With just two days left until the Georgia runoff elections, Democrat Jon Ossoff is reiterating claims that Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler campaigned with a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
When bringing up the idea again Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper was quick to fact-check the candidate.
“You attacked Senator Loeffler,” Tapper said. “You said that ‘Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman.’ That’s not true. It is true that a former member of the Klan took a photo with her at a campaign event. Her campaign says she didn’t know who he was at the time, and she has condemned him. I’m sure you’ve taken photos with thousands of strangers. Isn’t it important for candidates to tell the truth?”
Ossoff, who faces Sen. David Perdue at the ballot box on Tuesday, said Loeffler’s campaign attracts people who align with the worldview of the Ku Klux Klan.
“It is … and this isn’t an isolated incident,” Ossoff said. “Kelly Loeffler has repeatedly posed for photographs and been seen campaigning alongside white supremacists, and I believe they are drawn to her campaign because her campaign has consisted almost entirely of racist attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and on the black church. The fact that these elements continue to be drawn to her, to support her, to campaign alongside her, to appear in photos next to her is deeply distressing.”
Tapper jumped in after Ossoff’s comments, correcting the record for the second time.
“Alright, we just need to be clear, she was not campaigning with a klansman,” Tapper said. “That wasn’t true, what you said.”
After a photo of Loeffler surfaced on social media with Chester Doles, a man who spent decades in the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy group National Alliance, Loeffler and her campaign said she “had no idea” who Doles was.
“Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had, she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,” campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Loeffler’s Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock said he was hesitant to believe she didn’t know who he was.
The Georgia runoff elections will be held on Tuesday and are set to determine which party will control the Senate, which is held by Republicans. Democrats will maintain control of the House but with a slimmer margin.
