Why Vile MAGA Candidate’s Teacher Has a New Lesson for Him
Michael Pogue says Vivek Ramaswamy’s “dishonorable” attack on Amy Acton fails every standard he set for the Republican candidate in eighth grade.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Michael Pogue
Outrage far more profound than simple political differences led Vivek Ramaswamy’s eighth-grade English teacher to stand outside an Oct. 24 campaign stop with three signs whose collective message was intended for his former student.
Michael Pogue’s message for his former student stretched over several signs.
Courtesy of Michael Pogue
“You owe Dr. Acton a full retraction and sincere apology!... Shame on you, Vivek!... I taught you better!” read the words inscribed in black marker on white posterboard held by Michael Pogue outside Izzy’s Deli in Monroe, Ohio. A fourth sign said he had been Ramaswamy’s National Junior Honor Society adviser—as well as teacher—in 1999 at Princeton Junior High School in Cincinnati. Membership requires community service along with a 3.7 grade average.
Vivek Ramaswamy in his eighth-grade yearbook, when he was Pogue’s student.
Courtesy Michael Pogue
Dr. Amy Acton is the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor. Ramaswamy is her Republican opponent and spent $4 million on an ad in which her mother, Donna Arthur, says, “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.”
The 60-second spot fails to mention that Acton had not seen her mother since she was 12, when her stepfather was indicted for raping her. Acton’s account of sexual abuse has been corroborated by her brother and a stepsister, who both confirm that she lived in a tent outside Youngstown for a time. The stepsister told the Daily Mail that her father also raped another of his daughters, who is now deceased.
Pogue says Ramaswamy was a “bright” student, but cannot believe what he has stooped to as an adult.
Courtesy Michael Pogue
Pogue reacted to the ad as a teacher whose students had included several victims of serious abuse in each of his 30 years in the classroom. He understood that while the inclusion of her estranged mother would make the ad particularly painful for Acton, it was sure to hurt every victim who saw it.
Vivek Ramaswamy is spending around $4 million to air the ad online featuring Amy Acton's mother Donna Arthur.
YouTube
“I was so angry,” he told the Daily Beast. “I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? Don’t you realize what you’re doing? You’re not just attacking Dr. Acton.’ He’s, you know, dragging thousands of young people who endured this and survived it. Right back through the mud, right back through their most horrific nightmare.”
He continued: “[Ramaswamy] is so harming other people, and bringing them unhappiness, in order to get elected. That’s the most goddamn dishonorable thing I ever heard of…It’s the most dishonorable thing a National Junior Honor Society member of mine has ever done.”
Amy Acton has called the ad “despicable” and has not shied away from delivering her own retorts.
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Pogue noted that he taught books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
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“I was kind of the anti-bully guy in school and I did not tolerate bullying, in any way, shape, or form,” he said. “You better realize what you’re saying and doing, and how it hurts others. And, if [Ramaswamy] had done something like this to run for student council, I’d have put in for expulsion.”
He added: “Any number of students who I knew struggled with this. I went to court on behalf of students. I did depositions. And I sat in countless meetings with lying parents, which made Acton’s mother all too familiar.
“That poor, pathetic woman...is just like so many of the parents, just a lying sack of potatoes,” he said. “She’s a criminal. She stayed with a guy who was also a criminal, and raped her daughter and abused both the kids. I mean, are you kidding me?”
Ramaswamy’s run for governor follows his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images
Of similar parents at his school, he said: “I knew damn well they were lying, and that the kid was being terribly abused…Mostly, we’d find out because of the scars and bruises and such. That’s when a teacher would see. But oftentimes, because I was an English teacher, the students would write.”
Ramaswamy went on to the Catholic, all-male St. Xavier High School—the Jesuit school’s fees in 2026 are $19,500 a year—and then Harvard. He was in JD Vance’s class at Yale Law School and then made a fortune in pharma finance. He sometimes came by Princeton Junior High and said hello to Pogue, who speaks of him as one of many bright kids from his honors classes.
Pogue was confident that Ramaswamy would recognize him when he went to confront him at a campaign stop. The signs he prepared were not for news cameras or political opposition. He wanted to convey a message directly to a former student who was dishonoring the honor society.
“It’s so unacceptable,” Pogue told the Daily Beast. “I was so disappointed. I said, ‘You know, I’m going out there, and I’m not gonna have any Democratic signs or anything else. I just want to speak directly to Vivek.’”
Pogue got there before Ramaswamy’s campaign bus.
“I walked directly up to a Monroe police officer, and it turned out he was the captain. And we hit it off. We were just talking, having a good old time, talking police and teacher unions and all sorts of different stuff.”
Pogue says he was moved to personally remind Ramaswamy, but entered a game of cat-and-mouse with the candidate’s supporters.
Courtesy Michael Pogue.
Pogue asked where he could safely and legally position himself with his lawn chair and signs “and quietly make my statement.” The officer pointed out a nearby area; Pogue stood alone as a centrist Democrat, driven not by politics but by outraged decency, when the bus arrived a few minutes after noon and Ramaswamy strode inside.
“I know he saw me out the windows,” Pogue said.
Two young women from a small band of Ramaswamy supporters held up big campaign signs, either to block Pogue from seeing inside or to keep those inside from seeing him, or perhaps both. He would move, and then they would move, and then he would move, and then they would move.
“It was hysterical,” Pogue recalled. “I mean, I was having more damn fun at that point.”
Ramaswamy gave a few brief remarks and shook a few hands before departing without acknowledging Pogue. The police officer approached.
“He said that he had to work pretty hard, that just about everybody there had gone up to him, and said, ‘You know, can you make that guy go away?’ He told them, ‘No, he’s legally in a place where he can do whatever he wants like that.’ So he protected me. I was very proud of him.”
Pogue with his Junior National Honor Society in 2000.
Courtesy Michael Pogue
Ramaswamy cut the ad in half, but otherwise stuck to the Trumpian principles of never back down and never apologize. The remaining 30 seconds were still so vile that Pogue found it intolerable.
“It’s certainly not National Junior Honor Society standards,” Pogue said. “I’m retired now; if I still had any power with the Junior Honors, I would have his name expunged.”
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