Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan released an ad Wednesday touting his support for the police, but in 2019 he said the current criminal justice system in the U.S. is “racist” and called it the “new Jim Crow.”
Ryan, who is running against Republican J.D. Vance in the Ohio Senate race, released an ad that featured a sheriff from the state saying that “Tim Ryan knows defunding the police is ridiculous.” However, at a presidential candidate town hall held at Paine College, an HBCU in Georgia, on Aug 26, 2019, Ryan heavily criticized the U.S. criminal justice system.
“I believe that the current criminal justice system is racist. I believe in my heart that it is the new Jim Crow, a new version of it. Um, we see it all the time across the board, as I mentioned with crimes like marijuana where you’re gonna have, uh, a person of color go to jail 5 to 6 times more likely go to prison, um, than someone who’s white,” Ryan said in response to the question.
“And those prison sentences will be 20% longer than-than for a white person. I think it gets back to the police immersion training that we need to have in the United States, um, because you could go across the board on education, criminal justice, environmental issues, where we have in communities of color, you know this much better than I do, but we see it in Youngstown, we see it in Akron, there’s- there’s lead in the water, there’s lead paint still in some of the older homes, and so there’s these environmental issues,” Ryan continued.
Ryan’s comments start around the 49-minute mark.
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Vance and other Republicans have criticized Ryan over his comments in the 2019 video. Vance asked Ryan if he would comment on the video Wednesday.
Hey @TimRyan care to comment? https://t.co/pR1WiqmqRf
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) June 15, 2022
Former President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. weighed in, calling Ryan a “flip-flopping fraud” and a “leftwing anti-police radical.”
Yikes!!!
We already knew that Two-Faced Tim Ryan was a flip-flopping fraud, but now he’s been exposed as a leftwing anti-police radical. https://t.co/nTtBZbzte3
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 15, 2022
The former acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) under Trump, Richard Grenell, also commented on the video, saying Ryan “joined the mob’s attacks on law enforcement” and called his comments “Disgraceful.”
I hope every police officer in Ohio and their family members see what @TimRyan said in 2019.
He joined the mob’s attacks on law enforcement! Disgraceful. https://t.co/lANo2Et4eH
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) June 15, 2022
The Daily Caller contacted Ryan’s campaign about his comments in the video to which they did not respond.