Red state commissioner hit with set of demands from GOP senator over ‘disgusting’ ICE ‘terrorist’ declaration

By Fox News · Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno is demanding answers from a Toledo county commissioner after the official compared ICE officers to terrorists, which Moreno suggested could violate his oath of office. "Since December 2025, these agencies have changed from a legitimate agency to a terrorist group," Commissioner Pete Gerken said earlier this week as the Lucas County Board of Commissioners voted against enforcing a grant providing funding to DHS. In a letter to Gerken, obtained by Fox News Digital, Moreno called the vote "incoherent and perilous" and labeled Gerken’s comments as antithetical to the oath he swore as commissioner. "Your irresponsible rhetoric and decisions are wholly inconsistent with the duties that you swore a constitutional oath to uphold," Moreno wrote. "In fact, it is your legal responsibility, for example, to ‘work with all county elected officials and with judges to assure that they are properly funded to perform their statutory duties.’ Ohio Revised Code 3.07 states that ‘any person holding office… in this county… who refuses or willfully neglects to enforce the law or to perform any official duty imposed on him by law… is guilty of misconduct in office.’" MEET THE MINNESOTANS KILLED BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THAT WALZ, DEMS NEVER HELD NEWS CONFERENCES OR VIGILS FOR According to the letter, Toledo Public Schools are facing an estimated $70 million budget deficit, while the Lucas County sheriff has requested a $6.57 million budget increase to address staffing shortages. Moreno argued that rejecting federal assistance under those circumstances was "particularly confounding" and harmful to county residents. Moreno, elected to the U.S. Senate in 2024, also accused Gerken of doubling down on his remarks rather than apologizing, citing the commissioner’s public statement that he did not believe the county should accept money from "an organization that has delegitimized itself." ‘WORST OF THE WORST’: ICE ARRESTS CHILD PREDATOR, VIOLENT CRIM…