President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday slammed Georgia’s two Republican senators, saying that David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler “stood by” and “fully embraced nullifying nearly 5 million Georgia votes.”
Biden held a drive-in rally in Atlanta as early voting kicked off this week ahead of the January 5 runoffs between Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff and Loeffler and Rev. Raphael Warnock. If Democrats win both races, they would wrest control of the Senate from the GOP, wiping out Republicans’ two-vote majority and positioning Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker of a 50-50 chamber.
Biden Transition
During the rally, he lambasted Perdue and Loeffler for siding with President Donald Trump in his efforts to undo the election results in Georgia, which delivered Biden a victory of more than 12,000 votes and sent the two Senate races into runoffs because none of the candidates topped the 50% threshold.
“Maybe your senators were just confused. Maybe they think they represent Texas,” Biden said, referring to a Texas lawsuit seeking to throw out other swing states’ election results – a legal effort that was broadly backed by Republicans but rejected by the Supreme Court. “Well if you want to do the bidding of Texas, you should be running in Texas, not in Georgia.”
Biden mocked the failed Republican efforts to reverse his Georgia victory, saying he is “starting to feel like I won Georgia three times.”
Biden said he believes the state will post record-breaking voter turnout in the Senate runoffs, urging voters to deliver the Democratic candidates, Ossoff and Warnock, large enough victories that they can’t be challenged by Republicans.
“Don’t give them an excuse. Don’t let them take away your power,” he said.
Biden’s remarks were especially sharp, and a continuation of his more barbed rhetoric following Monday’s vote by the Electoral College that cemented his victory over Trump, 306-232.
Ossoff and Warnock, Biden said, will “actually fight for you.”
“They won’t put Donald Trump first. They won’t put themselves first, either. They’ll put you first, the people of Georgia,” he said.
He said Ossoff and Warnock would be “doers and not road blocks,” criticizing the Republican-led Senate for not passing a coronavirus relief package in recent months.
“Putting food on the table has become a Herculean task for so many. And what’s the United States Senate doing? Nothing. People need help, and they need it right now,” he said.
