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Columbus, Ohio- Vivek Ramaswamy copied Dr. Acton’s call for a gas tax holiday in Ohio despite showing Ohioans over and over he doesn’t care about lowering costs or making life better for working families. Dr. Acton called for a gas tax holiday early Monday, while Ramaswamy’s latest scam policy wasn’t released until hours later.

This isn’t the first time Ramaswamy has been two steps behind Dr. Acton in a desperate attempt to revive his flailing campaign. His data center scam came almost a week after Dr. Acton called for a conditional moratorium on out-of-control data centers that are raising costs for working families. 

“Billionaire scam artist Vivek Ramaswamy is once again late to the game. Ohioans deserve lower costs as gas prices skyrocket, but they know they cannot trust Ramaswamy, who believes affordability is a ‘buzzword’ and says struggling Ohioans are whiners, to bring down the high price of everything,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Katie Seewer. “Working families deserve a governor who really cares about lowering costs, not a billionaire scammer whose only priorities are lining his own pockets and salvaging his flailing campaign.”

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WASHINGTON POST: Ohio Senate campaign staffer used Nazi soldiers as profile photo

CLEVELAND, OHIO — In case you missed it, Jewish and Black faith leaders across Cleveland came together to condemn Jon Husted for hiring a Nazi enthusiast as a member of his senior campaign team.

The Washington Post reported that Jon Husted hired a Nazi sympathizer “wearing an SS uniform” as his political director, who used a “photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile photo and recently added to a public playlist of songs celebrating Rhodesia,” an apartheid colony that has become a rallying symbol for white supremacists. 

See For Yourself: 

Fox 8 Cleveland: Cleveland Jewish and Black Faith Leaders Condemn Jon Husted For Hiring a Nazi Sympathizer

• Fox 8 Cleveland: Multiple leaders from Cleveland’s Black and Jewish communities gathered to condemn Husted’s campaign over the hiring. 

• Pastor Napoleon Harris: It’s a moral shame that it took external pressure from the press to make the campaign part ways with a polarizing, problematic person, and it’s an even greater moral shame that Nazi enthusiasm was not loudly condemned.

Spectrum News: Cleveland Jewish and Black Faith Leaders Condemn Jon Husted For Hiring a Nazi Sympathizer

• Spectrum News: Local faith leaders on Thursday said the incident calls into question Husted’s ability to lead. 

• Adam Rosen, Jewish Democratic Council of America, Ohio Chapter Lead: This is simply unacceptable for an elected official asking Ohioans to trust his judgment at the highest level of government. Ohio leaders should reflect Ohioans’ values. They should never give a platform to deeply disturbing and hateful imagery that can become normalized.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cleveland Black, Jewish leaders question Husted campaign vetting after staffer’s Nazi post

• Black and Jewish community leaders on Thursday questioned how a campaign aide with a history of posting Nazi-related imagery on social media was hired as a senior staffer for U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign, arguing that it reflects a failure of judgment and vetting.

• The criticism came during a news conference at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens after Husted’s campaign fired political director Stephen Woytek following a Washington Post report detailing that the staffer had used a photo of Nazi SS soldiers as his Facebook profile picture.

• The community leaders Thursday repeatedly said the issue extends beyond Woytek’s conduct and instead raises concerns about how he was hired in the first place.

• “See, we live in a high-stakes society where all jobs are vetted to social media, and we know political campaigns vet social media too. And we expect our political leaders to know better, and quite frankly, to just be better,” said Pastor Napoleon J. Harris of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland.

• “It’s a moral shame that it took external pressure from the press to make a campaign part ways with a polarizing, problematic person, and it’s an even greater moral shame that Nazi enthusiasm was not loudly condemned.”

• Harris called Nazism, white supremacy and antisemitism “evil” and argued public officials should clearly denounce them.

• “Nazism hatred, injustice, and white supremacy are not normal. They are not just errors in judgment, Harris said. ”Having an extra beer, wearing a Steelers jersey to a Browns game — those are errors in judgment. This is evil. It’s wrong.”

• State Rep. Eric Synenberg, a Beachwood Democrat and one of the General Assembly’s Jewish members, said the episode raised broader concerns about Husted’s judgment and campaign vetting procedures.

• “I stand here today really frustrated that in 2026 we are still having to call out a failure like this from a sitting United States senator,” Synenberg said.

• Synenberg said Woytek’s social media activity was publicly available and questioned how someone with that history was selected for one of the campaign’s most senior positions.

• “At the core of this issue is a basic responsibility — doing the necessary research and due diligence before hiring someone to serve as a political director, one of the most important positions on a campaign,” he said.

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COLUMBUS, OH – While Ohioans are still reeling from high gas prices resulting from Trump’s devastating war in Iran that Max Miller, Mike Turner, and Mike Carey rubber stamped again this week, a new report is detailing how Ohio is now among the hardest-hit by Trump’s reckless trade war with Canada, with “about $3 billion worth of Ohio products” impacted by the new tariffs.

“Ohioans are being forced to foot the bill for Trump and Ohio Republicans’ reckless trade war with Canada that is driving up prices across Ohio,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Kathleen Clyde. “While Ohio Republicans are left to own devastating economic policies like Trump’s tariffs, Ohio Democrats are focused on lowering costs and getting our state working again for working Ohioans.” 

Despite Max Miller claiming that the economy is “actually doing very well right now,” recent analysis has made clear that Donald Trump’s disastrous economic policies could have “metastasized and spread to infect Republican candidates on the November ballot in swing states and districts.” Read some of the latest on how Trump’s trade war is hurting Ohio families, manufacturers, and businesses—and how Ohio Republicans will be held accountable for it in November: 

Fox News: 5 states could be the biggest losers in Trump’s trade war with Canada, expert warns 

‘American manufacturers or American businesses who rely on Canadian inputs are going to start to feel the pain right in the lead up to going to the ballot box,’ David Clement, policy director of the free market nonprofit Consumer Choice Center, told Fox News Digital. Clement identified Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as among the states most exposed to negative fallout, based on their current trade with Canada and the goods targeted by the tariffs. ‘Ohio is by far the most vulnerable state in terms of exposure from the Canadian retaliatory tariffs,’ Clement said, estimating roughly $2.3 billion in exports to Canada are exposed.

The Washington Post: U.S.-Canada trade war hits GOP efforts to keep control of Congress

While the average American may not feel the tariffs — all told, they affect just 6 percent of $715 billion in annual cross-border trade — key industries in Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania are likely to feel the added costs.

ABC News: US-Canada trade war threatens economic fallout in key midterm states

Tit-for-tat tariffs issued by the U.S. and Canada in recent weeks risk outsized harm for consumers and businesses in states near the northern border, some analysts told ABC News. Many of those states play host to key races in the battle for control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, including Senate contests in Maine, Ohio and Michigan. 

The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio hit hardest by Canada’s retaliatory tariffs 

Ohio is feeling some of the biggest effects from Canada’s new tariffs on U.S. goods as it ranks among the states with the highest estimated tariff costs.

WLWT5: Ohio manufacturing exports could be hurt more than any other state as a result of Canadian tariffs, report says 

A new report indicates that Ohio is likely to be hurt more than any other state as a result of new Canadian tariffs on U.S. products. The data — which was sourced from the Canadian government’s statistics agency and published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — indicates that exports from Ohio to Canada that qualify under the new tariffs had a combined product value of approximately $2.2 billion USD in 2025, marking the highest dollar amount of any state.

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Columbus, Ohio- A newly unearthed clip revealed Vivek Ramaswamy said he didn’t “like the existence” of policies like Social Security and Medicaid, completely undermining their purpose of allowing Ohioans to retire with dignity. Ramaswamy previously called Medicaid and Medicare “mistakes” and said privatizing Social Security was a “reasonable conversation to have.”

WATCH THE FULL CLIP HERE:

Ramaswamy: I don’t believe it is a separation of powers issue for Congress to say that there’s a certain amount of money that gets paid out in Social Security or Medicaid payments or in welfare payments; I don’t like the existence of those policies. I would vote to significantly constrain and attach work requirements to most of the welfare state as we know it. But as much as I would love to end that by any means possible…

“Of course billionaire scam artist Vivek Ramaswamy, who thinks that rising costs are only in our imagination, doesn’t like the existence of lifesaving programs like Medicaid and Social Security,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Katie Seewer. “In the middle of an affordability crisis, the programs Ramaswamy wants to gut have never been more essential. Ohio’s working families can’t afford Vivek Ramaswamy.” 

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Columbus, Ohio — Today, the Ohio State Buckeyes take on Kent State University at home. While Ohioans from all corners of the state will have their eyes on the game, Vivek Ramaswamy is more focused on his extreme, out-of-touch plan to shut down Ohio colleges and universities. Ramaswamy specifically named Kent State in an op-ed doubling down on his plan.

Students and leaders from Kent State have slammed Ramaswamy’s plan. Kent State President Todd Diacon said public universities were “not a waste” and are “Ohio investing in itself.” Republican Governor Mike DeWine has repeatedly shut down Ramaswamy’s college closure plan and recently assured university leaders the plan wouldn’t become reality—for now.

WATCH RAMASWAMY IN HIS OWN WORDS:

“I want us to have the best universities, but we have too many of them. They need to be consolidated.”

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