Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno speaks during the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, said incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown had let Ohio down and was “tries to reinvent itself as something completely different” than what he is.
“He is a complete liar” Moreno said of Brown on Wednesday. “He’s fake, he’s tired, he’s old, just like the campaign he’s running.”
Moreno, a former auto dealer and blockchain owner, is in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country against Brown, who is seeking his fourth six-year term in the Nov. 5 election.
Moreno, who began a six-day campaign tour of Ohio on Monday, was at the Mahoning County Republican Party headquarters in Boardman for a rally Wednesday night. He spoke exclusively with The Vindicator and the Tribune Chronicle and Ogden Newspapers before the event.
Moreno, who won the three-candidate Republican primary in March, said former President Donald Trump, the party’s presidential candidate in this election, “will definitely campaign for me” Ohio.
“I am honored that President Trump endorsed me and that JD Vance (Ohio’s other senator, a Republican and Trump’s vice presidential candidate) endorsed me,” he said.
Moreno said that if Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, “If anyone sets foot in Ohio territory or (President) Joe Biden, Sherrod Brown will run to his basement and hide because he’s trying to convince the people of Ohio that he has nothing to do with them when in reality he’s a liar because he voted with them and supported them almost 100 percent of the time.”
Brown said he supported Harris’s presidential candidacy – and two days earlier publicly called on Biden to withdraw his re-election bid – but said he did not plan to campaign alongside Harris.
Trump, who won Ohio by about 8 percent in 2016 and 2020, is expected to win again in November. Democrats have written off Ohio, once considered a key swing state for the presidency.
Moreno is loyal to Trump, despite being critical of him in the past. Moreno has claimed in other interviews during the Senate campaign that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, a lie repeated by many Trump supporters.
During the interview on Wednesday, Moreno was asked about the 2020 elections and why he congratulated Biden on the Democrat’s victory.
Moreno said: “Every American should cheer for whoever wins the election for president of the United States. You want them to succeed. So, yes, in November 2020, I congratulated Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because you want them to succeed. Americans should want their president to succeed. Has he succeeded? Absolutely not. He was a disastrously bad president.”
Under Biden, Moreno said, the southern border is open, there is “An attack on America’s energy supply, we’ve seen generations of high inflation, interest rates crushing working Americans, instability around the world. We have rampant crime across the country. This country is weaker than it’s ever been because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown stood by them and enabled their agenda.”
Moreno did not address allegations of electoral fraud.
Trump falsely claimed on July 31 that Harris “She happened to become black and now she wants to be known as black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?”
Harris’ mother was Indian and her father was Jamaican, and she identifies as Black and Asian American.
When asked about Trump’s statement, Moreno said: “It’s all just a distraction. I wasn’t offended when the New York Times said, ‘I’m not Hispanic.'”
A May 12 Times article provided extensive details about Moreno’s Hispanic heritage, including his ties to Colombia, where he was born.
Moreno said Trump’s comment about Harris “is not what people are interested in.”
Their concerns, he said, are high grocery prices and runaway inflation.
“We should not make this election campaign into nonsense,” said Moreno. “This is a campaign on issues that matter to people.”
Ohioans want a secure border, “American energy dominance”, These included restoring the middle class, bringing manufacturing back to the country, reducing government bureaucracy, moving federal agencies out of Washington DC and giving parents responsibility for their children’s education, Moreno said.
“Let’s make this election a political decision for once, an argument about why your vision for the country is different from that of your opponent, rather than a policy of personal destruction.” he said.
Moreno’s business dealings have been questioned by his two Republican challengers in the primary – Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Senator Matt Dolan – and Brown is airing ads that talk about Moreno settling wage theft lawsuits. A Massachusetts jury ordered him to pay more than $400,000 to two former employees for violating the state’s labor laws and failing to pay overtime.
Moreno admitted in a testimony that he destroyed paper copies of monthly reports containing overtime information, despite being told to keep all records.
Moreno said on Wednesday: “Sherrod Brown’s commercial about document shredding is completely false,” And “We did nothing wrong. We followed the law.”
Moreno also said that he does not manage payroll for his thousands of employees himself, but that it is handled by ADP, one of the largest U.S. companies by revenue.
“They are the ones who did it,” said Moreno. “This is utter rubbish.”
Moreno said: “I compare my record to that of any businessman. In business, there are always litigations. That’s what we have a court system for. Sherrod Brown has to lie about this, like he lies about everything else.”
Moreno said he has only been sued five times in 15 years of business.
Brown’s campaign on Wednesday referred comments about Moreno to the Ohio Democratic Party.
The ODP accompanies Moreno’s election campaign with an inflatable “fat cat”, what the candidate noticed.
“Sherrod Brown has to blow up stuffed animals in a parking lot because he can’t defend his record, and that’s not what people want to hear,” said Moreno.
Katie Smith, a spokeswoman for the ODP, said: “The big shot is out of the bag when it comes to Bernie Moreno’s long-standing policy of putting himself above workers. From stealing his employees’ wages and destroying evidence to trying to avoid paying them to lying about selling Chinese cars at the expense of Mahoning Valley workers, Ohioans see that Moreno will not fight for them because he is only looking out for his own benefit.”
