Loeffler refuses to say whether Trump lost, spars with Warnock over their agendas, records

ATLANTA — Sen. Kelly Loeffer, R-Ga., repeatedly refused to acknowledge that President Donald Trump lost last month’s election in a Sunday evening debate against her Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock.

Over the course of the hour-long face-off, which was hosted by Georgia Public Radio and the Atlanta Press Club, the two candidates also tangled over their agendas, particularly with regard to further Covid relief, their records and “lies” they each claimed their opponent was spreading.

Loeffler was asked right at the start of the debate whether she felt the election in the state, where President-elect Joe Biden won the presidential contest, was “rigged” — a charge Trump has leveled without proof. She responded that it was “very clear” there were issues, calling for investigations to be completed quickly. But she did not go further.

Asked again, she said the process “is still playing out” and that “we also have to make sure that Georgians know we have a process that works.”

Asked directly whether Trump lost, Loeffler said the president “has every right to use every legal recourse available.”

She was also asked about the president’s repeated bashing of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who appointed Loeffler to her Senate seat late last year, and about to whom she owed more loyalty.

“I appreciate the president’s support of me, and I appreciate the governor’s support of me,” Loeffler said. “They both know what’s at stake.”

She declined to attack Kemp and said the buck stops with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, whom she has called on to resign. Raffensperger has the defended the integrity of the count and his office.

Loeffler framed her election as a last line of defense against the Democratic agenda, prompting the question of whether that meant she was conceding that Trump had lost.

“What’s at stake is the Senate majority,” she said.

Loeffler appeared alongside the president Saturday at a rally in Valdosta, where he repeatedly attacked the integrity of last month’s election. Georgia Republican officials have pushed back on those attacks, saying they are without merit. Trump’s efforts to challenge the results in several states have so far come up short.

After California certified its results on Friday, enough states — including Georgia — made official their election results to give Biden the needed 270 electoral votes to take the White House. Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 last month.

Much of the rest of the debate featured Loeffler repeating the same few points about Warnock that have appeared in attack ads against him, while Warnock made issue of Loeffler’s stock-trading controversy from earlier this year.

Over and over again, Loeffler referred to Warnock as “radical liberal Raphael Warnock” in addressing him and highlighted comments he had made about police, criminal justice and the military during sermons he delivered as the top pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. She claimed Warnock would “defund police,” raise taxes on working class Georgians, and that she is “fighting for the American dream every day.”

Warnock took issue with Loeffler’s portrayal, saying he will be an ally of law enforcement and that Loeffler, the wealthiest member of Congress, is only spending millions attacking him because she cannot make a case for herself. He later said Loeffler had actually cast a vote that, in effect, had served to cut some funding to police.

“She was appointed, the people of Georgia have been disappointed,” he said.

Warnock accused Loeffler of using “her position as a U.S. senator to make millions,” pointing to stock trades that were made at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Loeffler said she had been “completely exonerated” of any wrongdoing.

The two battled over coronavirus aid, which Warnock said has not come generously enough to everyday Georgians.

At one point, Loeffler asked Warnock to denounce socialism and Marxism, to which he said he believes “in our free enterprise system” and that his church offered parishioners services on financial literacy, how to create a business and buy a home.

“She has made a calculation that after being in the Senate for 10 months, she does not have a case for why the people of Georgia should keep her there,” Warnock said.

Loeffler later said she “was blessed to live the American dream, and I want Georgians to live theirs,” attacking Warnock for having “never created a job in his life.”

Warnock dodged a question about whether he would support expanding the Supreme Court should Democrats win the two Georgia Senate seats next month, saying he is “really not focused on it.”

Asked about her past comments about Black Lives Matter, and the backlash it led to among players of the WNBA team she holds an ownership stake in, the Atlanta Dream, Loeffler said there is no place for racism in the U.S. but that Black Lives Matter was an anti-police group.

“There’s not a racist bone in my body,” she said.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, who is seeking the other Georgia Senate seat, faced off against an empty podium in a debate hosted by Georgia Public Radio and the Atlanta Press Club after Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., declined to participate.

Ossoff slammed Perdue for showing “an astonishing arrogance and sense of entitlement” by not showing up, additionally criticizing him for his numerous stock trades over his Senate career and at the early stages of the pandemic.

Perdue campaign manager Ben Fry said in a statement afterwards that Ossoff “lost a debate against himself.”

These Senate runoff races, set for Jan. 5, will determine control of the Senate, where Republicans currently have a 52-seat majority. If both Democrats win the Georgia races, Democrats would control the chamber with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote.

The elections are the result of no candidate earning at least 50 percent of the vote in November. Under Georgia law, that leads to the top two finishers moving forward to a runoff election.

source: nbcnews.com