The mother of Ohio's Democratic gubernatorial nominee has slammed her daughter as a "liar" in a new video that appears to be a vicious late-cycle attack, and the candidate's campaign and her brother moved quickly to condemn it.
The Gateway Pundit, a conservative outlet with 960,000 followers, reported the development under the headline "She's a Liar… She's lied her entire life," describing Donna Arthur, the mother of Democratic candidate Amy Acton, as coming out against her own daughter and urging people not to vote for her. The Washington Times, an outlet with 490,000 followers, reported that the scathing new video shows Arthur calling her daughter a "liar" over childhood abuse claims.
The Washington Times characterized the video in a separate post as appearing to be a vicious late-cycle attack, a framing that places the release squarely in the final stretch of a statewide race. The same outlet reported that Acton's campaign and her brother quickly condemned the attack.
The sequence of events, as carried across the outlets, ran in rapid order. The Gateway Pundit's Jordan Conradson reported the story first, casting it as a move "sure to send shockwaves through the Ohio gubernatorial election" and describing Arthur as having "come out calling her daughter a 'liar' and urging people not to vote for her." Roughly nine minutes later, The Washington Times posted that the mother of Ohio's Democratic gubernatorial nominee had slammed her as a "liar" in a new video that appears to be a vicious late-cycle attack. Just over an hour after that, the outlet followed with a fuller account: a scathing new video showing Arthur calling her daughter a "liar" over childhood abuse claims, with the campaign and her brother condemning the attack.
The reaction from the Acton camp and from her brother is the central development here. According to The Washington Times, both the campaign and the candidate's brother quickly condemned the attack. The outlet did not, in its posts, detail the specific language of those condemnations. What is supported is that the response was immediate and came from two directions: the official campaign apparatus and a member of the candidate's own family.
The Gateway Pundit's coverage, as carried in its posts, did not include any response from the Acton campaign or from Arthur's son. Its framing centered on the mother's statements and the political earthquake it predicted for the race. The Washington Times, by contrast, paired the mother's claims with the family and campaign pushback in the same breath.
The story spread across both outlets' accounts, with The Gateway Pundit carrying the initial report and The Washington Times carrying three separate posts on the subject within roughly two hours. The Washington Times' first post on the matter went up in the afternoon, describing the video as a late-cycle attack, and its second post followed later, adding the condemnation from the campaign and brother and specifying that the dispute concerns childhood abuse claims.
At issue is a claim about childhood abuse, which Arthur is said to address in the video. The exact content of that claim, as presented in the video, is not set out in the posts describing it. What the outlets report is that the mother calls her daughter a "liar" in connection with those claims, and that the video presents her as saying her daughter has "lied her entire life."
Ohio's gubernatorial race has drawn national attention, and the timing of the video's release places it in the closing weeks of the campaign. The Washington Times described it as a "late-cycle attack," language that signals the outlet views the release as politically timed rather than as an ordinary family statement.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claims made in the video or the circumstances of its release.
The reaction has so far come from the candidate's campaign and her brother, both of whom condemned the attack, according to The Washington Times. The outlet's posts do not quote their statements directly, and The Gateway Pundit's report does not include them at all. What the coverage establishes is that the video drew an immediate and public response from the candidate's family and political operation, and that the two outlets carrying the story treated it differently: one as a political shockwave, the other as a late-cycle attack that the candidate's side answered at once.
Neither outlet's posts, as carried, identify who produced the video or how it came to be released. The Washington Times describes it as a "new video" showing Arthur making the statements, while The Gateway Pundit describes Arthur as having "come out" against her daughter. Both descriptions treat the video as the vehicle for the mother's statements.
The dispute now sits in the final stretch of a statewide campaign, with the candidate's campaign and brother having publicly rejected the attack and the story carried across two outlets with substantial followings. Further statements from either side, and any response from Arthur herself beyond the video, have not been reported in the coverage under review.
Our Take
The mechanics of this story are as familiar as they are instructive. A video surfaces late in a campaign, a family member is placed front and center, and the claim inside it lands not on a policy dispute but on the most personal ground available. The outlets carrying it moved within minutes of each other, and the candidate's campaign and brother answered immediately, which is exactly what a campaign does when it recognizes a hit it cannot ignore. That the response came from both the official operation and a family member tells you the Acton side understood the video's intended effect: to make the claim feel like it came from inside the house.
But the coverage itself draws the line that matters. The video is described as showing the mother making the claims, not as establishing that the claims are true. The Washington Times noted the campaign and brother condemned the attack and did not pass judgment on the underlying allegation. The Gateway Pundit framed the release as a political earthquake without addressing what the candidate's side said in response. Readers should note that asymmetry. One outlet gave the claim and the reaction together; the other gave the claim alone.
This site could not independently verify what the video contains or the circumstances of its release, and we say so plainly. What is verifiable is the reaction: the campaign and the candidate's brother condemned the attack, and they did so quickly. That reaction is the news, and it is the part of this story that does not depend on believing a single word spoken on camera. Voters in Ohio deserve the full context, including who made the video, who funded it and why it appeared when it did. The outlets carrying it have not answered those questions in their reporting so far, and until someone does, the claim remains exactly what it is: an allegation, delivered late, and answered firmly by the candidate's family and campaign.
