On Monday night, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff debated Republican Sen. David Perdue, of Georgia, in an hour-long, televised back and forth that covered health care, the Supreme Court, taxes, the economy, and most poignantly, one of the nation’s biggest and ongoing concerns: the novel coronavirus pandemic. As we know, more than 200,000 Americans have died from the virus, and more than 1 million people worldwide have been killed by it.
Donald Trump and his administration continue to downplay the severity of the virus, obsess over the reopening of schools and businesses, and put the onus of public health down to personal responsibility. During Monday’s debate, Ossoff had no problem calling out Perdue, who is seeking his second term in the U.S. Senate, especially when it came to calling a spade a spade and nailing the senator as a Trump lackey who enabled his administration’s terrible COVID-19 response.
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One particularly strong zinger from Ossoff: “The health care workers have done their jobs. It’s politicians like Sen. Perdue who have not. And everybody knows it.” He continued that America needs a government “that is honest and competent, that empowers public health experts in a public health emergency.” Surely we do need that, and just as surely, we don’t have that with the current administration. Let’s check out some clips and dialogues from the virtual debate.
Perdue challenged Ossoff throughout the debate, with his main, repeated digs hinging on socialism and communism. Perdue accused Ossoff of having a “radical socialist agenda,” including supporting the Green New Deal, and suggested Ossoff had the support of the Communist Party of the USA (according to the Associated Press, that Communist Party claim has already been debunked). He also said Ossoff wanted to defund the police (also not true). When it came to the global pandemic slamming the nation, Perdue tried to downplay Ossoff’s critique on his COVID-19 response, as well as Ossoff’s proposed solutions for the health crisis, as “idle chatter.”
That’s when things really took off.
“Senator,” Ossoff said, “I’m astounded. It’s not idle chatter, Senator. It’s 220,000 Americans killed by a virus.” He added: “And listen to you … schoolyard insults. Not a shred of empathy. Not a shred of personal responsibility [about] a virus that you told us posed low risk to our health.”
Ossoff stressed that this is about more than just party lines and “liberals versus conservatives,” arguing it’s about the “people of the United States against crooks like you in Washington, too busy enriching yourself in office.”
Ossoff also called out Perdue for praising Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, when back in 2016, he argued against nominations for a Supreme Court judge in an election year. “Now he’s thrown those so-called principles aside,” Ossoff said.
You can catch the full debate (which also featured Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel) below.