Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown argued against releasing American prisoners of war during Vietnam in a 1971 letter, a record podcast hosts say explains his long left-wing career.
Fox News reported that hosts of the Ruthless podcast surfaced a decades-old letter to the editor from Brown, now the Democratic nominee in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, questioning the return of American POWs held by North Vietnam.
The letter ran in the News-Journal in the summer of 1971. In it, Brown asked what would stop the United States from bombing Hanoi and Haiphong if the North Vietnamese freed the captured Americans.
That old writing is back in circulation as Brown seeks a return to the Senate against incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted in a race Fox News has labeled a toss-up. Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate edge, and Democrats see Ohio as a prime pickup chance.
The core passage highlighted by the hosts is blunt. Brown framed the prisoners’ freedom as a potential shield for the enemy capital and its port.
As presented from the 1971 letter, he asked if the North Vietnamese “released our POWs, what would stop the U.S. from bombing Hanoi and Haiphong?”
American airmen and soldiers were then enduring captivity and, in many cases, torture. President Richard Nixon later brought POWs home. Ruthless co-host Comfortably Smug, described as a noted Nixon admirer, tied that history directly to Brown’s words.
Comfortably Smug said:
"There's incredible footage I invite everyone to go see, of when President Nixon brought these POWs home. You hear stories of what it meant to those families to get their loved ones back who were being tortured. You have this guy who is currently running for Senate in this day and age who wrote, he hopes American POWs do not return from being tortured. How is he on the ballot?"
The letter text quoted in the reporting is the Hanoi-Haiphong question, not a separate line about torture. The host’s reading treats that question as a case against bringing the men home. Brown’s campaign did not supply a different explanation. Fox News Digital sought comment and had not received a response.
Brown first ran for office more than 50 years ago and later served three Senate terms representing Ohio from 2007 to 2025. He is again the party’s Senate nominee. The podcast panel argued the letter is not a one-off youth episode.
Co-host John Ashbrook, a Cincinnati native, said Ohio voters and political watchers have long heard Brown described as a hard left figure without the receipts being spelled out.
Ashbrook said:
"If you live in the state of Ohio, or you're a political junkie like us, you've heard it said over and over again, ‘Oh, Sherrod Brown is a crazy lefty.’ It's sort of dismissed. He's a lefty, and nobody ever fills in the gaps. Well, I think this piece that he wrote in the 70s sort of explains why a lot of people were like maybe he is sort of sympathetic to the communists."
Co-host Michael Duncan placed Brown in a wider cast of current Democratic nominees he views as far outside the mainstream, naming Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El Sayed and New York congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, whom Duncan said had positioned herself against Western civilization.
Duncan said:
"When you think of this disease that’s infected the Democratic Party, you think about [Michigan Democratic Senate Nominee Abdul] El Sayed. You think of [New York Democratic congressional nominee Darializa Avila] Chevalier, who said she's basically against Western civilization. But Sherrod Brown's been on this his entire career."
Those characterizations are the hosts’ own. The documented 1971 text remains the letter’s POW-and-bombing question published in the News-Journal.
This is not the first time Brown’s early political prose has been pulled into public view. In 2015, BuzzFeed reported on teenage writings in which he said the Nixon administration was turning the country into a “fascist police-state.”
Taken together with the 1971 News-Journal letter, the paper trail shows a young Brown aiming sharp fire at the wartime U.S. government and treating POW release as a strategic problem for American air power rather than a duty to captive service members.
Ruthless has been touring the midterm map, interviewing candidates across 19 states. The Brown letter segment fits that project: old words, still on the record, now attached to a nominee in a competitive Senate contest.
Campaign photo captions place Brown at a Steubenville City Building event and casting a ballot at the Franklin County Board of Elections in Columbus. The biography is long. The 1971 question is short. It still sits in black and white.
Voters can read a letter that weighed bombing plans against the freedom of tortured Americans and decide what that priority says about the man asking for another term in power.
