Bernie Moreno, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Ohio, came to the United States from Colombia when he was four years old. He said he learned English through Ronald Reagan’s speeches. This claim has been questioned, but if Moreno learned the language in this way, it seems that one of the famous speeches may not have been fully absorbed.
At the Republican Party convention in 1968, Reagan said: “It is time to restore the American principle that every individual is responsible for his actions.”
And throughout a tight race — in which the defeat of Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, could determine his control of the Senate — Moreno showed a distinctly Reagan-like tendency to evade responsibility for questions about his actions, repeatedly choosing to shift blame onto others instead, a review shows. Reports and court documents.
Last month, after it emerged that Moreno had falsely claimed to have an MBA from the University of Michigan, including signing legal documents containing the claim, his campaign blamed an “employee who made a mistake.”
Moreno told a radio broadcaster: “I am proud to have obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, and I am thankful to some reports that indicated that it was highly regarded.” There was a clerical error one of my supervisors made, seven, eight, nine years ago, that said I had an MBA. It was a Bachelor of Business Administration.
Maybe Moreno is right that his opponents “want it[ed] headline” about the issue but also claimed they wanted to “confuse people, like, ‘This guy lied about going to college. Absolutely not.”
That’s not what the Democrats are saying. “The new reports that he’s lying about having an MBA from that school up north are disqualifying,” said Ohio Sen. Bill Dimora. “Anyone who lies about having an MBA from that school upstate Michiganders has no business representing Ohio residents.
The fake MBA episode isn’t the only one in which Moreno blamed others for alleged mistakes.
Also in September, when Brown faced reports that he was late on property taxes, Politico reported that “a fund partly belongs to wealthy Republican Senate candidate [Moreno] The company was more than a year late on a $20,000 tax bill on a home it owned in Key Largo, Florida, resulting in a lien being issued in June 2023.
Politico said the debt was paid on the day of the report. A spokesman for Moreno said the error was not his fault.
“Bernie does not manage the finances of the house,” Reagan McCarthy said. “One of his brothers does and it was an unfortunate oversight.”
Such moments were not limited to the general election campaign. Similar issues affected Moreno during the Republican primary, which he won in May, and Donald Trump’s coveted endorsement pushed him past what the Associated Press called “more moderate alternatives.”
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In January, several media outlets reported on a case in Massachusetts dating back to 2017, in which Moreno was sued for not paying overtime at his auto company. According to court records, the judge said Moreno “either did not retain or shredded … the monthly reports” that he “knew or should have known” he was required to keep. Ultimately, the jury found Moreno liable for withholding wages and ordered him to pay $416,160 in restitution.
Primary opponents raised the issue. Moreno claimed political bias, calling the jury in the case “ridiculous” and the judge “an elitist lunatic from Harvard.” The judge in question was appointed by Republicans.
Moreno also blamed the plaintiffs, whom he described as “two of my worst salespeople, guys who never showed up on time, who never interfered or attacked, and who had no proof they ever worked overtime,” and he blamed overtime. The pay issue is on the employee who said he “already runs the payroll.” In court, the employee testified that she was not responsible for such matters.
Even more troubling, in March, the AP reported that Moreno, who it said had “shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ+ rights to a hard-line opponent” was “facing questions about the existence of a 2008 profile searching for ‘men for one’.” “Single sex” on a website for casual sexual encounters called “Adult Friend Finder”.
Moreno’s lawyer said the candidate was not behind the account, and provided a statement in which Moreno’s former intern, Dan Ritchie, said he created the account as a “juvenile prank.”
Contacted for comment, a spokesperson for Moreno did not immediately respond.
