Loeffler pastes Dem challenger Warnock as 'radical liberal' in spirited debate

Seeking to keep her seat and the GOP Senate majority, Sen. Kelly Loeffler on Sunday night repeatedly cast her Democratic opponent as "a radical liberal" out of touch with Georgia while challenger Raphael Warnock attacked the senator for lacking vision in a spirited debate.

"I cannot stand by and let Georgians not know who my opponent is, how radical his views are, and how he would fundamentally change our country. He's out of step with Georgia values," Loeffler argued during a debate hosted by Georgia public television a month before the state's critical two Senate race runoffs that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Loeffler accused Warnock, a minister at the same Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King Jr. once presided, as "someone who has attacked police, attacked the military, and would raise taxes on hard-working Georgians by $2,000." She also repeatedly cited a 2011 comment Warnock made that "you can't serve God and the military." 

Warnock countered that his quote was taken out of context "to make a cynical political argument," and that Loeffler lacked ideas and a record of accomplishment since being named to the Senate seat.

"She's the unelected senator of Georgia," he argued. "She has been appointed and Georgians have been disappointed."

Pressed by Loeffler, Warnock said he opposed defunding police but declined to say whether he supported or opposed stacking the Supreme Court with more justices. "“I’m really not focused on it," he said.