Republican leadership in Ohio is scrambling after their preferred candidate to take on longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur was caught on tape blasting former President Donald Trump, reported Politico on Friday.
Former state Rep. Craig Riedel was previously their favorite to deny a second primary nomination to scandal-plagued J.R. Majewski, who has already earned endorsements from a handful of figures like U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.
But "last week, an audio tape surfaced of Riedel calling Donald Trump 'arrogant' and vowing not to endorse the former president," reported Ally Mutnick and Olivia Beavers.
As a result of this, "Republicans in Ohio and Washington are in damage control mode, holding high-level discussions about trying to find a new candidate before the state’s Dec. 20 filing deadline, according to three people familiar with the effort who were granted anonymity to speak candidly" — and privately warning Trump's team not to endorse Majewski.
Majewski, who was the party's nominee for Kaptur's closely-contested Toledo-area House seat in 2022, is a QAnon promoter who gained notoriety for turning his yard into a Trump sign.
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But his campaign was derailed by reporting that he lied about his military service, claiming to have been a "combat veteran" deployed to Afghanistan when he was really just loading aircraft at a base in Qatar. He also claimed that he was demoted a rank for getting into a "fight," but Air Force records show it was actually for getting arrested for DUI while stationed in Japan.
Since his 2022 election loss, Majewski claims that his service record was vindicated, citing as proof a Breitbart article reporting that the Air Force retroactively updated his record to award him the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal — but this is not a combat medal and doesn't actually indicate he served in Afghanistan. He also notes his DUI arrest was over a 0.05 blood alcohol content, which wouldn't have been over the legal limit in the U.S., even if it was over the legal limit in Japan.
With the new revelations about Riedel exposed, said the report, "the primary looks poised to become a referendum on which is worse in today’s GOP: criticizing Trump, or allegedly lying about one’s military valor."