I don’t remember the last time I had sex. It was years before the onset of the pandemic. I consider myself still gay though— kind of like considering myself still Jewish though the last time I was in a synagogue was in Yangon because Roland wanted to see what a Burmese synagogue felt like. I guess I’m genetically Jewish and genetically gay… if that makes sense. So what about Bernie Moreno, Trump’s candidate for the Ohio Senate seat? He may be both as well.
And even though this whole gay thing just came out (at least publicly), so to speak, Trump’s sticking with Bernie, not withdrawing his endorsement. In fact, Trump’s going to be in the Dayton area tomorrow to campaign for Moreno, a self funder ($4,200,000), 3 days before the Ohio primary.
Trump’s campaign claims the plot to “out” Moreno is a leftwing slime job. Except it’s actually a rightwing slime job coming from Moreno’s primary opponents, Secretary of State Frank Rose and state Senator Matt Dolan (another self funder— $9,000,000). The Democrats want Moreno to win the primary so there's no way they would be behind this. Trump and JD Vance have persuaded notorious homophobes like Ted Cruz and Gym Jordan to back Moreno. Democrats are also boosting Moreno (with a $2.5 million TV linking him to Trump), because they feel he’s the weakest of the 3 Republican candidates. Current polling shows an incredibly tight race, both in the primary and in the general, although Moreno has crept ahead in the primary (albeit within the margin of error) and is doing basically as poorly against Sherrod Brown as Dolan and LaRose (down around 5 points).
Moreno has changed his story a couple of times, once his predilection for young men started leaking out in February. On Thursday, AP reported that “Moreno— who has shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ rights to a hardline opponent— is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking ‘Men for 1-on-1 sex’ on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder. ‘Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,’ reads a caption on a photo-less profile under the username ‘nardo19672,’ according to an Associated Press review of records made public through a massive and well-publicized data breach of the website. Records also show the profile was last accessed about six hours after it was created. The AP review confirmed that someone with access to Moreno’s email account created the profile, though the AP could not definitively confirm whether it was created by Moreno himself. Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month. On Thursday evening, two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer said a former intern created the account as a prank. The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as ‘part of a juvenile prank.’” Sure… that sounds like it came from a repetitional damage consultant, not an intern.
Moreno’s potential vulnerability has sparked frustration among senior Republican operatives and elected officials in Washington and Ohio… They described concerns surrounding Moreno’s candidacy as so acute that some party officials sought a review of data to determine his potential involvement.
…Beyond the work email, the profile lists Moreno’s correct date of birth, while geolocation data indicates that the account was set up for use in a part of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where property records show Moreno’s parents owned a home at the time. The account’s username— nardo19672— appears to refer to Moreno’s full first name, Bernardo, as well as the year and month of his birth in February 1967.
Although several members of his family are also Jewish, Moreno has never publicly discussed his converso roots. He has all kinds of things in his past that he has been hiding— including his anti-MAGA positions. A shifty character, Moreno has also tried to hide his anti-Trump stands. He “once said there was ‘no scenario’ in which he would support Donald Trump. He’s called Trump a ‘fake Republican’ who stokes ‘hatred and fear’ and suggested that the former president’s popularity is the result of ‘ignorance in our society.’ In several previously unreported audio clips and deleted tweets, uncovered by a CNN KFile review of Moreno’s past statements, the Ohio Republican harshly criticized Trump… [H]e previously congratulated President Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential win and after the attack on the Capitol in January 2021, Moreno posted ‘[Trump] deserves lots and lots of blame for this,’ adding, ‘He didn’t calm tensions; no one (and certainly not me) has excuses [sic] that behavior.’”
“This is a telling example of how this data doesn’t just go away,” said Jake Williams, a prominent cybersecurity researcher and a former National Security Agency offensive hacker who independently confirmed that Moreno’s work email address was included in a copy of the leaked data from Adult Friend Finder.
…Moreno, 57, was born in Colombia to a wealthy family before immigrating to Florida as a child and becoming a U.S. citizen at the age of 18, according to a biography on his website. He purchased his first car dealership in 2005 and used his wealth to build an empire that came to include high-end dealerships in multiple states.
And before Moreno began articulating anti-LGBTQ views during his runs for public office, he made comments that seemed to reflect acceptance of homosexuality.
When Cleveland and Akron won their bid to host the 2014 Gay Games, an Olympics-like international competition featuring LGBTQ athletes, Moreno was an enthusiastic supporter while his auto dealership company was a financial sponsor, according to an opinion article he wrote for the business publication Crain’s Cleveland Business.
“A successful Gay Games would go a long way toward boosting our images as cities that welcome all,” Moreno wrote while issuing a call for northeast Ohio’s philanthropic community to rally behind the event. “They need help to put them on. Hosting a complex multi-venue event requires a network of financial supporters and volunteers. It must be a community effort.”
During a 2016 question and answer session posted to his company’s YouTube page, Moreno noted that his eldest son is gay, while crediting the TV show Modern Family with changing perceptions about same-sex marriage.
“We watched these two guys and, we say: ’You know what? They’re good guys, they’re great people... They are not this distorted thing that is out there.’ And I think those are the kinds of ways that you can break down stereotypes,” Moreno said during the event.
When fliers appeared on the campus of Cleveland State University in October 2017 urging gay and transgender students to commit suicide, Moreno, who was then chairman of the school’s board of trustees, was the leading signer of a letter condemning the “abhorrent message” as “an attack on our whole campus.”
As recently as 2020, his companies were included on a list of Ohio businesses that supported a law banning discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Leaders of Equality Ohio, a leading LGBTQ rights group in the state, said Moreno joined the campaign supporting the legislation after a conversation with the organization’s leadership in 2017 during event promoting the bill.
But that all appeared to change when Moreno first ran for Senate in 2021 before bowing out of the race early. He began to distance himself from his past activism, professing to be unfamiliar with the anti-discrimination legislation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported at the time.
During his current Senate campaign, Moreno has accused advocates for LGBTQ rights of advancing a “radical” agenda of “indoctrination.” He is endorsed by Ohio Value Voters, a group that opposes LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage. And his campaign’s social media accounts have blasted his opponents, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Sen. Matt Dolan, as supporters of a “radical trans agenda.”
A recent TV ad paid for by Buckeye Values, a pro-Moreno super PAC, superimposes a picture of LaRose over a rainbow flag while attacking him as “a champion for trans equality.” The ad cites LaRose’s past endorsement for a bill— which Moreno’s company previously supported— that would have banned discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
“Can you trust Frank LaRose?” a narrator asks, while also criticizing LaRose for making favorable statements in the past about Equality Ohio, a prominent gay rights group. Moreno supported the same legislation through his companies.
Donald Trump Jr. later posted the ad to Twitter, stating “I have no doubt” Ohio voters will elect “the real conservative @berniemoreno over leftwing, pro-trans Frank LaRose.”
Moreno’s shifting rhetoric on LGBTQ issues “is a real shame,” said Maria Bruno, the public policy director for Equality Ohio, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. ”Anyone who is going to be compromising their value system just to win an election, they lose a lot of credibility.”