Last week, Democratic gubernatorial nominee and former U.S. Senator Doug Jones attended a town hall in Montgomery, where he again criticized U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, over his recent comments deriding Social Security as a “scam” and a “Ponzi scheme.”

“This week is the 91st anniversary of when Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act,” Jones told a crowd of voters, including state employees and retirees. “And I mentioned that not just because it’s so important to so many people, probably including a lot of people in this room, but the fact that we’ve got a United States senator running for governor who stood on the floor of the United States Senate the other day with a big poster that said ‘Social Security is a scam,’ a ‘Ponzi scheme.'”

“That’s pretty rich coming from somebody who’s actually been involved in a scam and a Ponzi scheme,” Jones added, referring to the criminal investigation into a hedge fund co-founded by Tuberville that resulted in his business partner pleading guilty to fraud.

Jones warned that Tuberville’s attacks on Social Security could translate into attacks on Alabama’s retirement system if the Republican senator wins the governor’s race in November.

“If Tommy Tuberville believes ‘Social Security is a scam,’ he’s coming for your state retirement,” Jones said. “He will want to privatize the state retirement system and get rid of the retirement systems of Alabama and put it all in the hands of people in New York that are his buddies that are donating to his campaign that can make money. We’ve got to tell Tommy Tuberville: hands off RSA.”

Tuberville initially voiced his opposition to Social Security in a speech delivered on the Senate floor earlier this month. In the speech, Tuberville argued that Americans would be better off investing their money in the stock market than entrusting it to Social Security, that the Social Security Trust Fund will become insolvent in five years and that undocumented immigrants are “getting rich” off Social Security, a claim that is completely unfounded.

Despite Tuberville’s criticisms, 95 percent of U.S. adults continue to view Social Security as an important program, regardless of age group or political affiliation.

Tuberville’s office did not immediately respond to APR’s request for comment regarding Social Security’s continued popularity among the vast majority of Americans or whether he would seek to privatize RSA if elected Alabama’s next governor.