Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jon Ossoff goes viral after taking opponent to task on virus in debate

Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, went viral on Thursday with a video of him dressing down his opponent, incumbent Sen. David Perdue, during their debate the prior evening.

“Well, perhaps Senator Perdue would have been able to better respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, if you hadn’t been fending off multiple investigations for insider trading,” Ossoff said in the clip, which has been viewed tens of thousands of times on social media.

“It’s not just that you’re a crook, Senator,” Ossoff continued. “It’s that you’re attacking the health of the people you represent.”

Ossoff castigated Perdue for voting to end insurance protections for people with preexisting conditions, and for downplaying the coronavirus pandemic.

During the debate, Perdue went on the offensive as well, accusing Ossoff of championing a “radical socialist agenda.”

The two have been in a heated race for months.

In July, the Perdue campaign ran an ad featuring an image of Ossoff, who is Jewish, that made his nose appear bigger than it is. The Perdue campaign said the enlargement of the nose was accidental, and was created by an outside graphic designer.

The race is tight going into the final days of the campaign, with FiveThirtyEight deeming it a toss-up that leans Republican. The Cook Political Report also considers the race a toss-up.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.