Georgia Senate race: Jon Ossoff and David Perdue trade personal attacks during heated debate

The stakes in the close race are high. Georgia has not one but two US Senate seats up for grabs, and some Republicans fear that Ossoff’s strong challenge in a reliably red state, coupled with a splintered GOP fight for current Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s seat, puts both seats at play as the party looks to avoid losing the US Senate.

Ossoff replied by hammering Perdue for being one of several Republican senators who faced scrutiny earlier this year for selling stocks ahead of the economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Perhaps Sen. Perdue would have been able to respond properly to the Covid-19 pandemic if you hadn’t been fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading,” Ossoff said, adding, “It’s not just that you’re a crook, senator, it’s that you’re attacking the health of the people that you represent.”

In another exchange, Perdue accused his Democratic challenger of personally benefiting from financial ties to a Hong Kong media company whose chair is opposed to the push for Hong Kong’s independence from China. The GOP senator produced a piece of paper from his pocket he said was Ossoff’s July financial disclosure, claiming it was proof that Ossoff was disguising the fact his documentary company sold a film to the Hong Kong company.

“He needs to own up to, because sooner or later, we need somebody in the United States Senate that will stand up to Communist China,” he said.

Ossoff didn’t directly dispute Perdue’s accusation but said it was “so beneath the office of a US senator.”

“You’ve continued to demean yourself throughout this campaign with your conduct. First, you were lengthening my nose in attack ads to remind everybody that I’m Jewish. Then when that didn’t work, you started calling me some kind of Islamic terrorist. And then when that didn’t work, you started calling me a Chinese communist,” he said.

“Well I absolutely meant no disrespect, I’ve said that publicly to Sen. Harris,” Perdue said. “What I was talking about, and what I’m trying to do, is educate the people in Georgia about what’s trying to be perpetrated here, and that is this radical socialist agenda that Jon Ossoff will clearly just be a rubber stamp for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi as they perpetrate this outrageous agenda on our country.”

In the contest for the other US Senate seat in Georgia, Loeffler, who was appointed, has been in a race to the right with GOP Rep. Doug Collins in a race that could go to a January runoff, creating an opening for the leading Democratic candidate, Rev. Raphael Warnock.