Estranged relatives are fair game — unless they hurt Democrats

Much of the legacy media stops at nothing to find “inside information” to help take down Republicans.“Unnamed sources” and “sources close to the president” can always be counted on to spill the fake news beans on matters such as Trump-Russia collusion, the Steele dossier, Russian bounties on U.S. troops, and Hunter Biden’s laptop being a product of Russian disinformation.Of course, all of these “bombshells” get debunked in due time. But it’s difficult to disprove personal anecdotes about public figures that allegedly occur in private family settings.In 2020, not long before the presidential election, Mary Trump, a niece of President Donald Trump, was invited on to Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program to talk about her new book that dished on who her uncle really was behind the scenes.Maddow: “Did you ever hear him express, either use antisemitic slurs or the N-word or other racist slurs or other sentiments like that?”Mary Trump: “Oh yeah, of course I did, and I don’t think that should surprise anybody given how virulently racist he is today.”Maddow (after a dramatic pause): “Have you heard the president use the N-word?”Mary Trump: “Yeah.”Maddow: “And antisemitic slurs specifically?”Mary Trump: “Yes.”Maddow’s interview with Mary Trump ended up being a ratings smash for the network, drawing more than 5.2 million viewers. To this day, it is the highest rated episode of any regularly-scheduled program in MSNBC history. As a result, others rushed to get Mary Trump on, including George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton communications director turned news anchor at ABC News.At one point, Stephanopoulos asked Mary if Trump’s motivation for being president was to enrich himself, as she claimed in the book.“I’m a Trump. Everything is about money in this family,” she replied, while insisting she was totally different from her relatives. “Money stood in for everything else. It was literally the only currency that the family trafficked in.”“He is utterly incapable of leading this country. And it’s dangerous to allow him to do so,” she added.And when asked what she would say to Trump if she ever saw him face-to-face, she said she would tell him to resign.Strong words. Strong ratings. But there was one problem: Mary Trump hadn’t spoken to Donald Trump for years, not since April 2017 for a family celebration in the Oval Office.“Don’t let them get you down,” Mary Trump said she told President Trump at the time, indicating whatever interaction they had was brief and cordial. And before that gathering and notably during the 2016 presidential campaign, there is no public record of Mary ever saying anything negative about Donald.Mary Trump, niece of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the spin room after a presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Trump in Atlanta, Thursday, June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) But once she was offered a book deal by Simon & Schuster, her entire demeanor toward her uncle changed. The title she chose wasn’t subtle: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.After a massive media push, it sold more than 1.3 million copies in the first week, making it one of the most-read books of 2020.Mission accomplished.Fast forward to 2026. The Ohio gubernatorial race between Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton is a statistical toss-up inside of two weeks to go before the election. And on Oct. 21, a Ramaswamy campaign ad hit the airwaves featuring Acton’s estranged mother, which quickly went viral.“My name is Donna Arthur, and I’m Amy Acton’s mother,” she says. “It’s not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy was 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. She’s lied her entire life. My daughter needs help. And she can’t help you if she needs help herself.”“Don’t let her become your governor.”Critics immediately pounced on the ad, noting that Acton was a victim of sexual abuse by her father as a 12-year-old girl, according to court documents, and that Donna Arthur had lost custody of Amy when she was a child. Those critics include outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH), who called on Ramaswamy to take the ad down.Ramaswamy has since defended the ad and has no plans to take it down.“In politics sometimes it’s a rough sport,” he told reporters on Friday. “[The ad] had nothing to do with childhood abuse which I will be the No. 1 governor to prosecute when I am governor of this state.”Trump also defended the ad by pointing out the hypocrisy.“I’m defending it because I know that if that ad were about my mother, you would love it. You would love every inch of it!” he said. “The press has teamed up because he’s a Republican and they tried to make it like it’s a horrible thing. This is a mother saying very bad things about her daughter and I don’t know why that should be shielded.”And he’s precisely right based on what I mentioned earlier about Mary Trump’s allegations. She claimed Trump had said the N-word. She also charged he used antisemitic slurs and that he was only interested in the presidency to enrich himself.No proof. No evidence. She just threw it out there to the likes of Maddow and Stephanopoulos, knowing the allegations wouldn’t be remotely challenged. And when this occurred on multiple occasions during Mary Trump’s highly-profitable book tour in 2020, there wasn’t even a peep of criticism from Republicans or Democrats or anyone in the media.The same rule can be applied to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. when he decided to endorse Trump during the 2024 campaign. It truly was a stunning turn … a Kennedy endorsing a Trump.On cue, the press jumped into high gear to attempt to paint RFK Jr. as a vaccine-denying freak who had no business calling himself a Kennedy. And to accomplish this objective, the airwaves were flooded with other Kennedys to push the narrative forward.“If my dad were alive today, the real Robert Kennedy would’ve detested almost everything Donald Trump represents,” Kerry Kennedy told former Biden White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC-host Jen Psaki.“I am outraged and disgusted by my brother’s obscene embrace of Donald Trump. I completely disavow and dissociate myself from Robert Kennedy Jr. and his flagrant efforts to desecrate, trample, and set fire to my father’s memory,” she added.“Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story,” said a statement from five Kennedys, including Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Chris Kennedy, and Rory Kennedy. The statement was featured on almost every national broadcast network in the country at the time.This is how it works: If any estranged relatives of Democrats have some unverified dirt or pointed personal insults to share on the likes of Donald Trump or RFK Jr., they’ll be given seemingly unfettered access to national stages to share those sentiments while being applauded in the process.But if a Republican like Ramaswamy does the same against his Democratic opponent, that’s simply unacceptable.OHIO RACES LAUNCH INCREASINGLY PERSONAL ATTACKS AS ELECTION DAY LOOMS LARGEWhether this move hurts Ramaswamy in making Acton a sympathetic figure remains unclear.But what’s crystal clear is the utter hypocrisy of it all. Rules for thee, not for Ds … as in Democrats.