The Dictatorship
HBO documentary recounts a shocking scandal Rep. Jim Jordan says he knew nothing about
Before Ohio Republican Jim Jordan became a polarizing political figure in Congress as a pugilistic performance artist and slavish follower of President Donald Trump, he was a four-time state wrestling champ and two-time NCAA national wrestling champ who, in 1986, brought his talents to Ohio State University as an assistant wrestling coach. The 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds Jordan coached through grueling practices and brutal matches respected his knowledge and skill, and as they put it all on the mat for Buckeye glory, they trusted Jordan to be there for them. On the sidelines. In their face. Through pins and takedowns. Injuries and infractions.
The 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds Jordan coached respected his knowledge and skill, and they trusted Jordan to be there for them.
But multiple OSU wrestlers say in the new HBO documentary “Surviving Ohio State” that when they were subjected to serial sexual assaults by the team doctor, Dr. Richard Strauss, Jordan wasn’t there for them. According to an independent investigation published in 2018, Strauss, who died by suicide in 2005, “sexually abused at least 177 male student-patients” at OSU over a 20-year period, including at least 48 men on the wrestling team. And several of Jordan’s wrestlers during his eight-year coaching stint at OSU have included themselves in that number.
Multiple wrestlers say Jordan (who coached at OSU from 1986 to 1994) knew Strauss (who voluntarily retired in 1998) was abusing them and did nothing. Dan Ritchie, who wrestled for Jordan from 1988 to 1992, alleges in the documentary that the assistant coach directly addressed his athletes about the allegations against Strauss with this crack: “If he ever did that to me, I’d snap his neck like a stick of dry balsa wood.”
In total, six wrestlers have said that they had conversations with Jordan about Strauss’ increasingly abusive groping, fondling, trauma-inducing exams and that he acknowledged their complaints. But in the same way he avoided being pinned down as a wrestler, he has avoided being pinned down by reports from wrestlers who say he didn’t protect him and that they weren’t able to count on him for help.
This isn’t a new scandal. When it broke in 2018, Jordan immediately disavowed knowing of anything untoward about the notorious team doctor and was adamant that if he had known about any type of abuse, “I would have done something about it.” And, after having suffered no obvious political consequences over the last seven years because of the explosive OSU story, he responded to the HBO documentary in essentially the same way as before: “Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,” his office said in a statement.
In 2023, as Jordan was vying to become House speaker, a former wrestler known only as John Doe, told NBC News, “My problem with Jimmy is that he has been playing with words instead of supporting us.” That former athlete said, “None of us used the words ‘sexual abuse’ when we talked about what Doc Strauss was doing to us, we just knew it was weird and Jimmy knew about it because we talked about it all the time in the locker room, at practices, everywhere.”
Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it.
A statement from rep. jim jordan’s office
University personnel, along with multiple coaches, were aware of the abuse as early as 1979, according to an independent investigation commissioned by Ohio State. What Strauss was doing, multiple students told those investigators, was an “open secret” on campus that seemingly everyone shrugged off. That report found that 22 coaches, 18 student trainers and “five team physicians and/or Sports Medicine Fellows whose employment at OSU overlapped with Strauss” told investigators “they were aware of rumors or complaints about Strauss” going at least back as far as the early 1980s and extending at least into the mid-1990s. But no individuals were named in that report.
As the documentary “Surviving Ohio State” neared release this month, a spokesperson for the university gave a statement to WOSU public radio that WOSU said “expressed deep regret and apologies for Strauss’ actions” but emphasized how long ago the doctor’s abuse occurred. That spokesperson, Ben Johnson, said the university is “fundamentally different today than when Strauss was an employee” and added, “Over the past 25 years, Ohio State has made robust changes to its culture and policies to protect students, faculty and staff.”
In the HBO documentary, former wrestlers at OSU recall the excitement of being awarded full athletic scholarships to a legendary sports institution as naive youths at the top of their game. They are in middle age now and forever scarred by what Strauss did to them and others behind closed doors. The team doctor’s pattern of sexual abuse — from inappropriate genital exams to locker room voyeurism and rape — was bad enough. What made it worse for many who came forward was the cold indifference of the people they say they told.
You expect a coach to have your back. A good one cultivates trust with his athletes not only as someone who knows how to win but also as a teacher of discipline, a model of even-handedness, a confidant of players under pressure, a protector on the field and off.
When the OSU scandal became front page news, not only did Jordan deny knowing anything, but one of his former wrestlers said Jordan reached out to him and pressured him to discount his brother’s story that Jordan knew and did nothing about his abuse. That person also said Jordan had called and pressured other wrestlers to “flip their stories.” It was 2018, and Jordan, a founding member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, had just launched bid to replace then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, and the scandal threatened to end his political career.
The scandal didn’t end Jordan’s political career. He has won three consecutive elections since.
“Another lie,” Jordan’s communications director told The Washington Post. “Congressman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it.”
The scandal didn’t end Jordan’s political career. He has won three consecutive elections since — by his customary 2-to-1 ratio — in one of the most egregiously gerrymandered districts in Ohio. Jordan, who has never in his more than 18 years in Congress sponsored a bill that became a law, has ironclad job security in this red state. He also benefits from the fanaticism surrounding Buckeye Nation among Ohioans who bleed scarlet and gray and would rather not dwell on anything that detracts from the cultlike lore of OSU as a Midwest-proud powerhouse.
He skated from the OSU scandal without a scratch or a smoking gun that proves he knew of the sexual abuse that OSU’s independent investigation said was ongoing the whole time he was there. If some of Strauss’ wrestling victims are to be believed, Jordan could have stopped the harm being inflicted upon them.
But Jordan appears not to be the least bit worried about political repercussions for his reported cowardice.
Why should he? To this point, there haven’t been any.
Marila Johanek
Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics in addition to early writing and producing stints at CBS News and BLN. The Ohio native has also analyzed policymaking and political players as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Ohio Capital Journal, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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