Senate candidate Moreno sold SUVs he claimed he didn’t.

In Ohio’s closely watched battle for the U.S. Senate, incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno have repeatedly warned of the threat China poses to manufacturing jobs in Ohio and the United States.

“We sold the middle class people in China so that rich people can make money by selling you cheap garbage from China,†Moreno. he said in the announcement released last August.

Moreno says that when he owned a Buick GMC dealership in Beachwood, Ohio, he refused to even sell Buick’s Chinese-made SUV model, the Envision.

“Buick Envision was made in China, I told General Motors I will not sell one of them, even if you don’t ship it to me,†Moreno. he said on conservative radio show Mike Allen in February.

It’s a story Moreno also told during his first Senate campaign – a race he eventually dropped out of in favor of JD Vance, who was elected to the Senate in November 2022.

“I refused to let General Motors ship me any of those cars,” Moreno said appearance of September 2021 on conservative host Bob Frantz’s radio show. “They threatened to take away my patent. They said I could never be a GM dealer in any other brand. I said, ‘You know what? It costs me millions of dollars. I didn’t care.’ Because you either stand on principle or you don’t stand on anything.â

This is what he said a month later at a conference of Ohio Republican Senate hopefuls that Spectrum News covered.

“Well, we have to immediately start the process of separating from China. In my case, I had a Buick dealer. And all of you who buy Buicks probably think you buy Buicks because you want a car made in America. Those are the people I met in my showroom,†Moreno told the assembled audience.

“When Buick closed a factory in Michigan to open a factory in China and ship those cars to the United States, I sent a letter to General Motors – don’t ship one to me, that car won’t be in my area,†Moreno continued. “General Motors sent me a not very nice letter. Threats of all kinds. You will never be another GM dealer again, you will never do this – and I stood my ground and did not sell the car.

However, the Moreno dealership sold Chinese-made SUVs for several years, and even raise cars on social networks, according to many social network publications available to Spectrum News.

The posts appeared from 2014 to 2019, the period before Moreno sold the dealership to Crestmont Auto Group in 2020. (The dealership’s Facebook page name was changed to Crestmont in March 2020)

“My name is Kayla McCullough. I purchased a 2017 Buick Envision from Buick GMC of Beachwood,†said a customer at December 2016 video testimonial posted on the Bernie Moreno Companies YouTube page.

“I highly recommend you visit the Beachwood Buick and GMC team, The Bernie Moreno Company,†said the woman at the end of the video, which features the Bernie Moreno Company logo.

In August 2017, marketing shared a video ad on his Facebook page promoting Envision.

“Order a new Buick Envision for just $279 a month, zero down,†the ad said.

GM, Buick’s parent company, confirmed to Spectrum News the Envision Made in China only. The SUV became the first car made in China to be imported by a major American carmaker when it first did business in Michigan in 2016.

The import was called a “clap your hands†and the United Auto Workers union, which felt the cars should be manufactured on American soil by American workers.

Spectrum News also asked General Motors if, as Moreno claimed, it ever received a letter from him about his refusal to accept SUVs or if it threatened to take away his ownership rights over the matter.

“We do not share confidential information with outside vendors,” GM spokeswoman Sabin Blake said in a statement. Blake said the company could not share how many Envisions were sent to Moreno’s dealership between 2016 and 2020.

Moreno’s campaign, in a statement, admitted to Spectrum News that his business sold Chinese-made SUVs.

“In response to the closing of the Lordstown Factory here in Ohio (in March 2019), Bernie made the decision to stop any new inventory of Envision’s being sold in his business. After selling the inventory he already had on the market, he refused to take orders for more Envisions. here,†said campaign spokesperson Reagan McCarthy.

He also shared screenshots of an email from April 2019 when Moreno wrote to a sales manager, “We don’t sell Envisions.”

(Provided by the Bernie Moreno campaign)

The campaign also shared this statement from Anthony Ries, former general manager of the business at Beachwood.

“Following the closing of the General Motors Lordstown Plant in March 2019, which would have been used to move car manufacturing from China back to America, Bernie ordered the dealer to stop selling them immediately,” Ries said.

The campaign did not share the letter Moreno claimed he wrote to GM.

Moreno Marketing it continued to announce his remaining Envision lineup in 2019, according to a review by Spectrum News.

In campaign appearances covered by Spectrum News and in radio interviews tracked by Spectrum News, Moreno never mentioned that his business had sold SUVs made in China for years or that the closing of the Lordstown plant was the reason for his decision to stop selling them. .

The campaign declined to comment on why Moreno didn’t make the distinction or why he was comfortable selling the SUV in the first place, since the Envision has always been made in China.

Moreno won the Republican nomination for the US Senate in March, thanks in part to an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. His impressive story of being a successful car salesman is the basis of his campaign.

“I wanted my own business, but the people of the industry almost stopped me. I spent every penny I had and made it happen. 15 years later, I owned 15 businesses and created thousands of jobs in Ohio,†said Moreno video launching his campaign last year.