On Sunday, incumbent GOP Georgia Senator David Perdue rejected the idea of having yet another debate with his Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, who he faces in January run-off election, pointing out they had already had two debates before the general election on November 3 in which Perdue won but was not allowed to take his seat because he did not reach 50% of the vote.
Perdue issued a statement which read:
The runoff in Georgia is an extension of the November 3rd general election, where 52 percent of Georgians voted against Jon Ossoff and his radical agenda. Perdue had a commanding first place win, outpacing Ossoff by over 85,000 votes — in nearly every other state, Perdue would have been re-elected already.
We’ve already had two debates in this election. In each, Ossoff lied repeatedly, and of course the media failed to hold him accountable. He refused to talk about the issues and could not defend his radical socialist agenda. If Ossoff wants to keep lying to Georgians on TV, he will have to use his out-of-state money to pay for it.
NEW: David Perdue's campaign calls out Democrat Jon Ossoff for being a liar pic.twitter.com/clHI59EWTt
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 15, 2020
Ossoff responded on Twitter by calling Perdue a “crook.”
David Perdue isn’t just a crook –– he’s a coward, too. https://t.co/qYUO1MwREP
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) November 16, 2020
In September, Perdue’s campaign released an ad responding to Ossoff’s charges that Perdue had leveraged inside information in order to make money from the coronavirus pandemic. The ad stated, “Jon Ossoff and Chuck Schumer have been caught in a lie. Senator Perdue welcomed a full review of his stock trades. And the Department of Justice, the SEC and even the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee cleared him completely. Despite that, Ossoff and Schumer continue to lie, spending millions to hide their radical, socialist agenda. What else are they lying about?”
“Perdue’s campaign provided a portion of a June 16 letter from Ethics Committee chief counsel Deborah Sue Mayer that said the panel ‘did not find evidence that your actions violated federal law, Senate Rules, or standards of conduct’ and that the matter was dismissed,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in September.
Perdue campaign senior spokeswoman Casey Black stated in September that Ossoff “has absolutely no credibility when it comes to the issue of money in politics. He pledged that he wouldn’t take a dime of corporate PAC money, but he broke his promise and took tens of thousands of dollars from corporate-funded PAC’s. Some of these PACs even took money from healthcare companies who Ossoff has criticized by name. To make matters worse, Chuck Schumer’s dark money super PAC is spending millions of dollars on Ossoff’s behalf to spread lies about Senator Perdue. Ossoff is completely shameless about his hypocrisy.”
“Senate candidate Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is campaigning on an outright ban on the sale of semiautomatic rifles and a licensing requirement for all semiautomatic firearms already in private hands, whether those firearms are rifles or handguns,” AWR Hawkins recently noted, adding, “During an MSNBC interview Ossoff expounded on his views, citing his support for a license requirement in instances where a semiautomatic firearm–rifle or handgun–is already privately owned. He said, ‘For semiautomatic weapons, whether they are rifles or handguns, we need strict licensing requirements.’”