their courtroom and maybe there had been some correspondence. Robes, they say they haven't spoken yet. since 1978, since these allegations came up. And Robes, we say allegations, but it goes farther than that. And her campaign has offered up evidence and offered up police reports and things from the time. But Robes, the man was arrested and charged. This was her stepdad. And the accusation is that he sexually abused Amy Acton from the time she was nine to 12 in that age range. The police filed charges against this man, and the state child services stepped in and took Amy Acton and her brother away from her mom. That is the relationship that Vivek Ramaswamy has named. now exploited and put on an ad without giving you that context and hoping you just think she's a bad woman. Amy Acton, don't vote for her because listen to her mother without telling you that her birth mother chose her accused mother rapist over her daughter.
00:10:22
Speaker 4: Damn.
00:10:24
Speaker 3: I mean, just let that sink in. And I think.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: It's so awful because just even hearing the ad without knowing that backstory, whatever happened between them, that was bad enough. Now you learn that he is exploiting and manipulating the story to make it look like Dr. Amy Acton is this awful person when she actually was the victim of childhood rape.
00:10:56
Speaker 1: This is what politics is, is it, Robes? This is historical in just how disgusting of an ad this is. So there are some, and he has defended, we'll let you hear what he had to say about this, but Robes, there are some. Some on the far right who are accusing her are dismissive of Amy Acton as just another left-wing white woman who likes to accuse men of rape.
00:11:27
Speaker 3: She was a child. She was not a woman.
00:11:30
Speaker 1: She was 12. Babe, that is what is happening in Ohio right now in this campaign. So let's go to what Vivek. has been saying in defense of it. They caught him at an ad. Excuse me, I shouldn't say caught.
00:11:41
Speaker 4: No, no, no.
00:11:41
Speaker 1: They caught up with him. Excuse me. They caught up with him at a campaign rally he had. That first one there was his particular quote, but Robes, there was confusion initially when it was online because nobody could, where did this come from? Who's paying for it? And they wouldn't admit initially.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought that was required.
00:11:58
Speaker 2: Is that only when it's broadcast on television, you have to say who funded the ad. But Vivek did ultimately acknowledge it. He said, it is an ad from our campaign. I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues to impact Ohioans. But unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues. She won't debate me. Her record of continuously spreading some pretty defamatory, disparaging lies about my family deserves to be scrutinized.
00:12:29
Speaker 3: He then says it's all part of a pattern. He said every person who appears to know her.
00:12:33
Speaker 2: The best have told voters not to vote for her, but to vote for me instead.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: That's disingenuous, babe. They haven't talked in 50 years. Knows her best. She was 12. She was 12 and had just gone through something horrific. Now, the man was never convicted because they couldn't catch up with him. They actually fled. Yeah, that's fled. If the police are looking for you and you move out of town, let's call that clean.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: If you have charges, rape charges, and that is, you're being accused of being a rapist and a pedophile.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: You've now left and hid out in Pennsylvania somewhere?
00:13:09
Speaker 1: With mama. With birth mother. She went with him. With birth mother. Okay? is where we are but that the point appears to know her best ropes he is just looking at us and just laughing in our faces that we're going to believe what he's saying rope does he needs a smart guy he knows that this one does he is he not aware they put this ad together and say hey we're gonna put this out we think it's a good and he's not aware of that history I don't think it's possible, baby.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: I don't think it's possible either. And the spokesperson for Vivek said this. We don't know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020.
00:13:46
Speaker 3: But we know that Amy Acton is.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: A serious serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: Serial fabulist. She was 12 years old. She was taken from her home, by the way. She didn't run away. She didn't have a choice in the matter. They took her away.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: They felt like it was serious enough, what was going on in that house, that they needed to move the children for their own safety. You know, anyone knows that for a court to move in and actually physically take children away from their own mother, it has to rise to a very serious level.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's nothing here. There's nothing here that I could look at from the Vivek Ramaswamy side and go, okay, this is okay. This is fair game. Or I understand. Or maybe I see their point. I don't, babe. Politics is that dirty of a game. As long as you got a D by your name, whatever you say, I have to attack. Babe, it's the woman.
00:14:51
Speaker 4: Come on.
00:14:53
Speaker 2: And by the way, go ahead and attack what someone says. But this is such a despicable low blow that there's no justification for it.
00:15:05
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, there just isn't.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: The reactions here are coming from left and right. One of Ramaswamy's own opponents, a Republican opponent, called it, quote, pretty damn low. Another Ohio Republican official said, quote, I don't care what political party you belong to or which candidate you support. There are lines we should not cross. And this is one of them. We can disagree on plenty of things without losing our sense of decency. Man, Robes, we all mess up. We all make mistakes. We all do things we wish you could take back. This, how could you be okay with and stand by it? My God.
00:15:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, David Axelrod, I thought, put this really well.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: He said, I've been around politics longer than he's been alive, and I don't think I've ever seen anything uglier. The ad and Vivek's failure to repudiate it tells us so much more about him than his opponent. Ain't that the truth?
00:16:05
Speaker 1: Unquenchable ambition, baby. Seen nothing uglier. I don't care what you think about David Axelrod. I know he's been around politics longer than I've been alive. Robes. It's just horrific. And the last one here from the libertarian... gubernatorial candidate that said, quote, you don't weaponize someone's personal history of being a victim of abuse against them and then shift gears and gaslight everyone about the situation unless you yourself have an abusive personality.
00:16:35
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: Babe, I don't know what happens. I can't remember the number, but a ridiculous amount of money going into this ad. He is down. He is desperate. I don't think anything makes it more clear. than that ad but stay here we did hear from amy acton she did have a response and so did her brother he is the one that really brought the hammer down.
00:17:05
Speaker 3: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ.
00:17:08
Speaker 2: This really, truly despicable ad that has been running online, become viral in the Ohio gubernatorial race. Vivek Ramaswamy, who is a Republican, a Trump ally, a biotech billionaire, has acknowledged that, yes, it in fact was his campaign that put out this ad against his opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, using her estranged birth mother, to say that she wasn't fit to serve because she's a liar. When you find out the truth behind the actual events that led to their estrangement, it actually leaves you feeling sick.
00:17:44
Speaker 3: To your stomach.
00:17:45
Speaker 1: It's clearly dishonest. It's not even misleading. It is dishonest. Here, let me show you what Amy Acton's own mother says about her, the people that know her best. They ain't spoken since 1978 when her mom sided with the man accused of raping Amy Acton, baby. That is so dishonest. Can we get this midterm situation over with?
00:18:14
Speaker 3: It's terrible.
00:18:16
Speaker 2: And look, Amy Acton has responded and so has her brother. And it's very, very powerful what they both had to say. Amy Acton said, I won't normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is something I'm just complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect and sexual abuse.
00:18:42
Speaker 3: My brother and I were removed.
00:18:47
Speaker 1: She kind of let you want to hear much, much more from this. I don't know how this could help him.
00:18:53
Speaker 3: It's going to backfire.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: But are people really seeing this and go, ooh, she's really terrible and not paying attention to how this ad is being received?
00:19:07
Speaker 3: Below the surface. It's if you read any headlines, obviously.
00:19:12
Speaker 2: And that's what's important about the retelling of this story because people need to understand the context.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: Is he really just hoping people won't know? Is he really hoping I'm going to put this out and nobody's actually going to know the backstory and that's going to help me? Is that the plan?
00:19:26
Speaker 2: I guess that he thinks he can gaslight Ohioans.
00:19:30
Speaker 3: Acton's brother.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: And this this is a powerful statement that he released. He said it's not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point. And. he said after he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody... Our birth mother stayed married to Amy's rapist.
00:19:59
Speaker 3: Until he died.
00:20:00
Speaker 1: Damn, dude.
00:20:00
Speaker 2: This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core, a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.
00:20:14
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:20:18
Speaker 1: I just... I just... I don't know how this... All this information we have... how that could be presented to Vivek Ramaswamy and he not say, nah, guys, we shouldn't do that. We can't go there. Because I don't want to. That's just not what you do. What bone? What wasn't triggered? And I know people make mistakes and make errors. I'm trying to leave room for grace in this situation for him even, baby. But desperation, that's no justification for.
00:20:51
Speaker 2: No, I don't know how anybody could defend this given all of the information.
00:20:58
Speaker 1: That's hard. So it was online, so the question is being asked, are we going to see it anymore? Is it going to come down? No, it's going to go up. Robes, they plan on spending money. They are going to put this on TV.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
00:21:12
Speaker 2: Now, I'm curious because I was looking it up and I couldn't find it, but Ramaswamy in his response said, said, well, Amy Acton has attacked me and my family personally. I mean, he was trying to say, I'm getting attacked too, but I can't see anything where she has attacked him with a personal family ad.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: They say this campaign, if you live in Ohio, you think the campaign is against a violent drunk versus a con man. Because there's another incident she had years ago. Police were called to the house for a domestic situation, and Nobody was charged. There was nothing to it. They explained it one way. She was in an argument with her husband. A mirror fell off the wall. The child got scared. Called 911. By the time police showed up, the fight was actually over and everybody was chilling and they explained it. That's the incident that now Vivek has turned into she is a violent, drunken woman. And then her side has turned everything he's done, all the billions, he is just nothing more than a charlatan. He's just a con man. That's what the race has been. babes. That's the back of it.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: Just personal attack after personal attack. It has nothing to do with the issues. Nothing to do with what they're going to do for Ohioans. What kind of leader they're going to become.
00:22:28
Speaker 1: Yes, the ad is, they are putting $ 4 million, according to Axios, into putting that ad on television. And if it's on TV, they have to say at the end, this ad paid for by Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:22:40
Speaker 2: But I'm curious because after all of the reaction to this ad, I wonder if they'll decide against it.
00:22:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe they think it's rolling the dice. Robes, you're behind by seven, eight points in a state where you're supposed to be a Republican Ohio governor doing okay in the polls. He's desperate. Two weeks, baby. He is running scared. And this shows it. So, folks, we'll get to the finish line, I guess, get past the midterms. And there's talk, what was it, the CNN report that.
00:23:18
Speaker 1: Folks are fearful of Trump's rage after the midterms, and he is going to go after everybody because he's going to lose big. So he is going to go after, stick the Justice Department on. He is going to go on a rampage afterwards.
00:23:34
Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: Everybody buckle up. A couple weeks to go before all of that is decided. But we will keep our eye on all of it. We always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:23:47
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, October 21st, and what is quite possibly the ugliest campaign in the country just got uglier. Where is it going down? In Ohio. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. This is why people hate politics. This is why they hate this time of the year. They hate midterms. They hate election cycles. Because, Robes, it's almost unbelievable that someone would put this attack ad out.
00:00:29
Speaker 2: Yes, this one is appalling, horrific, disgusting. You name the adjective and you can apply it to this ad. Look, we've all been subjected to these ridiculous over-the-top campaign ads.
00:00:44
Speaker 3: Depending on what state you live in, some might be worse than others. Most of them are laughable.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: You see a candidate or someone accusing their opponent of being literally the worst person in the world. Like, they love criminals. They want to see America fail. Like, just outlandish stuff. Yes, we're used to that.
00:01:02
Speaker 3: This is another level.
00:01:04
Speaker 1: It's weird, ain't it, Rob? It's hard to set a new standard when it comes to attack ads. And you're right. Even some attack ads. You and I travel quite a bit, and it's one of our favorite things to do around this time. We travel to different places sometimes. You turn on local news and every ad is some local attack ad. So we get to laugh and learn a lot about some of these things.
00:01:24
Speaker 4: Right.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: And they do follow a typical pattern. As voters, don't we at this point know it goes one end and out the other almost?
00:01:31
Speaker 2: Because it's so insane, like some of the accusations, like, They want criminals to take over your streets.
00:01:38
Speaker 3: Of course a candidate doesn't want that.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: He wants child murderers to be able to work at daycare.
00:01:45
Speaker 3: He wants you to lose your job and never be able to pay your bills. This is what we hear. These types of stupid, silly, outrageous accusations.
00:01:54
Speaker 1: So it takes a lot to get your attention and go, what the hell? And right now, everybody is saying, what the hell is happening in... Ohio, that gubernatorial race robes that for years a lot of people have kept an eye on because in particular, one of Trump's homeboys, close ally, jumped into the race, and he made clear a couple years ago. So that's why it's gotten a lot of attention already.
00:02:17
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:02:18
Speaker 1: He's been on our radar.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: We're talking about biotech billionaire and, yes, Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy. He ran for president, so his name is unique, and you might remember him in some of the early debates.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: Made some impressions in those debates. Sharp guy, sharp tongue, had lines ready. He was one of the more entertaining and impressive performers. Give him credit for that.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:02:38
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: He definitely stood out among the other contenders. And a lot of folks looked at him and thought, wow, he might have a bright political future.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: And so, yes, he went back to his Ohio after he dropped out of the race. Didn't have a good showing, I think, in Ohio early on. Got out early. But folks were keeping up with his political career. So, yes, he announced he's going to be the guy in Ohio. Trump immediately endorsed him, kind of cleared the pathway for him in the Republican nomination, and here we are. So he's going up against a woman, though, who hasn't been wrote necessarily a national name. I wasn't that familiar with her before all this.
00:03:14
Speaker 2: I wasn't either. She's a physician. She has a doctor in front of her name, Dr.
00:03:18
Speaker 3: Amy Acton.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: She was the former Ohio public health commissioner. So she has experience in public service. And certainly has a very impressive resume.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: So what happened this time is that Ohio has... I'm going to forget, not get the number right, but I think it's five of the last seven governors have been Republican. This is a place that's been seen as a swing state, but Trump won this thing three times. And he won it all by at least eight points. This has been safely Republican territory. So for him, for Ramaswamy to be struggling here is of note. And Robes, he is struggling... and all the latest polling pretty handily outside the margin of error.
00:03:59
Speaker 3: That's right. The latest polls show that Dr.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: Amy Acton has a seven-point advantage over Vivek Ramaswamy, and that's deeply concerning to Republicans, obviously a lot at stake for the midterms, and especially when you have a state that has typically gone Republican. This is not the headline that Republicans or that Donald Trump hope or were hoping for. So yes, it's one of those moments where you're desperate. And that's what this ad reeks of.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: There you go, baby. This is what they say happens when it gets to the end of a campaign. He is down. He is desperate. So he is pulling out anything he can. Now, what is this ad? It got going in the first place, Robes. It wasn't even on television. This is amazing how something that didn't even get on TV gets online in one spot and it goes like wildfire. So it starts spreading all over the place. People start talking about it. So what is the big deal? Well, Robes, it features... her birth mother. So if you have someone who's a candidate and the woman who gave birth to her is on camera saying you can't vote for her, she's a liar. She's messed up. She's been messed up for a while. She can't help you if she can't help herself. Robes, based on what I just said, that information is kind of jaw-dropping when you look at an ad as a voter. Holy hell, her own mom?
00:05:21
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:05:22
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like it before. Obviously, there's just this sacred bond. Even if you're estranged, you don't publicly go out and bash your own child and call them a liar, say that they can't be trusted, say that no one should vote for their child to be governor.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: That is a.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: That is a shocking thing for any mother to say, regardless of the current status of their relationship.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: And the mother is Donna Arthur. We're going to let you hear the ad first. Then we'll explain why there's so much more to this story. But you're going to hear at the top, our name kind of gets cut off when she says it. But her name is Donna Arthur. And this is the roughly one-minute ad that's got everybody talking.
00:06:10
Speaker 4: My name is Donna Arthur, and I'm Amy Afton's mother. I worked at Children and Family Service Association, building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America. I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent, it's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She's lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and she can't help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn't doing that. Don't vote for people who lie. Don't let her become your governor. If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: It will only get worse.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: Robes, that is the Democratic governor's candidate, the Democrat who is running for governor of the great state of Ohio. That's Obama. Robes, just based on those facts alone, that's damning and that's heavy.
00:07:37
Speaker 3: It's emotionally gutting.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: I think just anyone can put themselves in that position and recognize just how horrific that is to experience that to hear your own mother just stab you in the back publicly.
00:07:53
Speaker 1: So, now, Robes, the details. That woman, the mother we're talking about there, Robes, we keep referring to as her birth mother, because this is not a woman who has functioned as her mother in 50 years. And Robes, what is left out of that ad is, is a very painful, disgusting, vile, and even criminal history tied to this family robes that you have to hear to understand how disgusting that ad is.
00:08:30
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: The last time Amy Acton saw her mother was in 1978, and she was 12 years old, and it was in a courtroom.
00:08:41
Speaker 4: Okay?
00:08:42
Speaker 2: So Amy Acton is the victim of child rape. at the hands of her stepfather, which her mother, that was her mother's husband, obviously, and her mother, Donna Arthur, stood by her husband rather than support her own daughter.
00:09:04
Speaker 1: Robes, that was 1978. And I thought maybe this was the last time in their courtroom and maybe there had been some correspondence. Robes, they say they haven't spoken yet. since 1978, since these allegations came up. And Robes, we say allegations, but it goes farther than that. And her campaign has offered up evidence and offered up police reports and things from the time. But Robes, the man was arrested and charged. This was her stepdad. And the accusation is that he sexually abused Amy Acton from the time she was nine to 12 in that age range. The police filed charges against this man, and the state child services stepped in and took Amy Acton and her brother away from her mom. That is the relationship that Vivek Ramaswamy has named. now exploited and put on an ad without giving you that context and hoping you just think she's a bad woman. Amy Acton, don't vote for her because listen to her mother without telling you that her birth mother chose her accused mother rapist over her daughter.
00:10:22
Speaker 4: Damn.
00:10:24
Speaker 3: I mean, just let that sink in. And I think.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: It's so awful because just even hearing the ad without knowing that backstory, whatever happened between them, that was bad enough. Now you learn that he is exploiting and manipulating the story to make it look like Dr. Amy Acton is this awful person when she actually was the victim of childhood rape.
00:10:56
Speaker 1: This is what politics is, is it, Robes? This is historical in just how disgusting of an ad this is. So there are some, and he has defended, we'll let you hear what he had to say about this, but Robes, there are some. Some on the far right who are accusing her are dismissive of Amy Acton as just another left-wing white woman who likes to accuse men of rape.
00:11:27
Speaker 3: She was a child. She was not a woman.
00:11:30
Speaker 1: She was 12. Babe, that is what is happening in Ohio right now in this campaign. So let's go to what Vivek. has been saying in defense of it. They caught him at an ad. Excuse me, I shouldn't say caught.
00:11:41
Speaker 4: No, no, no.
00:11:41
Speaker 1: They caught up with him. Excuse me. They caught up with him at a campaign rally he had. That first one there was his particular quote, but Robes, there was confusion initially when it was online because nobody could, where did this come from? Who's paying for it? And they wouldn't admit initially.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought that was required.
00:11:58
Speaker 2: Is that only when it's broadcast on television, you have to say who funded the ad. But Vivek did ultimately acknowledge it. He said, it is an ad from our campaign. I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues to impact Ohioans. But unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues. She won't debate me. Her record of continuously spreading some pretty defamatory, disparaging lies about my family deserves to be scrutinized.
00:12:29
Speaker 3: He then says it's all part of a pattern. He said every person who appears to know her.
00:12:33
Speaker 2: The best have told voters not to vote for her, but to vote for me instead.
00:12:39
Speaker 1: That's disingenuous, babe. They haven't talked in 50 years. Knows her best. She was 12. She was 12 and had just gone through something horrific. Now, the man was never convicted because they couldn't catch up with him. They actually fled. Yeah, that's fled. If the police are looking for you and you move out of town, let's call that clean.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: If you have charges, rape charges, and that is, you're being accused of being a rapist and a pedophile.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: You've now left and hid out in Pennsylvania somewhere?
00:13:09
Speaker 1: With mama. With birth mother. She went with him. With birth mother. Okay? is where we are but that the point appears to know her best ropes he is just looking at us and just laughing in our faces that we're going to believe what he's saying rope does he needs a smart guy he knows that this one does he is he not aware they put this ad together and say hey we're gonna put this out we think it's a good and he's not aware of that history I don't think it's possible, baby.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: I don't think it's possible either. And the spokesperson for Vivek said this. We don't know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020.
00:13:46
Speaker 3: But we know that Amy Acton is.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: A serious serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: Serial fabulist. She was 12 years old. She was taken from her home, by the way. She didn't run away. She didn't have a choice in the matter. They took her away.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: They felt like it was serious enough, what was going on in that house, that they needed to move the children for their own safety. You know, anyone knows that for a court to move in and actually physically take children away from their own mother, it has to rise to a very serious level.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's nothing here. There's nothing here that I could look at from the Vivek Ramaswamy side and go, okay, this is okay. This is fair game. Or I understand. Or maybe I see their point. I don't, babe. Politics is that dirty of a game. As long as you got a D by your name, whatever you say, I have to attack. Babe, it's the woman.
00:14:51
Speaker 4: Come on.
00:14:53
Speaker 2: And by the way, go ahead and attack what someone says. But this is such a despicable low blow that there's no justification for it.
00:15:05
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, there just isn't.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: The reactions here are coming from left and right. One of Ramaswamy's own opponents, a Republican opponent, called it, quote, pretty damn low. Another Ohio Republican official said, quote, I don't care what political party you belong to or which candidate you support. There are lines we should not cross. And this is one of them. We can disagree on plenty of things without losing our sense of decency. Man, Robes, we all mess up. We all make mistakes. We all do things we wish you could take back. This, how could you be okay with and stand by it? My God.
00:15:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, David Axelrod, I thought, put this really well.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: He said, I've been around politics longer than he's been alive, and I don't think I've ever seen anything uglier. The ad and Vivek's failure to repudiate it tells us so much more about him than his opponent. Ain't that the truth?
00:16:05
Speaker 1: Unquenchable ambition, baby. Seen nothing uglier. I don't care what you think about David Axelrod. I know he's been around politics longer than I've been alive. Robes. It's just horrific. And the last one here from the libertarian... gubernatorial candidate that said, quote, you don't weaponize someone's personal history of being a victim of abuse against them and then shift gears and gaslight everyone about the situation unless you yourself have an abusive personality.
00:16:35
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: Babe, I don't know what happens. I can't remember the number, but a ridiculous amount of money going into this ad. He is down. He is desperate. I don't think anything makes it more clear. than that ad but stay here we did hear from amy acton she did have a response and so did her brother he is the one that really brought the hammer down.
00:17:05
Speaker 3: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ.
00:17:08
Speaker 2: This really, truly despicable ad that has been running online, become viral in the Ohio gubernatorial race. Vivek Ramaswamy, who is a Republican, a Trump ally, a biotech billionaire, has acknowledged that, yes, it in fact was his campaign that put out this ad against his opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, using her estranged birth mother, to say that she wasn't fit to serve because she's a liar. When you find out the truth behind the actual events that led to their estrangement, it actually leaves you feeling sick.
00:17:44
Speaker 3: To your stomach.
00:17:45
Speaker 1: It's clearly dishonest. It's not even misleading. It is dishonest. Here, let me show you what Amy Acton's own mother says about her, the people that know her best. They ain't spoken since 1978 when her mom sided with the man accused of raping Amy Acton, baby. That is so dishonest. Can we get this midterm situation over with?
00:18:14
Speaker 3: It's terrible.
00:18:16
Speaker 2: And look, Amy Acton has responded and so has her brother. And it's very, very powerful what they both had to say. Amy Acton said, I won't normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is something I'm just complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect and sexual abuse.
00:18:42
Speaker 3: My brother and I were removed.
00:18:47
Speaker 1: She kind of let you want to hear much, much more from this. I don't know how this could help him.
00:18:53
Speaker 3: It's going to backfire.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: But are people really seeing this and go, ooh, she's really terrible and not paying attention to how this ad is being received?
00:19:07
Speaker 3: Below the surface. It's if you read any headlines, obviously.
00:19:12
Speaker 2: And that's what's important about the retelling of this story because people need to understand the context.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: Is he really just hoping people won't know? Is he really hoping I'm going to put this out and nobody's actually going to know the backstory and that's going to help me? Is that the plan?
00:19:26
Speaker 2: I guess that he thinks he can gaslight Ohioans.
00:19:30
Speaker 3: Acton's brother.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: And this this is a powerful statement that he released. He said it's not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point. And. he said after he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody... Our birth mother stayed married to Amy's rapist.
00:19:59
Speaker 3: Until he died.
00:20:00
Speaker 1: Damn, dude.
00:20:00
Speaker 2: This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core, a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.
00:20:14
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:20:18
Speaker 1: I just... I just... I don't know how this... All this information we have... how that could be presented to Vivek Ramaswamy and he not say, nah, guys, we shouldn't do that. We can't go there. Because I don't want to. That's just not what you do. What bone? What wasn't triggered? And I know people make mistakes and make errors. I'm trying to leave room for grace in this situation for him even, baby. But desperation, that's no justification for.
00:20:51
Speaker 2: No, I don't know how anybody could defend this given all of the information.
00:20:58
Speaker 1: That's hard. So it was online, so the question is being asked, are we going to see it anymore? Is it going to come down? No, it's going to go up. Robes, they plan on spending money. They are going to put this on TV.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
00:21:12
Speaker 2: Now, I'm curious because I was looking it up and I couldn't find it, but Ramaswamy in his response said, said, well, Amy Acton has attacked me and my family personally. I mean, he was trying to say, I'm getting attacked too, but I can't see anything where she has attacked him with a personal family ad.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: They say this campaign, if you live in Ohio, you think the campaign is against a violent drunk versus a con man. Because there's another incident she had years ago. Police were called to the house for a domestic situation, and Nobody was charged. There was nothing to it. They explained it one way. She was in an argument with her husband. A mirror fell off the wall. The child got scared. Called 911. By the time police showed up, the fight was actually over and everybody was chilling and they explained it. That's the incident that now Vivek has turned into she is a violent, drunken woman. And then her side has turned everything he's done, all the billions, he is just nothing more than a charlatan. He's just a con man. That's what the race has been. babes. That's the back of it.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: Just personal attack after personal attack. It has nothing to do with the issues. Nothing to do with what they're going to do for Ohioans. What kind of leader they're going to become.
00:22:28
Speaker 1: Yes, the ad is, they are putting $ 4 million, according to Axios, into putting that ad on television. And if it's on TV, they have to say at the end, this ad paid for by Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:22:40
Speaker 2: But I'm curious because after all of the reaction to this ad, I wonder if they'll decide against it.
00:22:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe they think it's rolling the dice. Robes, you're behind by seven, eight points in a state where you're supposed to be a Republican Ohio governor doing okay in the polls. He's desperate. Two weeks, baby. He is running scared. And this shows it. So, folks, we'll get to the finish line, I guess, get past the midterms. And there's talk, what was it, the CNN report that.
00:23:18
Speaker 1: Folks are fearful of Trump's rage after the midterms, and he is going to go after everybody because he's going to lose big. So he is going to go after, stick the Justice Department on. He is going to go on a rampage afterwards.
00:23:34
Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness.
00:23:35
Speaker 2: Everybody buckle up. A couple weeks to go before all of that is decided. But we will keep our eye on all of it. We always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:23:47
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.