Trump-Backed GOP Candidate For Ohio Senate Was Once Fierce Critic Of Former President, CNN’s KFile Reveals
AP Photo/Charles Krupa
CNN’s KFile revealed that the Trump-backed candidate to replace Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), one of the GOP’s top 2024 U.S. Senate pick-up opportunities, was once a fierce Trump critic. Bernie Moreno, a car dealership owner and businessman, has also been deleting his past tweets slamming Donald Trump since receiving his endorsement, reported CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck.
“There’s no scenario in which I would support Trump,” Moreno said during a radio interview in 2016, accusing Trump of exploiting people’s “worst emotions.”
“If Trump is the nominee, I think the Republican party is now a different party and not a party that I want to be a part of,” added Moreno, who was born in Columbia, but raised in the U.S.
“What Trump’s message is really about, is that the America that we really want? Where hatred is stoked and fears are what drive our decision making?” he added. In 2016, Moreno also called Trump a “fake Republican” and accused him of “conspiring” with Hillary Clinton to destroy the GOP.
In 2020, Moreno also blamed Trump for the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and congratulated Biden for beating him. “[Trump] deserves lots and lots of blame for this. He didn’t calm tensions; no one (and certainly not me) has excuses [sic] that behavior,” CNN reported he tweeted.
CNN’s KFile called Moreno’s pivot to Trump and embrace of MAGA world politics “stark” and added:
Moreno now attacks the “wine-sipping country club Republicans” who are “offended by President Trump’s words.” He characterizes individuals imprisoned for Capitol riot-related offenses as “political prisoners,” claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and alleges collaboration between “big tech,” “the swamp,” the corporate media, and Democrats to rig the election.
CNN noted, however, that Moreno is certainly not the first GOP candidate to have publicly slammed Trump and later been welcomed as an ally. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who would be Moreno’s home state colleague should be beat Brown, once called Trump “America’s Hitler” and a “moral disaster” before becoming one of his most loyal sycophants.
