Mayor Pete & Lis Smith

And let's start off with a rather unfortunate story, which is Vivek Ramaswamy, running for governor of Ohio, is running against Amy Acton.

And basically the mom is accusatory and basically like digs on her own daughter, which in isolation, if you knew nothing else, we'd be a pretty devastating ad.

You'd be like, wow, even your own family members don't like you.

I've seen some of these ads over the years.

I'm sure you have too, where family members come out against somebody.

But the full story is really horrible.

And I think it goes back to Amy Acton when she was 12 years old.

Her stepfather, who was her mother's husband, allegedly raped her, was charged, and then fled the state of Ohio.

Amy's mom stood by her man.

And from that point on, Amy Acton, I think, has been fully estranged from her mom.

So it's a terrible story.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, this feels like it's going to backfire.

I mean, it's obviously morally disgusting, but what's your sense? I know you're kind of cynical, like I am in politics, and you've seen crazy things work for people, but I have a hard time imagining this is going to work for Vivek.

yeah and you know i worked in ohio in 2010 in the um actually for the governor of ohio uh ted strickland when he was running for election and that was a big wave here he ended up losing by two points but a few things right there are negative ads there are nasty ads and then there are despicable ads and this really falls in the third category and i agree with a lot of people I think David Axelrod said this, that this is an ad that tells you a lot more about Vivek Ramaswamy than it does Amy Acton.

And I do think to your question, is this going to backfire? I do think it's going to backfire in part because it underscores this.

uh this idea of this con conception of um this idea about vivek ramaswamy that he's someone who is only cares about himself has no scruples will do or say anything for power and if you're the type of person that is willing to go out and weaponize a mom who essentially abandoned her daughter and chose her husband who was accused of raping her daughter over your daughter that says something really bad about your personal character.

And the outrage about this ad has been pretty swift and has been pretty bipartisan.

You know, you even saw outlets like the National Review coming out and condemning it because we've seen definitely seen a course of vacation of our politics, to say the least, you know, and and cruelty in our politics that wasn't there 20 years ago.

But even this feels like it's a bridge too far.

Yeah, and I do feel like the damage would have been contained to this race if not for the fact that some people like Don Jr. retweeted it gleefully.

And then here's the vice president responding to a question about this ad.

Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign put out a controversial ad featuring his opponent's mother, Republicans.

Some are backing away from that.

Do you think that that ad was appropriate?