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The Numbing Effect
I listened to Donald Trump's Dayton rally speech so you don't have to. We can't allow ourselves to normalize his dark words and deeds.
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Back when Twitter was a thing, back when it approximated a public square for dialogue and even understanding, and before Elon Musk turned it into his personal playpen and drove people away, we could expect the malignant intrusions from Donald Trump. These daily, sometimes hourly, acts of abuse—of our language, fellow humans, decency and democracy—were unavoidable, requiring a reaction from many of us who could not let these attacks go unanswered.
Eventually, after the insurrection and his banning from Twitter, his daily diatribes on Truth Social were less visible and made it more possible to pick and choose when to respond. The questions of when, how or how much to amplify his rantings depended both on how concerned we were about amplifying his degradations and desecrations—and how necessary it seemed to ring the alarm bell and warn our fellow citizens of the continuing danger in our midst.
While I’ve focused on him and his words in my dispatches now and then, I admit that I have been reluctant to listen to his recent rally spewings in their entirety.
Until now.
Clips over the weekend from his Saturday rally in Dayton, Ohio, reveal a particularly disgusting level of hate and incitement as he called some migrants “not people” and anticipated a “bloodbath” if he’s not elected in November. That alone might have been bad enough to provide a less masochistic person than me plenty of reason to pick another Sunday activity. But I can tell you, dear readers and fellow advocates of democracy and basic human decency, those few excerpts barely scratch the surface of this man’s—this presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s—continuing capacity for delusion and degradation.
But before I share what I’ve learned after watching and listening to the whole Ohio speech, I want to remind you (and me) not to let his horrible lies benumb you, even after all these years. Because the more we treat what he has to say as normal or tolerable in our public discourse, the more we adapt to and accept its existence, the more he succeeds in moving our society toward cruelty and violence. That would be an insufferable victory by the carnage-loving faction and its leader.
I almost stopped listening in the first few minutes. That’s because Trump played a recording of convicted and jailed insurrectionists from the Jan. 6 Capitol attack singing the “The Star-Spangled Banner” interspersed with Trump mouthing the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. Then he referred to them as “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots” who’ve “been treated terribly and unfairly.”
Soon he began his diatribe about how Biden is “incompetent” and “crooked” and “the worst president we’ve ever had.” With his usual pattern of projection, he insisted that Biden is “a great threat to our democracy.” And “to reverse every single Biden disaster, just put me back in office and it will get done very quickly.”
He also credited Biden for every indictment against him, by weaponizing the Justice Department and the FBI, to “go ofter his political opponent.” The result, he said, “driving my numbers through the roof. How about a couple more indictments, Joe, you dumb son of a—” His voice trailed off, one of the few times he didn’t swear to excite his audience.
This speech was building and expanding his world of lies and delusions. One early example: “You fight a crooked election and they indict you. They don’t indict the guys who made the election crooked…These people are sick in Washington—and we’re going to change it around fast.”
But surpassing his hostility and resentment toward Biden was his hateful demagoguery toward migrants. Among his first actions, he told the crowd: “Stop the invasion of our country and send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home.” Big cheer. Then, “these are the roughest people you’ve ever seen.” Then, he falsely claimed that crime is “way down all over the world” because other countries “send us their criminals. It’s true.” Then, taking it farther, he said some are “not people…they’re animals….hardened criminals, hundreds of thousands of them.”
And the final kicker, to explain it all: Biden is a “stupid president.” He is “the worst and most incompetent and most crooked president we’ve ever had. How did this happen? What a fake election we had.” He followed this by reading an allegory about a poisonous snake who is welcomed into the home of a kind woman who wants to save him, but eventually bites and kills her as he grows stronger. Trump mocked this woman’s innocence.
The list of delusional declarations was long, often followed by hearty applause. Among them:
“We had the most successful economy in the history of our country by far. We really had the most successful economy probably in the history of the world.”
“If the voting were real, I think we won most of the country.”
“All the persecution is only happening because I’m running and leading in the polls. If I wasn’t running, I wouldn’t be indicted.”
“The radical Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the election in 2024.”
“I’m being indicted for you. They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”
“In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I just happen to be standing in the way.”
“If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure you’re ever going to have another election.”
Tying for the most ridiculous claim: “The only reason the stock market is good is because people think Trump is going to be elected president.” And, while Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln had their troubles, “Nobody comes close to Trump in political persecution.”
Taking the cake for the most despicable claim: “We did a great job with some unknown disease.” As if his suppression of scientific data, minimizing of COVID-19’s dangers, support of mass gatherings, ridicule of mask-wearing and failed vaccine rollout should be forgotten, along with the deaths of 450,000 Americans (many of them avoidable) in the last year of his presidency alone.
Trump dished out his usual flurry of slurs, attacking each of the prosecutors who’ve indicted him, as well as strong Biden advocates like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. As much as he relished his childish attacks, his cheering crowd appeared to love them more.
I listened to that hour-plus speech so that you don’t have to. Ostensibly, it was intended to stump for Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland businessman who is running to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. Moreno was only lightly mentioned by the narcissistic Trump, although he was brought up on stage to say a few words—and essentially to praise Trump.
Interestingly, when Trump was running in 2016, Moreno called him a “lunatic” and a “maniac” and tweeted that Trump was “like watching a car accident that makes you sick, but you can’t stop looking.” But on this day, needing Trump’s endorsement, Moreno called Trump “a great American” and complained while standing next to him, “I am so sick and tired of Republicans that say, ‘I support President Trump’s policies but I don’t like the man.’” Like so many self-serving others, Moreno had changed his tune.
We should not underestimate Trump’s ability to convince voters to believe his delusions and lies. We can only hope there will be a rising chorus of high-profile Republicans still capable of rational thought to assert the depth of his unfitness, just as former Vice President Dick Cheney did this weekend in a short video and former Vice President Mike Pence did in refusing to endorse the man who used to attract his total adoring gaze.
But over and over, Trump proves his ability to destroy the reputation of any Republican who threatens his quest to untether voters from reality and serve himself. And he is clearly intensifying his hateful rhetoric in order to whip up the base as we head toward November.
Yet Trump cannot win in 2024 if he fails to attract a wider circle of voters and turnout is strong. That’s why I hope you will take the time to pay attention to what he says and remind any fence-sitters you know who may have forgotten or ignored who and what this dangerous man is.
REMINDERS:
How the GOP Became the Party of Trump's Election Lie After Jan 6
06 january 22
He wrote that there was probably some fraud and illegal votes cast, but concluded, “Was it anywhere near enough to change the result, no.”
But just over a year later, Moreno — now a candidate in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary — has deleted the tweets calling for unity and, in a new campaign ad, looks directly into the camera and declares, “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
“Just generally, the election was stolen,” Moreno said in an interview with The Washington Post. “There’s no question about that.”
Moreno is emblematic of the modern Republican Party, echoing former president Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen — a position that has become the unofficial litmus test for good standing within the GOP.
As the nation prepares Thursday to mark the anniversary of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Trump has pushed a majority of his party into a full embrace of his false election fraud charges, while simultaneously leading the ongoing efforts to whitewash the violence carried out that day by a pro-Trump mob.
At least 163 Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false claims are running for statewide positions that would give them authority over the administration of elections, according to a Post tally. The list includes 69 candidates for governor in 30 states, as well as 55 candidates for the U.S. Senate, 13 candidates for state attorney general and 18 candidates for secretary of state in places where that person is the state’s top election official.
At least five candidates for the U.S. House were at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots, including Jason Riddle of New Hampshire, whom federal prosecutors have accused of chugging wine inside the building that day.
Trump is “absolutely” the most influential figure in the party, Riddle said in an interview, but he doesn’t expect an endorsement from Trump because it would be too controversial. “He wants some distance from the rioters,” he said, adding: “I’d love it if he ran again.”
Riddle added that if he’s sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes, “I’ll run from jail. It will give me something to do.”
And of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last January for inciting an insurrection, each has received at least one primary challenger. Rep. Tom Rice (S.C.), for example, faces at least 10 primary opponents in his reelection bid and was censured by his own state party, which also did not invite him to a major Republican conference in his hometown of Myrtle Beach.
Others, like Reps. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), have since announced they don’t plan to seek reelection. Another Trump critic, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), was ousted from her leadership post and replaced by a Trump loyalist; she is now vice chair of the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Daniel Ziblatt, a professor at Harvard University and the co-author of “How Democracies Die,” said that many Americans expected Jan. 6 to “be a breaking point, where Republicans would finally have an excuse to separate themselves from Trumpism.”
“But, in fact, what we’ve seen is very much the opposite, in which a lot Republican politicians have begun to think it is in their interest electorally to support the lie,” Ziblatt said.
Another striking illustration of the Republican Party’s evolution can be seen in its “Young Guns” program, which identifies candidates in competitive House districts who have shown they can raise money and whose campaign messages sync with the party’s views. One of the group’s early poster children, back in 2010, was Kinzinger.
Now, of the 32 candidates identified so far by the “Young Guns” program as having promise in the 2022 cycle, at least 12 have embraced the new Republican orthodoxy that fraud tainted the 2020 election. One of them, former Navy SEAL Eli Crane of Arizona, used Twitter to call on his state legislature to decertify the election and demand a criminal investigation.
Another candidate identified by the program, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, embraced a fantastical and discredited theory that machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were programmed to switch votes from Trump to Biden. Luna met with Trump in 2021 and has been endorsed by Trump as a “warrior” and a “winner.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee, which runs the program, has fundraised extensively off Trump while highlighting and recruiting candidates who have claimed the election was stolen. Yet its chairman, Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), was among the minority of House Republicans who voted to certify the 2020 election results and has repeatedly encouraged Trump to move on from the topic in his public appearances.
“Candidates know the issues most important to their voters. Right now the midterms are going to be a referendum on Democrats’ rank incompetence that’s led to skyrocketing prices, rising crime and a crisis along the southern border,” said NRCC spokesman Michael McAdams, when asked whether Republican candidates still should be talking about the 2020 election.
Nonetheless, Trump has spent much of his post-presidency marinating in false voting claims and electoral conspiracy theories. He has pushed Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and other Republican officials to claim on television that the election was stolen, and repeatedly pressed the topic with Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to Republicans familiar with the conversations.
The RNC is launching a range of new initiatives related to elections, including plans for filing lawsuits in states, hiring more elections-related officials and recruiting more volunteers, said Justin Riemer, the RNC’s chief counsel. The aim is to stanch some of Trump’s criticism while not endorsing his most incendiary and false rhetoric, party officials and strategists say.
“There is always going to be pressure on the RNC to try to do more than it has,” Riemer said in a recent interview.
NRSC spokesman Chris Hartline said the committee is focused more on efforts to change election rules in the future than a relitigation of 2020. “Our position is that there is a way to talk about this that is politically advantageous and actually charts a path forward,” Hartline said.
In interviews with Republican candidates seeking his endorsement, Trump almost always brings up the question of election fraud, though he does not base his final decision solely on that topic, two advisers said. The former president regularly calls political allies in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania — three of the five states that flipped to Biden in 2020 — to rail about the election results, one of the advisers added, and receives updates on what state lawmakers are doing to combat election fraud from Liz Harrington, his “Stop the Steal” promoter and spokeswoman.
Trump has been frustrated that some in the GOP, particularly prominent Republicans in the Senate, have not been willing to echo his claims — and that an overwhelming majority of the body voted to certify the election.
“Americans must have confidence in the voting process — a confidence that was destroyed by Democrats during the 2020 Election,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a statement. “ . . . Voters demand it and Republicans across the nation are following President Trump’s lead to restore election integrity.”
According to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in December, 58 percent of Republicans think Biden’s election was not legitimate, and 62 percent think there is solid evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Moreno, for his part, says that as he has learned more about the 2020 election, his thinking has evolved from those early tweets endorsing the outcome. He cited mainstream media and big technology companies colluding against Trump, states that changed election laws and what he views as the possibility that Trump’s claims of massive fraud are legitimate.
Moreno said “the door was flung open” to fraud and abuse during 2020 and he, like Trump, is still trying to answer one key question: “How much actual fraud was there?”
“That doesn’t mean that the results are overturned,” Moreno said. “What it does mean is that we need to learn and say, ‘Wow. What happened? And how do we make certain that something like this never, ever happens again?’ ”
Rewriting the narrative
The whitewashing of Jan. 6 began that very night.
Just hours after the insurrection — which resulted in five deaths, including a police officer — 139 House members and eight senators returned to the desecrated Capitol and voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump and his allies, too, began rewriting the narrative almost immediately.
Some falsely claimed leftist “antifa” protesters were behind the violence. Others falsely argued there was very little violence on Jan. 6 or, as Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) claimed, the riot was simply “a normal tourist visit.” And some Republicans rebranded those arrested in the aftermath of the insurrection as “political prisoners.”
Trump and his supporters have also sought to make a martyr of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was shot and killed on Jan. 6 by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby — the hallway just off the House chamber, from which lawmakers were still being evacuated.
Trump has described her death as a murder, and called for “justice” for Babbitt. In a posthumous birthday video he taped for her, the former president called Babbitt “a truly incredible person” and offered his “unwavering support” to her family. Babbitt’s mother and brother have said in recent interviews with The Post that they believe Trump is critical to drawing attention to her death — and reframing the public’s understanding of the day — and they continue to support him.
“He would be our best candidate to put forward at this point,” said Michelle Witthoeft, Babbitt’s mother. “He has an amazing way to move people that I have rarely seen — the people that are loyal to Donald Trump will walk through walls for him. That is a quality in a president that is rare. It is really impressive.”
But some Republicans are eager to move past the day, arguing that dwelling on the attacks could hurt them politically. Former vice president Mike Pence — who was a target of the rioters, some of whom were chanting to hang him for treason — has spoken only fleetingly of the events, largely criticizing media coverage that he says was intended to “demean” Trump supporters.
The impact of distorting or downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection can be seen in public opinion. The Post-UMD poll found that 36 percent of Republicans described the protesters who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 as “mostly peaceful,” and that a majority of Republicans, 72 percent, say Trump bears “just some” or “no responsibility” for the attack.
Trump initially planned to hold a news conference at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday, to try to reframe the insurrection on its anniversary and highlight his claims of election fraud. But late Tuesday, Trump announced in a statement that he was canceling the event amid growing concern among Republican lawmakers and some of his own advisers that he would face blowback for turning the somber occasion into a spectacle.
Nonetheless, the former president struck a defiant note, saying in the statement that protesters descended on Washington last Jan. 6 to fight “the fraud of the 2020 Presidential Election.”
“This was, indeed, the Crime of the Century,” he wrote.
‘I think Trump won’
In mid-December, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt co-moderated a Republican gubernatorial debate in Minnesota and opened by asking all the primary candidates the same, seemingly simple question: “In your opinion, did President Biden win a constitutional majority in the electoral college?”
Not one of the five hopefuls clearly stated that Biden had won the election.
The next day, on his radio show, Hewitt posed the same question to Josh Mandel, a Republican senatorial candidate in Ohio.
“I do not believe he won — I think Trump won,” Mandel replied. He went on to say that the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin still need to be “fully investigated — and none of them have.”
The answers underscore just how thoroughly Trump has remade the party in the image of his own false claims. The former president has spent the past year endorsing candidates who have embraced his view of widespread voter fraud, in some cases burrowing into even hyperlocal legislative races.
One such candidate is Mike Detmer, who is running for the state Senate in Michigan, and who once defended the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, in a Facebook post and tweeted repeatedly in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that antifa and the Capitol Police were to blame.
“The Republican Party needs to focus on the truth, and the only way you can get the truth is to go look for it,” Detmer said in an interview, adding that he wants a “full forensic audit here in Michigan” to determine whether the election was truly stolen.
In his endorsement, Trump attacked Detmer’s GOP opponent, incumbent Lana Theis, who helped produce a legislative report finding that allegations of election fraud in the state were “demonstrably false.”
Trump has developed a particular fixation on Michigan — one of the states he lost to Biden — detailing in multiple statements in November that he wants a “new Legislature” because current lawmakers are “cowards” and “too spineless to investigate election fraud.” The state offers a clear glimpse of how extensively Trump is working to reshape the GOP.
In addition to state lawmakers, Trump has endorsed a candidate for Michigan secretary of state, Kristina Karamo, who claimed without evidence that she witnessed fraud as a poll-watcher in Detroit last year and has accused incumbent Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) of breaking the law in her administration of elections.
For Michigan attorney general, Trump is backing Matthew DePerno, who made a name for himself pushing lawsuits seeking to overturn Michigan’s 2020 results. DePerno is widely credited for launching the audit craze among Trump supporters with his early demands for such an examination in Antrim, Mich., after an early error in the conservative county put Biden ahead. The error was caught and corrected, but DePerno falsely claimed it was evidence that machines made by Dominion Voting Systems had switched votes from Trump to Biden.
‘Long-term, I think we’re screwed’
Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the threat to democracy that these candidates represent cannot be overstated. Secretaries of state set election policy and in some cases are responsible for certifying elections. Attorneys general have the power to sue to block illegal attempts to subvert an election result.
“There is no question that if I am replaced by Matthew DePerno, democracy falls in Michigan,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D). “Not maybe. Not possibly. Certainly. He has made it clear not only that he supports the ‘Big Lie’ — he’s one of the originators of the ‘Big Lie.’ ” DePerno declined to comment.
Among Trump supporters, the former president’s endorsement remains coveted, and that often means professing support for his baseless claims. One prominent Republican consultant who has advised clients on getting Trump’s endorsement said he increasing counsels candidates to walk a fine line.
The former president “isn’t going to endorse you if you say he’s wrong and there was no fraud, but you don’t want to make your whole campaign about that either,” the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of private conversations.
For Republicans like Paul Boyer, a state senator from Arizona, Trump’s demands of fealty to his false electoral claims are deeply troubling. Boyer was critical of Arizona’s 2020 election audit and was also the only Republican senator to vote against holding the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt.
Boyer said he expects Republicans to do well in the 2022 midterms but that “long-term, I think we’re screwed as a party.”
“When you’ve got Trump telling the base the system is rigged, don’t vote, they believe him, and that’s why we lost control of the U.S. Senate, that’s why we lost the two Georgia seats,” Boyer said.
He is also frustrated that someone like him, a stalwart conservative, can suddenly find himself with no obvious place in the party. “If you ask any of my Democratic colleagues, they’ll tell you how conservative I am,” Boyer said. “And the fact that on one issue I didn’t agree with the party makes my belief on limited government, on school choice, on life, on public safety all out the window — it’s like, no, I’m not a moderate.”
Boyer plans to step down at the end of his current term and return to teaching high school literature and Latin. Part of him, he said, would like to run again, “to prove that part of the party wrong, that there is room for me in the party.”
“But I’m just so tired,” Boyer said.
Trump-backed Senate candidate faces GOP worries that he could be linked to adult website profile
Updated 10:30 PM EDT, March 14, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — For Republicans eager to regain the Senate majority this year, Ohio offers a prime opportunity to pick up a critical seat.
But ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, there’s mounting anxiety inside the GOP that Bernie Moreno may emerge with the nomination. After vaulting into the top tier of contenders with a coveted endorsement from Donald Trump, Moreno — who has shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ rights to a hardline opponent — is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder.
“Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,” reads a caption on a photo-less profile under the username “nardo19672,” according to an Associated Press review of records made public through a massive and well-publicized data breach of the website. Records also show the profile was last accessed about six hours after it was created.
The AP review confirmed that someone with access to Moreno’s email account created the profile, though the AP could not definitively confirm whether it was created by Moreno himself. Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month. On Thursday evening, two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer said a former intern created the account as a prank. The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
“I am thoroughly embarrassed by an aborted prank I pulled on my friend, and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago,” Ricci said. The AP couldn’t independently confirm Ricci’s statement and he didn’t immediately respond to messages left for him on multiple phone numbers listed to him. He donated $6,599 to Moreno’s campaign last year, according to campaign finance records.
Moreno’s lawyer, Charles Harder, insisted Moreno “had nothing to do with the AFF account.”
Once a premier swing state, Ohio has moved sharply to the right in recent years. Trump easily won the state in 2016 and 2020 and the GOP controls top statewide offices along with both chambers of the legislature. That has raised hopes among Republicans that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won’t be able to overcome the headwinds that have largely swept his party out of power in Ohio.
And with Republicans just one seat short of a Senate majority if they also win the presidency, the results in Ohio could have major implications for the balance of power in Washington.
The dynamics have raised the stakes for Trump, who sided with Moreno in a crowded field that includes Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan. Trump is scheduled to appear alongside Moreno on Saturday at a rally in Dayton, Ohio.
In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung blamed the media for being “obsessed with anyone who supports the America First movement.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — For Republicans eager to regain the Senate majority this year, Ohio offers a prime opportunity to pick up a critical seat.
But ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, there’s mounting anxiety inside the GOP that Bernie Moreno may emerge with the nomination. After vaulting into the top tier of contenders with a coveted endorsement from Donald Trump, Moreno — who has shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ rights to a hardline opponent — is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder.
“Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,” reads a caption on a photo-less profile under the username “nardo19672,” according to an Associated Press review of records made public through a massive and well-publicized data breach of the website. Records also show the profile was last accessed about six hours after it was created.
The AP review confirmed that someone with access to Moreno’s email account created the profile, though the AP could not definitively confirm whether it was created by Moreno himself. Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month. On Thursday evening, two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer said a former intern created the account as a prank. The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
“I am thoroughly embarrassed by an aborted prank I pulled on my friend, and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago,” Ricci said. The AP couldn’t independently confirm Ricci’s statement and he didn’t immediately respond to messages left for him on multiple phone numbers listed to him. He donated $6,599 to Moreno’s campaign last year, according to campaign finance records.
Moreno’s lawyer, Charles Harder, insisted Moreno “had nothing to do with the AFF account.”
Once a premier swing state, Ohio has moved sharply to the right in recent years. Trump easily won the state in 2016 and 2020 and the GOP controls top statewide offices along with both chambers of the legislature. That has raised hopes among Republicans that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won’t be able to overcome the headwinds that have largely swept his party out of power in Ohio.
And with Republicans just one seat short of a Senate majority if they also win the presidency, the results in Ohio could have major implications for the balance of power in Washington.
The dynamics have raised the stakes for Trump, who sided with Moreno in a crowded field that includes Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan. Trump is scheduled to appear alongside Moreno on Saturday at a rally in Dayton, Ohio.
In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung blamed the media for being “obsessed with anyone who supports the America First movement.”
GOP frustration
Moreno’s potential vulnerability has sparked frustration among senior Republican operatives and elected officials in Washington and Ohio, according to seven people who are directly familiar with conversations about how to address the matter. The people requested anonymity to avoid running afoul of Trump and his allies. They described concerns surrounding Moreno’s candidacy as so acute that some party officials sought a review of data to determine his potential involvement.
That review, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, linked the profile to Moreno’s work email address.
The AP’s independent review reached the same conclusion. The AP obtained data from the Adult Friend Finder leak as well as information that remains publicly accessible on the company’s website. An analysis of those records show the profile was created and authenticated by someone who had access to Moreno’s work email account.
Beyond the work email, the profile lists Moreno’s correct date of birth, while geolocation data indicates that the account was set up for use in a part of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where property records show Moreno’s parents owned a home at the time. The account’s username — nardo19672 — appears to refer to Moreno’s full first name, Bernardo, as well as the year and month of his birth in February 1967.
“This is a telling example of how this data doesn’t just go away,” said Jake Williams, a prominent cybersecurity researcher and a former National Security Agency offensive hacker who independently confirmed that Moreno’s work email address was included in a copy of the leaked data from Adult Friend Finder.
Harder also provided a statement from Helder Rosa, a former vice president for Bernie Moreno Companies, that said Ricci was an intern in November 2008 and that people in such roles had duties that included checking emails. Rosa has donated $12,400 to Moreno’s two campaigns for Senate, according to campaign finance records. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moreno, 57, was born in Colombia to a wealthy family before immigrating to Florida as a child and becoming a U.S. citizen at the age of 18, according to a biography on his website. He purchased his first car dealership in 2005 and used his wealth to build an empire that came to include high-end dealerships in multiple states.
Moreno’s potential vulnerability has sparked frustration among senior Republican operatives and elected officials in Washington and Ohio, according to seven people who are directly familiar with conversations about how to address the matter. The people requested anonymity to avoid running afoul of Trump and his allies. They described concerns surrounding Moreno’s candidacy as so acute that some party officials sought a review of data to determine his potential involvement.
That review, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, linked the profile to Moreno’s work email address.
The AP’s independent review reached the same conclusion. The AP obtained data from the Adult Friend Finder leak as well as information that remains publicly accessible on the company’s website. An analysis of those records show the profile was created and authenticated by someone who had access to Moreno’s work email account.
Beyond the work email, the profile lists Moreno’s correct date of birth, while geolocation data indicates that the account was set up for use in a part of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where property records show Moreno’s parents owned a home at the time. The account’s username — nardo19672 — appears to refer to Moreno’s full first name, Bernardo, as well as the year and month of his birth in February 1967.
“This is a telling example of how this data doesn’t just go away,” said Jake Williams, a prominent cybersecurity researcher and a former National Security Agency offensive hacker who independently confirmed that Moreno’s work email address was included in a copy of the leaked data from Adult Friend Finder.
Harder also provided a statement from Helder Rosa, a former vice president for Bernie Moreno Companies, that said Ricci was an intern in November 2008 and that people in such roles had duties that included checking emails. Rosa has donated $12,400 to Moreno’s two campaigns for Senate, according to campaign finance records. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moreno, 57, was born in Colombia to a wealthy family before immigrating to Florida as a child and becoming a U.S. citizen at the age of 18, according to a biography on his website. He purchased his first car dealership in 2005 and used his wealth to build an empire that came to include high-end dealerships in multiple states.
Shifting views
And before Moreno began articulating anti-LGBTQ views during his runs for public office, he made comments that seemed to reflect acceptance of homosexuality.
When Cleveland and Akron won their bid to host the 2014 Gay Games, an Olympics-like international competition featuring LGBTQ athletes, Moreno was an enthusiastic supporter while his auto dealership company was a financial sponsor, according to an opinion article he wrote for the business publication Crain’s Cleveland Business.
“A successful Gay Games would go a long way toward boosting our images as cities that welcome all,” Moreno wrote while issuing a call for northeast Ohio’s philanthropic community to rally behind the event. “They need help to put them on. Hosting a complex multi-venue event requires a network of financial supporters and volunteers. It must be a community effort.”
During a 2016 question and answer session posted to his company’s YouTube page, Moreno noted that his eldest son is gay, while crediting the TV show “Modern Family” with changing perceptions about same-sex marriage.
“We watched these two guys and, we say: ’You know what? They’re good guys, they’re great people. ... They are not this distorted thing that is out there.’ And I think those are the kinds of ways that you can break down stereotypes,” Moreno said during the event.
When fliers appeared on the campus of Cleveland State University in October 2017 urging gay and transgender students to commit suicide, Moreno, who was then chairman of the school’s board of trustees, was the leading signer of a letter condemning the “abhorrent message” as “an attack on our whole campus.”
As recently as 2020, his companies were included on a list of Ohio businesses that supported a law banning discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Leaders of Equality Ohio, a leading LGBTQ rights group in the state, said Moreno joined the campaign supporting the legislation after a conversation with the organization’s leadership in 2017 during event promoting the bill.
But that all appeared to change when Moreno first ran for Senate in 2021 before bowing out of the race early. He began to distance himself from his past activism, professing to be unfamiliar with the anti-discrimination legislation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported at the time.
During his current Senate campaign, Moreno has accused advocates for LGBTQ rights of advancing a “radical” agenda of “indoctrination.” He is endorsed by Ohio Value Voters, a group that opposes LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage. And his campaign’s social media accounts have blasted his opponents, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Sen. Matt Dolan, as supporters of a “radical trans agenda.”
A recent TV ad paid for by Buckeye Values, a pro-Moreno super PAC, superimposes a picture of LaRose over a rainbow flag while attacking him as “a champion for trans equality.” The ad cites LaRose’s past endorsement for a bill — which Moreno’s company previously supported — that would have banned discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
“Can you trust Frank LaRose?” a narrator asks, while also criticizing LaRose for making favorable statements in the past about Equality Ohio, a prominent gay rights group. Moreno supported the same legislation through his companies.
Donald Trump Jr. later posted the ad to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, stating “I have no doubt” Ohio voters will elect “the real conservative @berniemoreno over leftwing, pro-trans Frank LaRose.”
Moreno’s shifting rhetoric on LGBTQ issues “is a real shame,” said Maria Bruno, the public policy director for Equality Ohio, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. ”Anyone who is going to be compromising their value system just to win an election, they lose a lot of credibility.”
And before Moreno began articulating anti-LGBTQ views during his runs for public office, he made comments that seemed to reflect acceptance of homosexuality.
When Cleveland and Akron won their bid to host the 2014 Gay Games, an Olympics-like international competition featuring LGBTQ athletes, Moreno was an enthusiastic supporter while his auto dealership company was a financial sponsor, according to an opinion article he wrote for the business publication Crain’s Cleveland Business.
“A successful Gay Games would go a long way toward boosting our images as cities that welcome all,” Moreno wrote while issuing a call for northeast Ohio’s philanthropic community to rally behind the event. “They need help to put them on. Hosting a complex multi-venue event requires a network of financial supporters and volunteers. It must be a community effort.”
During a 2016 question and answer session posted to his company’s YouTube page, Moreno noted that his eldest son is gay, while crediting the TV show “Modern Family” with changing perceptions about same-sex marriage.
“We watched these two guys and, we say: ’You know what? They’re good guys, they’re great people. ... They are not this distorted thing that is out there.’ And I think those are the kinds of ways that you can break down stereotypes,” Moreno said during the event.
When fliers appeared on the campus of Cleveland State University in October 2017 urging gay and transgender students to commit suicide, Moreno, who was then chairman of the school’s board of trustees, was the leading signer of a letter condemning the “abhorrent message” as “an attack on our whole campus.”
As recently as 2020, his companies were included on a list of Ohio businesses that supported a law banning discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Leaders of Equality Ohio, a leading LGBTQ rights group in the state, said Moreno joined the campaign supporting the legislation after a conversation with the organization’s leadership in 2017 during event promoting the bill.
But that all appeared to change when Moreno first ran for Senate in 2021 before bowing out of the race early. He began to distance himself from his past activism, professing to be unfamiliar with the anti-discrimination legislation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported at the time.
During his current Senate campaign, Moreno has accused advocates for LGBTQ rights of advancing a “radical” agenda of “indoctrination.” He is endorsed by Ohio Value Voters, a group that opposes LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage. And his campaign’s social media accounts have blasted his opponents, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Sen. Matt Dolan, as supporters of a “radical trans agenda.”
A recent TV ad paid for by Buckeye Values, a pro-Moreno super PAC, superimposes a picture of LaRose over a rainbow flag while attacking him as “a champion for trans equality.” The ad cites LaRose’s past endorsement for a bill — which Moreno’s company previously supported — that would have banned discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
“Can you trust Frank LaRose?” a narrator asks, while also criticizing LaRose for making favorable statements in the past about Equality Ohio, a prominent gay rights group. Moreno supported the same legislation through his companies.
Donald Trump Jr. later posted the ad to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, stating “I have no doubt” Ohio voters will elect “the real conservative @berniemoreno over leftwing, pro-trans Frank LaRose.”
Moreno’s shifting rhetoric on LGBTQ issues “is a real shame,” said Maria Bruno, the public policy director for Equality Ohio, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. ”Anyone who is going to be compromising their value system just to win an election, they lose a lot of credibility.”
___
Associated Press data journalist Larry Fenn contributed to this report from New York.
BERNIE MORENO ADULT WEBSITE
Associated Press data journalist Larry Fenn contributed to this report from New York.
BERNIE MORENO ADULT WEBSITE
"R" VOTERS ARE CONSPICUOULSY UNINFORMED, REFUSE TO DO ANY
RESEARCH & EMBRACE DELUSIONS....BERNIE MORENO IS JUST ANOTHER
EXAMPLE
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