A GOP lawmaker is calling for the campaign staffer responsible for an ad featuring Sen. David Perdue’s (R-Ga.) Democratic opponent with an enlarged nose to be fired.
The now-deleted ad showed Perdue’s Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish, with a lengthened and widened nose.
“Democrats are trying to buy Georgia!” the ad said, accompanied by photos of Ossoff and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is also Jewish.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) wrote that the “insidious” alteration done to an image warranted the staffer in question being outed publicly and never rehired by another campaign.
“Some things are insidious,” he tweeted. “Whoever in U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s (R, GA) campaign digitally enlarged the nose of his Jewish opponent in campaign ads SHOULD BE OUTED, FIRED & NEVER REHIRED BY ANY CAMPAIGN, ANYWHERE.”
“This religious bigotry is INTOLERABLE!” Brooks added in the tweet sent Tuesday.
A Perdue campaign spokesperson told The Hill earlier this week that it was irresponsible for critics of the senator to imply that the change was intentional, attributing it to a photo filter used in the ad.
“In the graphic design process handled by an outside vendor, the photo was resized and a filter was applied, which appears to have caused an unintentional error that distorted the image,” the spokesperson said. “Obviously, this was accidental, but to ensure there is absolutely no confusion, we have immediately removed the image from Facebook.”
“Anybody who implies that this was anything other than an inadvertent error is intentionally misrepresenting Senator Perdue’s strong and consistent record of standing firmly against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate,” Perdue’s spokesperson added.
Ossoff responded to the situation in his own tweet, calling the alteration “the oldest, most obvious, least original anti-Semitic trope in history.”
“Senator, literally no one believes your excuses,” Ossoff added.