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Why Trump Will Pay the Price for MAGA’s Vilest Ad: Author

Michael Wolff has revealed the catch to the president’s “Hail Mary” backing of Vivek Ramaswamy’s vile ad.

Donald Trump’s doubling down on Vivek Ramaswamy’s vile ad is a political gamble that will blow up in his face, his longtime biographer says.

Michael Wolff says Trump’s fierce defense of Ramaswamy targeting his Democratic opponent’s abuse-filled childhood shows he is becoming increasingly isolated.

“This has backfired in every possible sense of the word,” Wolff said on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast. “I mean, disavowed by Republicans, Democrats. All voters seem to be completely appalled by this. You can basically find no one to think this was a good idea except Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump, and JD Vance.”

The ad, which features Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother calling her a “liar,” left out crucial context; the pair have been estranged since 1978, when Acton was 12 and accused her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, of raping her. Donna sided with Arthur, who was charged with sexual abuse but fled the state before his trial, rather than her daughter, and lost custody.

While Ramaswamy, 41, has publicly projected defiance, Trump let slip that the billionaire called him in a panic over the backlash to his ad on the homestretch of his gubernatorial campaign in Ohio.

Speaking at a rally Thursday, Trump said, “But then I got a call from Vivek; he said, ‘What would you recommend? Because I’m getting killed in the press.’ Why? He said, ‘Because they think I should immediately take the ad off.’”

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Trump said he told Ramaswamy, “You gotta ride with it.” He then went as far as calling the vile video “the single greatest ad in history.”

Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles that “the political point here is that they believe, and so much of Donald Trump’s career would support this, that the illiberal and the cold-hearted and the ‘f--k you’ and the ‘owning the libs’ works.”

He continued, “In this desperate moment for the Republicans, down to the wire, these close races which should not be close. This is their Hail Mary pass. ‘Let us revert to what has worked for us.’”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump biographer said the playbook has paid off for the president before. However, he said Ramaswamy will not get the same mileage out of it as he teeters “on the verge of losing this election.”

Wolff noted that the nonpartisan election forecaster Cook Political Report moved the Ohio gubernatorial race from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat” on Friday.

“We haven’t talked to a GOP source who thought this was a good idea,” wrote Jessica Taylor, Cook Political Report’s Senate and governor’s editor. “This is not the kind of TV ad you run if you’re winning—or even if you’re confident you can. Recent polls were trending in Acton’s direction even before the bombshell ad became a national news story.”

Wolff said Ramaswamy’s ad and his doubling down in the face of outrage is a microcosm of a broader test facing Trumpian politics.

“Does this continue to work, or have people suddenly woken up and said—going down the long list of... Trumpian accomplishments, or the reverse of accomplishments... from the war in Iran to the masked men on the streets, whether people have had enough of this.”

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Erkki ForsterNight News Reporter

Inside Trump's HeadPodcast

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