A Republican National Senatorial Committee (NRSC) ad released on Thursday hammers Jon Ossoff, a Democrat running to unseat GOP Sen. David Perdue in Georgia, on outside money allegedly flowing into his campaign, especially from Hollywood.
Ossoff gained national political attention in 2017 when he ran in a special election to replace former Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who left his seat to head the Department of Health and Human Services. During the special election, which was eventually won by Republican Karen Handel, Ossoff received public and financial support from well-known figures in Hollywood.
Some of that support has followed him into 2020 where Republicans are again targeting Ossoff’s support in the entertainment industry and his history as a documentary filmmaker. The GOP’s newest ad ties Ossoff to Hollywood as well as the ultra-progressive positions that Hollywood is well known for favoring.
“Tinseltown: home of ultra-liberals and everything fake. So it’s not surprising Hollywood is bankrolling Jon Ossoff’s campaign,” the ad says. “Ossoff is so fake, he exaggerated his national security credentials; so liberal he praised AOC’s radical Green New Deal and government-run healthcare. The latest: Hollywood Ossoff’s movie company was caught working with Al Jazeera, known for terrorist ties. Jon Ossoff: as fake as his Tinseltown liberal friends.”
🚨 New ad in #GASen today
Jon @Ossoff: "As fake as his Tinseltown liberal friends." #gapol pic.twitter.com/8WVBn1akfa
— The Senate Majority (@NRSC) July 29, 2020
The ad, titled “Take Three,” is the third ad the NRSC has run against Ossoff during this campaign cycle expressly targeting his ties to Hollywood.
Ossoff is currently hitting Perdue over an ad by the GOP senator’s campaign that Ossoff has said is “anti-Semitic.”
Perdue’s campaign ran an ad in which an image of Ossoff showed the Democratic candidate with a slightly enlarged nose. Ossoff, who is Jewish, denounced Perdue for trafficking in the “classic anti-Semitic trope.” Perdue’s campaign took down the ad and said that the digital nose-job was an unintentional distortion that happened as the image was being edited for the spot.
“In the graphic design process handled by an outside vendor, the photo was resized and a filter was applied, which appears to have caused an unintentional error that distorted the image. Obviously, this was accidental, but to ensure there is absolutely no confusion, we have immediately removed the image from Facebook,” the Perdue campaign told ABC News in a statement.
“Anybody who implies that this was anything other than an inadvertent error is intentionally misrepresenting Senator Perdue’s strong and consistent record of standing firmly against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate,” the statement continued.
Sitting U.S. Senator David Perdue's digital attack ad distorted my face to enlarge and extend my nose.
I'm Jewish.
This is the oldest, most obvious, least original anti-Semitic trope in history.
Senator, literally no one believes your excuses.https://t.co/PiA7P4O4M2
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) July 28, 2020
In an appearance on TMZ on Wednesday, Ossoff rejected the Perdue campaign’s explanation for the ad and demanded an apology from the GOP senator.
“He is a public official. He is a U.S. senator. He is responsible for his own campaign. I am so sick of this culture of deflecting blame and refusing responsibility,” Ossoff said. “He should man up and take responsibility for what his campaign did and offer the apology that has been demanded by Georgia’s Jewish community.”