Exclusive – Ohio’s Moreno Slams Democrat Sherrod Brown for Opposing China Tariffs, Border Security

Businessman Bernie Moreno, the leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio in 2024, is slamming his Democrat opponent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for voting last week against two critical amendments to the debt ceiling deal that would have protected tariffs against China and helped secure the U.S. border with Mexico.

“Sherrod Brown is a career politician who has managed to live off of the taxpayers his entire life by defrauding voters into believing that he’s ‘pro-worker,’” Moreno said in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News. “The reality is, when Sherrod goes to Washington DC, he regularly votes against the interests of Ohio workers and families. Just last week he voted against amendments to raise tariffs on China and secure our southern border. Raising tariffs on Communist China and securing the border to stop the flow of illegal labor are two policies that would directly benefit working people and help us rebuild our manufacturing sector here at home, but because Sherrod’s Democrat party bosses opposed them, he voted no on both amendments. In the U.S. Senate, I will never be afraid to buck my own party to hold China accountable, secure our border, rebuild our manufacturing sector, and protect Ohio workers.”

Moreno, who is endorsed by Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), has won praise from former President Donald Trump. While Trump has yet to endorse in the 2024 Ohio Republican primary, he has spoken highly of Moreno — and has criticized Moreno’s only declared opponent Ohio State Sen. Matt Dolan. Dolan’s family owns Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team, and caved to leftists who pressured them to change the name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians. It is possible that Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose also runs, but it seems unlikely that LaRose would win Trump’s support. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), a Freedom Caucus member who the Club for Growth was pushing to run, formally declined to run last month.

Brown, the longtime Democrat senator from Ohio who the eventual GOP nominee would face in November 2024 in the general election, has regularly presented himself as someone who sticks up for working class Americans in the U.S. Senate. But when presented with two separate opportunities to actually do so on the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, when senators voted on amendments to the debt ceiling deal between Democrat President Joe Biden and GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Brown voted no on both of them.

The first was an amendment from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) which would have implemented tariffs on goods imported from China until trade between the United States and China was considered balanced. Brown voted against this amendment, which failed considerably given that only 17 senators backed it.

The second was an amendment from Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) that would have helped secure the border. This amendment vote was far closer. A total of 46 senators voted for it, and just 51 votes were against it—meaning that Brown was technically the 51st vote against security the border.