>> Democrat Jon Ossoff who's challenging incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue
in the Senate runoff race in Georgia, was asked about Kelly Loeffler's challenger,
Raphael Warnock. Another Democrat who of course is a challenging Republican incumbent. Now,
Warnock seems to be the target of a smear campaign by the right wing and Ossoff was asked about that.
But what I love about his response was how he immediately played
offense. Let's take a look on how he did that. >> Any concern that the allegations of wrongdoing
against Reverend Warnock could possibly be a drag on the Democratic ticket next week?
>> None whatsoever. Reverend Warnock addressed this issue a year ago.
And here's the bottom line. Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a Klansman.
Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a Klansman. And so she is stooping to
these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that she is campaigning with
a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, we deserve better than that here in Georgia.
>> Absolutely. >> And I want to encourage everybody to
make a plan to vote on Tuesday. Thank you so much. >> Thank you Mr. Ossoff very much, all right.
>> So that was an interview, a live interview on Fox News.
So he knew the audience that he was speaking to.
He didn't back down, which I certainly appreciate. Ossoff doesn't represent
the progressivism that I'd like to see, but he's definitely a better option than David Perdue,
who's suspected of doing insider trading with Senate Intel
information regarding the coronavirus earlier this year. I love the way he handled that.
You're gonna come for us? Well, we're gonna go ahead and come for you. And what he was
referring to there had to do with a picture that did include a former KKK leader. Ossoff called
attention to a photo that Loeffler took earlier this month at a campaign event with Chester Doles
who is a reported former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and was imprisoned for beating a black man.
Doles also has ties to the Hammerskins, which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls,
the best organized most widely dispersed and most dangerous skinhead group.
>> Yeah, so I want to talk about a couple things related to Ossoff based on that clip. Number one,
and I want to give you context here, number one, that was nearly perfectly handled.
So when the media comes, make sure you know what you're going to say and frame your opponents in
a way that changes the dialogue to about them. So they wanna come at Ossoff with a smear and he
turned it around, and he said Klansman three times so that the only thing that anybody would remember
at the end of that little interview was that Kelly Loeffler had campaigned with a Klansman, okay?
And so nice job, Ossoff, there you go. Number two, Rebellion Pack is backing Ossoff. And before we
did that and we're running some vicious ads, so helptherebellion.com, I showed some earlier today
and nobody's ever run ads like that. So the reason why, we looked into it and I looked into Ossoff.
And Ossoff is not a perfect progressive by any stretch. Right,
but he's great on money and politics. And he openly talks about corruption
and he calls it corruption. Look, honestly Bernie doesn't even call it corrupt. She barely does
from time to time. Elizabeth Warren, part of the reason I liked her early on in the primaries is
because she openly talked about the corruption of money in politics, and also did movies about that.
His whole company was about that. So no, he's great on that issue, and it's the most important
issue. So it's really important for Ossoff to win for two different reasons. And secondly,
I think that this is really emblematic and part of why we're sharing it with you guys.
Cuz Ossoff when he ran for the House in a special election, right after Trump had won in 2016,
ran a terrible campaign. It was Democratic consulted 101. There were signs for civility
and hugs and kisses of Republicans. I mean, I'm exaggerating but not by much, okay? It was
an insipid consultant laden pile of crap, wasted I think over $20 million and lost
in an election he could have won.
Now, apparently he's learned his lesson from that. And now he's running a much tougher
campaign. That's why Perdue won't debate him anymore because he hit Purdue with a
two by four in the last debate they had and he called him out for his corruption. How he
scammed people and made millions of dollars because of Coronavirus,
because of insider trading, while he sold out the people of Georgia and I'm like, there you go.
So I also appreciate that Ossoff learns lessons and gets better
and has what is potentially a progressive core that we could work on. So, it's among the reasons
why these Georgia races are so important. >> So Cenk, I actually wanna provide
another example because Ossoff had yet another opportunity to speak to the Fox News audience.
This is what the field reporter who approached him about accusations that he was working with
an individual who worked at a Chinese company that had ties to the Chinese Communist Party, insane
stuff. And I'll explain why. But first, I want you to watch how Ossoff handled that interview.
>> Why is it that you waited until after the primary to reveal
that your business did business with a company in Hong Kong that was linked
to the Chinese government? >> This is utter nonsense.
My company has produced multiple investigations of atrocities committed by ISIS war criminals.
>> But there's a payment from China that was not answered, right?
So just- >> I'm gonna answer the
question. My company has produced multiple investigations of atrocities committed
by ISIS war criminals. And these investigations have been aired by dozens of television channels
in dozens of countries all over the world and one of those television channels was in Hong Kong.
That is the entire substance of Senator Perdue's campaign against me. And the irony of this is that
Senator Perdue ran factories in Shenzhen province, in cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party.
Senator Perdue spent his entire career outsourcing jobs to China.
>> I mean, look the last part of that it grates on my nerves, mostly because that talking point
whether it's Democrats saying it or Republicans saying it is so stupid, right?
Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of companies have been offshoring jobs from the United States
to China to take advantage of cheap labor. That started under Clinton's administration,
it's been going on for a long time. It's completely destroyed our manufacturing
sector, but to tie that to ooh, but you're engaging in scary communism.
No, this is private enterprise that's looking to cut costs by exploiting cheap labor abroad. This
is as capitalist as you could possibly get. That talking point drives me nuts but anyway, Cenk.
>> Yeah. >> I like the way he handled it but overall.
>> Yeah. >> I hate that talking point.
>> I hear you and if you wanna be more accurate about what China is,
it's a capitalist dictatorship. >> Yeah.
>> It's run away free markets, they're not really free markets. What they are it's
crony capitalism at its worst, in a sense, right? So that's what the Chinese government actually is.
But anyway, on to the main point, but in that Ana, I love that he went to Perdue's factories in
China. He's like, look, if you're talking about making money in China, they ran an anti-ISIS
documentary not in China but in Hong Kong for me. The other guy, actually outsourced your jobs.
He took your jobs from Georgia, sent them to what you call the Chinese Communist government. Well,
then if you don't like working with the Chinese. Look, you know me,
I would have gone further. I would say if you don't like working with the Chinese government,
you should despise David Perdue.
You should hate him for outsourcing your job
to what you guys call the Chinese Communist government. So, are you gonna go to David
Perdue and ask him multiple times about how he outsourced jobs in Georgia to
the Chinese Communist government? Are you gonna do it, Steve? Are you gonna do it?
And then Steve Doocy would say, yeah, of course we're gonna do it, of course,
right? Peter Doocy or whatever Doocy he is. So anyway, but overall, another
home run. He clearly explained what he actually did and he clearly explained
that the question is absurd. And he clearly explained that the person who's actually
guilty of what Fox News is pretending they care about is his opponent, David Perdue.
>> Yeah. >> My one slight issue with him Ana, is that he
still speaks too rehearsed like a politician and not a normal person. But it's okay. He's getting
there. And he's saying the right things. >> Yeah, he's saying the right things but
as long as he's willing to fight aggressively and not constantly be
on the defense, which I think Democrats usually put themselves in the position of.
He's demonstrating strategy that I think could be really effective.
And as you're making that argument Cenk, I couldn't help but think about the attacks that
Trump had toward Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. I mean, remember, he was really trying
to present himself as this fake populace that was concerned about jobs being shipped abroad.
He would bring up NAFTA all the time. He would bring up various deals that would allow for
companies in the United States to take advantage of cheap labor abroad without any consequences.
But Hillary Clinton just would not fight back and I'm like,
dude, you should have a Make America Great Again hat on that debate stage with you.
And hey, let's take a look at this label made in China. Why aren't you employing people in
the United States to make these products? But she just didn't fight back. And that was indicative
of what we've been seeing from Democrats over and over again. This specklessness, this unwillingness
to fight back and it is honestly a breath of fresh air to see Ossoff fight the way that he has been.
And this isn't the first example, it's not the second example. One of the earlier examples
was when he did debate Perdue and called him out for his alleged insider trading
based on Senate intelligence on the severity of the coronavirus.
That was important to bring up and he got a lot of good news for that.
>> Yeah, one last thing on this. Ana, you're so right. We're so
starved for Democrats who'll actually fight back. That when Ossoff does what is actually,
if you ask me, politics 101, right? It's the very first thing Republicans
would do. The Republicans are on stage ten, right, of fighting aggressively.
Ossoff reached for a space and we're like yes,
yes, he did something obvious. Your opponent outsourced jobs to China.
If he's criticizing you about China, you should hammer him with that. But you're
right, it's so maddening. Why didn't Hillary Clinton ever say the hats were made in China?
You do it on a debate stage and the whole country's talking about it. And then you
ask him, why did you choose to do it in China? Donald, why did you choose to do it in China?
Why didn't you believe in American workers? I'm a smart businessman. You gotta outsource the jobs.
>> Exactly. >> So easy and like I said
earlier, last thing is that Ossoff is almost a human symbol, a personification of how the
Democratic Party is beginning to get a tiny bit tougher and a little bit more progressive. It is
progressives push us off too, push, push, push, and finally we got the first face.
Okay and if he wins on his anti corruption stance alone
and the fact that the Democrats would then have the Senate and could pass $15
minimum wage and Paid Family Leave Act, I will definitely take it. Go to helptherebellion.com
right now and help run those ads to make sure that those Republicans lose and Ossoff and Warnock win.