(Picture credit Matt Johnson)
Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn has had months of damaging audio leaks from his campaign in his race against incumbent Senator Pete Ricketts. The Plains Sentinel has obtained two pieces of audio from a former campaign volunteer ahead of Tuesday’s election.
In one leaked recording, Osborn’s campaign manager, Camilo Vilaseca, can be heard describing tension he had with Osborn’s wife, Megan. “I texted him [Osborn] and told him ‘Look dawg, if you are going to f***ing have Megan run the campaign, you got to f***ing fire me. I can’t keep doing this sh*t with her going around me, her not looping me in on things, not talking to me.”
He went on to say that the Osborns’ marriage to Megan Osborn was on the rocks and he expects they will be divorced by December.
“Megan is quitting and leaving me,” Vilaseca said in the audio, quoting Osborn. “It’s real bad. They are 100% getting a divorce after this no matter what. Probably in December they will f***ing split up.”
Later on in the recording, Vilaseca can be heard discussing Osborn “going to the titty bar.” “Literally, he’s like - ‘I don’t pay for it,’” Vilaseca said, adding, “Apparently the Ricketts team kept talking about how they were trying to get him. Like catch him going to strip clubs and sh*t, but no, it’s bad.”
In a second clip shared with The Plains Sentinel, Osborn can be heard joking that he should throw condoms to kids at parades instead of footballs. “Actually, instead of throwing footballs away to the kids at parades, we can just throw them condoms.”
In a statement to The Plains Sentinel, Vilaseca said the comments he made were taken out of context and “a joke.”
“This is a last ditch effort to save the flailing Pete Ricketts campaign and to distract from Pete’s long history of pardoning pedophiles and sex offenders. This is a desperate attempt to silence hardworking Nebraskans,” Vilaseca said. “These quotes are clearly taken out of context, and are jokes, and unserious comments.”
Dan Osborn declined to comment for the story.
The audio is the latest in a long stream of leaks from the campaign. The most widely publicized clip was a September audio recording published by the Omaha World Herald where Osborn referred to “Mary Jo” and “Billy Bob in f------ Red Cloud, Nebraska” whose “lives probably suck so f------ bad.”
In another clip from September, Osborn said he cannot talk about abolishing ICE publicly or loving transgender people because he would be “f***ed.” In an October leak to Politico, audio revealed Osborn called Senator Deb Fischer a “b****.”
In defense of his colorful language, Osborn has said, “I joined the Navy right out of high school, so as you’ve probably seen in social media, sometimes I cuss like a sailor. Cause I kinda am a sailor.”
Osborn had previously told The Plains Sentinel that some of his private comments had come from “a place of frustration.” “You know, I did say people’s lives suck,” Osborn said. “And my life sucks, too, you know, because like I said, I’m not treading water anymore, I’m sinking. And Christmas this year at my house will be on a credit card. … And so that comes from a place of anger and passion, and I’m pissed off, and these people are pissed off, too.”
Megan Osborn’s involvement with the campaign has previously come under scrutiny after the Osborn campaign funneled hundreds of thousands into a political consulting firm she owns.
— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.