Tim Ryan distances himself from Dem party leaders, admits ‘crime is an issue’ ahead of Ohio Senate election

Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan distanced himself from national party leaders on Tuesday and said that “crime is an issue” ahead of next week’s midterm elections.

Ryan also attempted to defend prior comments he made regarding the elimination of cash bail and the release of “all the nonviolent criminals” from prison, insisting that his position on the two issues are driven by his support for the legalization of marijuana.

Ryan’s comments came during a Fox News town hall event with Fox News hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier in Ohio’s capital city of Columbus.

“Crime is an issue. I don’t care what anybody says about that,” Ryan said. “We need more cops, we need better paid cops, and we need to make sure that we invest into police training.”

TIM RYAN’S PLEDGES TO RELEASE ‘ALL THE NONVIOLENT CRIMINALS,’ SLASH PRISON NUMBERS CONTINUE TO HAUNT HIM

Pressed on the issue of crime by MacCallum, Ryan was asked specifically about prior remarks on crime that he made during his campaign for president in 2019 that favored the elimination of cash bail nationwide and his pledge to release “all the nonviolent criminals” and cut the prison population in half.

“Well, what I’m talking about here is marijuana crimes,” Ryan said. “I think we need to legalize marijuana.”

“You said ‘all nonviolent criminals out,'” MacCallum interjected.

“I think the focus is marijuana crimes, in my mind, right,” Ryan said. “We spend — this may be the stupidest expenditure of federal money in taxpayer money in the history of our country. You get caught with marijuana, then you end up in prison. That’s insane for us. We should tax the marijuana and put it into addiction treatment, we should use it to keep fentanyl and these hardcore drugs out of our country, out of our society. We should invest in the shop class, we should invest into early childhood education.”

“There’s so many better ways to spend this money than locking somebody up for marijuana crimes and especially when White and Black people use marijuana equally, Black people are six times more likely to go to prison. That’s an unfair system,” he added.

During his campaign for president in the 2020 presidential election, Ryan made several comments that have come back to haunt him as he seeks support from Ohio voters in the Senate race.

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