Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden threw jabs at both President Trump and Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) during a drive-in campaign rally for their tactic of mocking Democrats amid their re-election bids.
Earlier this month, Perdue — who sits on the Senate Budget Committee with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) — appeared to mock Biden’s VP pick by referring to her as “Kamala, -mala, -mala, I don’t know, whatever,” to jeers of laughter from the crowd at a Trump rally in Macon, Georgia.
Perdue’s butchering and “whatever” dismissal of Harris’ name swiftly drew backlash given how Harris’ parents immigrated to the country.
Perdue’s campaign quickly brushed off the backlash by saying that the lawmaker had “simply mispronounced Sen. Harris’s name, and he didn’t mean anything by it.” Perdue himself told reporters that he meant “absolutely no disrespect” to Biden’s VP pick.
Perdue’s racist mockery of Harris’ first name during a Trump campaign rally in Macon appeared to have worked in Democratic rival Jon Ossoff’s favor. A few days after Perdue mocked Harris’ name, Ossoff raised more than $1.8 million in campaign funds from at least 42,000 donors.
On Tuesday, Biden threw his jab at Perdue shortly after he first took aim at Trump.
“But look, it doesn’t take long for people to figure out when the game is up. When the Carney show goes through town the first time and people find out there’s no P under any of the three shells, the next time it comes back it doesn’t get very much attention,” Biden said. “Well that’s what the Trump administration has done.”
Biden then told attendees at his drive-in campaign rally in Atlanta on Tuesday to “give the people of Georgia two new senators who will fight for your interest, not for Donald Trump’s interests” — which was met with cheers, applause and car honks — before directly taking aim at Perdue for mocking his VP pick.
“And not continue, as Perdue and others have, to make fun of my running mate. I love how these guys try to degrade everything and everybody,” Biden sarcastically said, appearing to align Perdue with Trump’s frequent mockery of the former VP. “It’s got to stop and it’s going to stop with us.”
Watch Biden’s remarks below:
Biden swipes at Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), who mocked Sen. Kamala Harris' (D-CA) first name pic.twitter.com/f6DwhdRZTF
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 27, 2020
