President Biden said Wednesday in an ESPN interview that he would “strongly support” Major League Baseball’s moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia to protest the state’s new voting law, but Jon Ossoff, one of Georgia’s new Democratic U.S. senators, opposes such a move.
“I absolutely oppose and reject any notion of boycotting Georgia,” Ossoff tells National Review in a written statement. “Georgia welcomes business, investment, jobs, opportunity, and events. In fact, economic growth is driving much of the political progress we have seen here. Georgia welcomes the world’s business. Corporations disgusted like we are with the disgraceful Voter Suppression bill should stop any financial support to Georgia’s Republican Party, which is abusing its power to make it harder for Americans to vote.”
The office of Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s other Democratic senator, has not yet replied to a request for comment on Biden’s call for MLB to pull the All-Star Game out of Georgia.
In his ESPN interview, Biden characterized the state’s new voting law as “Jim Crow on steroids.” But several of Biden’s claims about the law have been debunked. “Biden falsely claims the new Georgia law ‘ends voting hours early,’” the Washington Post fact-checker reported this week.