Jon Ossoff, Georgia Democratic Senate candidate, continues to use Fox News to instantly create viral moments on the campaign trail.
With just days to go before his runner-up election against Senator David Perdue (R-GA), Ossoff was approached again on Thursday by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on a live Fox broadcast.
While Ossoff used Wednesday’s impromptu interview to address Fox News viewers and lash out both Perdue and Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) running in a separate Georgia runoff race, this time around 33-year-old Senate hopeful pushed back on the conservative story he owes to the Chinese Communist Party.
Note that Ossoff amended his financial statement in July to list additional payments received by his investigative film company – including a $ 1,000 payment from a Hong Kong TV channel – Doocy Ossoff pressed on why the transaction was not in the first disclosure.
“Why did you wait until after the primary to reveal that your company was doing business with the Hong Kong company associated with the Chinese government?” Doocy asked, echoing Perdue’s accusation that Ossoff was “being paid by the communist Chinese government through a media company.”
Ossoff, meanwhile, noted that “the whole content of Senator Perdue’s campaign” against him is that a Hong Kong television channel has approved a documentary about ISIS war criminals from his company. He then highlighted Perdue’s own business history, in which the wealthy outsourced managerial jobs to China and helped build factories in China.
Doocy walked back to the amended financial statement and asked Ossoff why he waited until after the primary to update his forms. However, the young Democratic candidate dismissed the question as something Perdue is “trying to make a big deal about.”
The Fox reporter then took a different path with his question, appealing to the recent revelation that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was informed by the FBI in 2015 that an alleged Chinese spy had gained access to him. The congressman cut ties with the woman after the FBI briefing and has not been charged with wrongdoing.
“We recently saw the Chinese government trying to get through to a young democratic lawmaker Eric Swalwell. Are you concerned that someone connected to China through another company or the Chinese through another company is trying to influence you by making a payment to a well-known young Democrat? “
“Come on man! You’re a serious reporter,” Ossoff replied. “Do you really believe that a Hong Kong TV channel broadcasting an investigation my company produced into ISIS war crimes in Iraq is what you are suggesting it is or what David Perdue suggests it is? “
After Doocy wondered aloud if Ossoff didn’t believe the Chinese government was trying to influence young politicians, the Democratic candidate turned the question back to Perdue.
“Chinese intelligence operations in the United States are a serious threat to our national security,” he said. “And that’s why it’s so worrying that we have a senator like David Perdue.”
“Senator David Perdue bragged under oath about how he spent most of his career outsourcing US jobs to China,” he concluded. “He operated factories in Shenzhen Province, China, in conjunction with the Chinese Communist Party, and he should explain that officially.”