FLASHBACK: Vulnerable Dem senator accused voters supporting Trump of 'racism': 'It works for them'

FLASHBACK: While defending then-Sen. Kamala Harris against criticism from then-President Donald Trump, Sen. Sherrod Brown told CNN that Trump voters are “supporting a racist for president.”

“Well I think it works,” Brown told CNN’s Anderson Cooper when asked about Trump calling Harris “horrible” and “nasty.”

“It’s the reason that the 35 percent of Americans that support President Trump love President Trump, because he plays to the anger and fear and resentment and often to racism of not all but some of his supporters,” Brown continued. “But keep in mind, his supporters are, whether they’re – while I’ve not called all of them racist, I understand that they are supporting a racist for President, but it works for them. It just drives more and more of the public away from him. And that’s why so much of the public has just had it with Trump, including some that voted for him.” 

Brown’s 2020 comment followed a comment in 2019 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he also called Trump racist.

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“We have a president who’s a racist,” Brown said. “He built his political career knowing what he was doing, questioning the legitimacy and the birthplace of the president of the United States. I know early there have been all kinds of news reports about what he did early in his career with housing.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, National Republican Senatorial Committee Spokesperson Philip Letsou said, “It’s no secret that Sherrod Brown hates Donald Trump and his supporters, it’s why he regularly insults Trump voters and voted to impeach Trump twice.”

“But now that he needs their votes, Brown is trying to cover up his anti-Trump radicalism with misleading ads. Everyone can see through Shameless Sherrod’s desperate ploy.”

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Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is seen during senate votes in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Brown, who is involved in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country against GOP challenger Bernie Moreno in a state that Trump won by 8 points in 2020, also introduced a resolution tying the immigration system in the United States to “structural racism.”

“Whereas examples of structural racism include…that members of the Black, Native American, Alaska Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic or Latino communities are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems and face a higher risk of contracting COVID–19 within prison populations and detention centers due to the over-incarceration of members of those communities,” Brown wrote in the resolution earlier this year.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, right, greets Ohio Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Bernie Moreno during a rally at the Dayton International Airport on March 16, 2024 in Vandalia, Ohio. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Fox News Digital asked the Brown campaign whether the Ohio senator stands by his 2020 comment on Trump’s alleged racism.

“Sherrod fights for all Ohioans – whether you’re a steelworker in Cleveland or a teacher in Cincinnati or a veteran in Chillicothe,” a Brown campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

“While Sherrod always does the right thing for Ohioans, Bernie Moreno only looks out for himself and stole his workers’ overtime pay, shredded key evidence a judge ordered him to keep, and sold the Chinese-made Buick Envision, which hurt Ohio autoworkers.”

The race between Moreno and Brown is expected to be a close one as Republicans view it as one of their strongest opportunities to take back control of the Senate in November.

The Cook Political report ranks the race as a “toss up.”