Exclusive — Ohio’s Moreno Emerges as One of Trump’s Most Ardent Defenders: ‘The American People Gave Him a Mandate’

Senator-elect Bernie Moreno, a Republican of Ohio, has emerged–even before he takes the oath of office– as one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest defenders in the incoming U.S. Senate majority.

Trump, now the president-elect again after he won a landslide victory against Democrat candidate outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5, has faced resistance from some pockets of GOP senators. But not from Moreno, who has been one of, if not the first to endorse all of Trump’s cabinet picks for confirmation, and publicly championing Trump’s economic nationalist agenda, including on things like hardcore views on immigration and trade that maybe irk some old guard establishment Republicans.

“I think it starts at the beginning, which is a month ago was an election like we haven’t seen in a long time,” Moreno told Breitbart News in a phone interview last week. “President Trump won all seven swing states, he won the popular vote, he won 312 electoral votes, and not only did he win the seven swing states, he won them by big margins relative to what the polling expectations were. So there’s a clear mandate—and unlike 2016, people understand exactly what President Trump’s agenda is and they are not confused or unclear about what President Trump will do once in office. There’s never been a more crystal clear ‘this is what Trump’s agenda is’—it’s black and white, laid out, and clear as can be. That’s point number one. Point number two is if you look at Joe Biden and the people that he nominated to be in his cabinet, there wasn’t a single Democrat who made a negative comment about any of the cabinet picks, even though every single one of those cabinet picks is worse than the other. There’s never been a worse cabinet in American history than Joe Biden’s cabinet, and yet not one Democratic senator said peep about whether this person was qualified or not—people [like] Mayor Pete [Buttigieg], Jake Sullivan, [Alejandro] Mayorkas– all just grossly unqualified people and terrible disasters. Then, most importantly every single one of them voted for every single one of Biden’s nominees. Then the last point is whether it’s Matt Gaetz going back to that or any of the other nominees, they’re infinitely more qualified than any of Biden’s picks. If you had to pick between Matt Gaetz and Merrick Garland to run the Justice Department that’s not hard. There’s no question who’s more qualified.”

While Gaetz did withdraw—this interview came after that—Moreno had endorsed him before anyone else. Moreno has also endorsed Pete Hegseth to be the Secretary of Defense, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii to be the Director of National Intelligence, and Kash Patel to be the FBI director—and he was one of, if not the first to publicly back each of these and all of Trump’s other nominations. Moreno told Breitbart News he’s frustrated by some Republicans in the Senate who have expressed issues with this nominee or that one publicly, and said he will not operate that way.

“What we’re seeing on the Republican side is extremely frustrating because rather than us being focused and united to get every single one of President Trump’s cabinet picks into office as quickly as possible, we’re hand-wringing and pearl-clutching when we should be saying the first thing we ought to do is get all of these cabinet nominations through so President Trump has his team,” Moreno said. “The American people gave him the mandate. I would like to say I won my Senate race—no, President Trump won my Senate race. President Trump is the reason I’m going to be a United States Senator. So we’re going to give him massive deference. And by the way the good news about President Trump is if somebody doesn’t do the job that he wants them to do he will fire them, unlike Biden, who had no accountability. Despite 12 million illegals, Mayorkas is still there. Despite the crisis in Afghanistan, no one faced ramifications. Jake Sullivan was on TV two weeks before Oct. 7 saying the Middle East has never been more at peace in the history of the world and then two weeks later the largest attack on Israel in modern history. So, under Biden, no ramifications, whereas President Trump is a big believer in accountability.”

Many in Trump-world have taken notice of how aggressive Moreno has been in fighting for Trump’s agenda and nominees, and are thankful for it.

A Trump official compared Moreno to Vice President-elect JD Vance, the U.S. Senator from Ohio. “Bernie is fast becoming a true fighter in the mold of JD Vance,” the Trump official told Breitbart News. “He represents someone who will fight in the trenches for the movement and he’s already done that before even taking the oath. That’s how committed he is.”

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. added that having senators like Moreno in there this time is going to make the second term even stronger than the first term.

“I’m not surprised that Bernie has already become one of my father’s strongest defenders in the Senate,” Trump Jr. told Breitbart News. “The biggest difference between now and my father’s first term is we actually have Republicans in the Senate like Bernie who are pro-America First and truly support my father’s agenda.”

Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk, an America First movement leader, said Moreno “is instrumental to the MAGA movement.”

“His voice will be critical to growing our agenda in the senate,” Kirk said.

Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz added that Moreno “has been a steadfast ally” of Trump and Vance “for many years.”

“His firm understanding of the America First movement coupled with his business acumen will make him one of the most effective Senators in the country, despite being a newcomer,” Bruesewitz said.

Sam Geduldig, one of the biggest-spending Republican lobbyists in Washington, who’s very close with lots of top GOP officials in Congress and the incoming administration, told Breitbart News that Moreno’s electoral coalition resembles Trump’s working class voters.

“Moreno put together a working class coalition in Ohio and won easily, defeating a well funded faux populist chairman of the banking committee who raised tens of millions of dollars from K Street and Wall Street,” Geduldig said. “Moreno is a self-funding self-made adult who will never forget how he won. Working class black, Hispanic and white voters who are fed up with conventional wisdom narratives dreamt up by overpriced white wealthy Democratic political consultants “

All these accolades are likely to keep piling up the more Moreno keeps leading the way fighting for Trump’s agenda and vision on Capitol Hill. He takes the oath of office on Jan. 3, alongside the rest of the incoming Congress, and then he told Breitbart News it’s time to get cracking fast, because the longer the Senate takes to get nominations done the more it impacts the broader legislative agenda that Trump and Republicans have ambitious aims on.

“Right now, and this is a stat you may not know, two-thirds of all Senate floor time is dedicated to confirmations,” Moreno said. “So we’re taking two-thirds of our attention instead of getting the agenda accomplished wringing our hands around nominees, and if we can’t do that and we spend a better part of the first six, eight, nine, twelve months and we’re still going through Cabinet and nominations and judges and ambassadors, President Trump is not going to be able to do his job. He has a very short window—shorter than any president in American history. He has basically two years to get the agenda done and we’re going to hamstring him by not getting these nominees done. That’s why I’m passionate about every single one of my colleagues—stay focused and stay united and if you have a personal grievance about one particular nominee pick up the phone and call President Trump or alternatively to people like Nikki Haley, run for president, win, and pick your own damn cabinet. In her case, she tried that and it didn’t work out very well.”

Moreno said that Republicans need to be “focused and united,” and that “we’re going to support all these nominees and get them confirmed as quickly as humanly possible.” He added that it is imperative Republicans are “making certain we keep conversations private about what we feel.” He said that having gone through fake media smears against himself—the Associated Press tried similar nonsense against him back when he was in his primary in Ohio earlier this year—it makes him particularly sensitive to evidence-free anonymous allegations against anyone as part of a typical leftist media playbook that Democrats seem to be running against Hegseth right now.

“What’s the point of going out on camera or putting out posts on X, whereas if you have a concern pick up the phone and call Donald J. Trump,” Moreno said. “He’ll take your call as a senator, and you give him your private concerns. But to air it out publicly only gives the media red meat, which is when they see Republicans fighting each other, that’s red meat for the media and that becomes a story. So if you have a concern, privately share it. Then, most of all, the best thing about America is we have a justice system that has a presumption of innocence. Unless you’re convicted of something, allegations are just gossip. If somebody makes an allegation of something about somebody, then all of a sudden you’re convicted of that? I’m very sensitive of that because I just went through a primary where I was accused of things that never in my life I would have imagined I would have been accused of—a total smear job that happened to me in my primary—and so when somebody says ‘it’s been alleged,’ well, have you been convicted? No? Then shut the hell up. We’re not going to determine who is in the United States Cabinet for the president based on gossip, innuendo, and allegations. Now, if there’s convictions, it’s a totally different story. But I think the idea that we even open up the door to anybody who’s just had allegations—and I think if there’s anybody who should understand that it’s the 53 Republicans serving in the United States Senate–especially the ones who have gone through tough elections over the last decade. They know what it means to have allegations thrown at you. By the way, we’re talking about specifically Pete Hegseth and allegations, but Joe Biden has more allegations of sexual misconduct than Pete Hegseth does, but you don’t see Democrats wringing their hands saying Joe Biden was accused of this or accused of that. President Clinton got not only accused but basically admitted to what he did, and you don’t hear people talking about these issues. My point is there is a standard for Democrats and a standard for Republicans, and if we Republicans want to keep being suckers and play to a different standard than Democrats play then that’s a shame, because that portends poorly for us being able to execute on the agenda the people elected us to perform on—it’s cabinet confirmations today, and it’s going to be deportations tomorrow. Every single Republican ran on deportations and securing the border. So will this sort of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching be applied to the decisions that will be made there and to shrinking the size of the federal government? Shrinking the regulatory state? All of these things are tough, and if we can’t plow through confirmations in a united and focused way it does not bode well for passing President Trump’s agenda. And let me just say this: If we do not get President Trump’s agenda accomplished in the next 24 months, we will get severely punished in the 2026 midterms and beyond—as we should. If we can’t get our act together, then we don’t deserve our chance to govern.”

Moreno defeated outgoing Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) on Nov. 5 in Ohio. Amazingly, since the election, Moreno says Brown has not conceded the race and has not called him to congratulate him on the victory. Moreno told Breitbart News that Brown is an “election denier,” and that he will have trouble finding work in the private sector after decades in government.

“Sherrod Brown has never called me. He shut down all of his state offices even though all these people are paid through January 2nd,” Moreno said. “He’s basically said go take a month vacation on the back of the taxpayer. The reality is Sherrod Brown has been an election denier for years. He said Hillary Clinton was the winner of the 2016 election, he said Stacey Abrams was the real winner of the 2018 Georgia race, and now of course consistent with his branding of being an election denier he now says he lost because the election was rigged. It’s total nonsense. There’s never been a candidate for a Senate race in United States history that had as much money or used as much money as Sherrod Brown did. Despite that, despite being extraordinarily well-known to Ohioans, despite being a three-term senator, he only got 46 percent of the vote. So he didn’t just get beaten, he got beat down. I guess he’s unable to cope with the knowledge he has to go get a job in the private sector like the rest of us and actually have to do something that isn’t mooching off the taxpayer. He’s crying in his Cheerio’s somewhere and trying to keep himself relevant. The reality is he should have known a long time ago he should know when to leave. His time is long past due, he’s long past his expiration date, and now I look forward to seeing what he can do in the private sector, which is not much. If I still owned dealerships, I would probably consider hiring him as a guy who would deliver my cars from dealership to dealership—he might be able to do that, but I probably would not count on him to be punctual.”

Asked if he would make Brown a salesman at one of his dealerships, Moreno said absolutely not.

“No—God, no,” Moreno replied. “He has no sales abilities. Just the guy who delivers cars from one dealership to another, but it would probably eventually disqualify him that he probably wouldn’t be punctual.”

Breitbart