The statement:
“David Perdue says he’ll do everything in his power to make sure Joe Biden fails.” –Jon Ossoff, Nov. 17 ad
What we found:
Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff said in a recent ad that David Perdue, his Republican opponent in the January runoff election, will work against President-elect Joe Biden.
“David Perdue says he will do everything in his power to make sure Joe Biden fails, just like he tried to do with President Obama,” Ossoff said in the ad.
Perdue has not publicly said that he will try to make sure that Biden fails, according to PolitiFact and other news outlets. He has barely mentioned the president-elect in public comments since the November election.
When Ossoff’s ad was released on Nov. 17, neither Perdue nor Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia had acknowledged Biden as the winner of the presidential election, the AJC reported.
But in a recorded meeting with the Republican Jewish Coalition on Dec. 2, Perdue “appeared to tacitly acknowledge” Biden’s presidential victory, the Washington Post reported. Publicly, Perdue has shown unwavering support for President Donald Trump, including his recount efforts.
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Ossoff ad opens by stressing the importance of working with Biden due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Look, the only way to beat this virus is to give our new president the chance to succeed,” Ossoff said. “I’ll work with Joe Biden to empower the medical experts to rush economic relief for families and small businesses and invest in infrastructure to jump-start our economy.”
It’s at this point that he claims Perdue will work against Biden.
PolitiFact, the non-partisan fact-checking outlet said that “Perdue clearly is campaigning as a candidate who can block the Democratic agenda.” His campaign says Republicans need to keep control of the Senate as the “last line of defense” against Democrats.
The Ossoff campaign pointed to statements like this, explored in a previous Senate Watch, when asked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to provide the source of the wording in the ad. Being “the last line of defense” is not the same as saying “Perdue will due everything in his power to make sure Joe Biden fails.”
When contacted by PolitiFact, Ossoff campaign spokeswoman Miryam Lipper said: “Perdue says and implies on a regular basis that he needs to be a block on the Democratic agenda.”
But that’s different than what the Ossoff ad claims.
“Perdue has made it clear that he should be in office to obstruct the Biden Administration,” said a statement on the Ossoff campaign website accompanying the ad. The sentence links to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. Perdue does not use those words in the article.
Last month Perdue campaign spokesman John Burke told PolitiFact: “To our knowledge, Senator Perdue has not made any comments about a potential Biden presidency, or how he would react to it in any context.”
In mid-December, Biden released an ad for Ossoff and Warnock in which he said that that “there are folks in Congress threatening to do everything in their power to block our efforts.”
Feedback: Send your campaign questions to senatewatch@ajc.com
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