In The News This Week – Jon Ossoff Atlanta August 2026

In The News This Week – Jon Ossoff Atlanta August 2026

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Hello Atlanta! Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you to my friend, Reverend Dr. Cynthia L. Hale of Ray of Hope Christian Church for that warm introduction. Would every veteran, every military service member, every military spouse, please raise your hand high if you can and hold them high to be honored by all of us for your service to our country.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Now Atlanta, the polls open in eight weeks. Eight weeks till early vote. Eight weeks till you can cast your ballots to save our republic.

Atlanta, turn to your neighbor and say, eight weeks. Say, lock in. Because the country’s counting on us, Atlanta.

The country’s counting on us. And the crowds I’ve seen over the last year and a half at rallies like this one. Decent folk from all walks of life in living rooms and backyards across our state.

Our coalition of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. And the volunteer army already knocking thousands of doors each week. All leave no doubt that Georgia’s about to make history again.

Atlanta, are you ready to win? Now I know many of you are here today because you just can’t stand what’s been done to our country. Our government made a tool of one man’s vengeance, power, and wealth. Prices soar while the president rakes in billions.

Cancer patients lose insurance while the rich get another tax cut. We’re plunged deeper and deeper into another reckless war. Private prisons full of families grow in size and squalor.

The Justice Department and even our intelligence agencies are twisted to serve this president’s vendettas. But in eight weeks, Atlanta, in eight weeks we can cast our ballots and say enough is enough. In eight weeks we will vote to rebuke him so decisively that no president will dare such abuses again for centuries, Atlanta.

In eight weeks we’ll vote to elect a Medicaid expanding Governor Bottoms to end our state’s health care emergency. And between now and then, I need you to work, Atlanta. Not for my sake, not for the sake of the Democratic Party, but for the sake of our state and our country.

Because see, some people just happen to live at times and in places where history is made. And this year, once again, that’s us. So Atlanta, are you ready to work? Are you ready to win? Go ahead.

Now remember, he promised to lower prices on day one. You remember that? And I want the president’s remaining supporters to hear this, because it was all a lie. Under Donald J. Trump, it costs more than ever to stock your fridge, to power your home, to make a cup of coffee, to buy school supplies for your kid or a tractor for your farm.

Gas is up 30% since inauguration. Diesel 47%, coffee 35%, ground beef 23%. They doubled your health insurance premiums and slashed Medicaid to cut taxes for their corporate donors and the ultra-rich.

They made you pay more for everything and took us to war on lies and spent most of last year trying to cover up for the world’s most famous pedophile while the crook president and his crook family raked in billions. While your tax dollars were put to work backing Trump’s businesses. See, they are literally the elites they pretend to hate.

So say it again, would be now Atlanta, enough is enough. Now he promised to lower prices on day one. He also promised peace and gave us war.

Now in its six months, they drained our stockpiles to achieve nothing. Iran still has its uranium, Hormuz is still closed, and it was all lies. 18 brave Americans killed in action.

Remember last year they claimed Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated. Then this year they claimed it posed an imminent nuclear threat. Both times lies.

On day one of the war, listen to this, day one, the president said the war was quote ahead of schedule. Ahead of schedule. On day four, he declared victory.

Today is day 170. And did y’all see Hegseth in front of that committee? Did y’all see it? Listen to this, on day nine of the war, the incompetent Pete Hegseth guaranteed Iranian surrender. On day 14, he claimed Iran’s military had been destroyed.

On day 40, he said every single objective had been achieved. That was four months ago. They’ve lied nonstop about this war like they lie about everything.

And they know they’re lying, but they lie and they keep lying anyway because in this White House, they view persistence in deceit as a virtue. You hear me, Atlanta? And there’s something uniquely despicable about lying a nation into war. Treating citizens as fools and those who serve as pawns.

Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, they’ve now been at sea for 240 plus days without a port call. It’s a Navy record. And still, and still, and still they serve with excellence.

And still they serve with excellence. God bless the sailors, marines, aviators, and all aboard the United States ship Abraham Lincoln. See, they don’t expect luxury.

They’ll endure hardship. But they deserve competent leaders who send them into combat only when necessary. And with decisive clarity of purpose.

Not fools who lie about the purpose and progress of war. And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks.

See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. And above all, above all, Donald wants to get money.

How much have you heard about the president’s stock trading? When he first announced the tariffs, you remember that? He called it Liberation Day. And it crashed the markets because it was clown policy. You remember that? Okay, so follow me through on this.

He announces the tariffs on April 2nd of last year. The markets tank nonstop for like a week because it’s a disastrous trade policy. And six days into the crash, April 8th, Trump buys millions in stock.

I’m talking Amazon, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway. And then the very next morning, April 9th, he posts on Truth Social, quote, this is a great time to buy. Three exclamation marks.

Okay, now listen to this. Three hours and 41 minutes after that post, one day after he bought millions in stock, he canceled the tariffs and triggered one of the biggest same day rebound rallies in market history. He’s trying to get money.

And you saw, now he’s offering paid subscriptions to presidential announcements, right? Just understand what’s for sale here. The sitting president’s pronouncements on war and peace and economic policy delivered first to paying customers. What an absolute crook.

And speaking of crooks. Speaking of crooks. Not a lot of people know this, but Congressman Mike Collins is literally one of the most active crypto traders in the entire Congress, House or Senate.

Now remember, Mike’s already under federal investigation for illegally funneling tax dollars to his violent staffer’s girlfriend for a no show job. Do you remember that? But Mike Collins also repeatedly broke the law hiding his crypto trading. Because he’s like a scandal pinata.

Every time you shake him, more misdeeds fall out. The Mar-a-Lago mafia really has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights. But corruption in American politics runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump.

And see, I get why people voted for him. Because even before he came on the scene, American politics was coin operated. Money’s in, favor’s out.

It’s been running on corporate money, secret money, billionaire money, both sides. And when members of Congress aren’t fundraising from lobbyists and corporate PACs, they’re just trying to dodge getting bombed by these super PACs. So spectacular wealth buys an ever greater share of power over our national affairs.

And this corruption is why nothing works for ordinary people. It’s why you pay a fortune for prescriptions. It’s why your insurance company gets away with denying your cancer treatment.

It’s why we’re promised progress and we get more of the same. So many broken promises. We were promised tax cuts for the rich would grow the middle class.

We were promised Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We were promised fairness only to see banks bailed out while millions lost their homes. Do you remember that? We were promised hard work would earn wealth and advancement.

But for too many, the treadmill gets faster and steeper. Georgians work harder and longer, but the bills just get higher and higher. A 60-hour work week still needs SNAP.

Santa can’t make your little girl’s wish come true this year. That bucket list trip is off the table for good. And the corporate disrespect is suffocating.

Instead of reading to your child that precious spare hour after work, you’re on the phone fighting your bank or the cable company. After a cancer diagnosis, you can’t fight the cancer till you fight your insurance company while they try to deny you the care you need. A toddler’s ambulance is followed by a $3,000 bill.

So Trump promised to attack a broken system. I get it. Ripe target.

Yes, the system is really rigged. But he’s not un-rigging it. He’s re-rigging it for himself.

So how do we un-rig American politics? Well, first, follow the money. Citizens United was the most destructive Supreme Court decision in modern American history. And see, Donald Trump’s rise is a symptom of all of this.

And I suspect many of you are here because you recognize that our task is not just to contain his wickedness, but to cure the rot that gave rise to it. That this broken moment is an opening not for restoration, but for reformation. Because who really supports allowing unlimited secret political money to bend the nation’s agenda in darkness? In Garden City or Albany or College Park, if I ask anyone, Democrat, Independent, Republican, none of the above, if I ask them whether this is how things should work, it doesn’t matter who they are, the answer is no.

In Atlanta, if it takes a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United, we’ll deliver a United Georgia to ratify it. A United Georgia. Every day, our wave grows taller, our tent grows bigger.

Because this isn’t just a campaign for Democrats. Folks come up to me at airports or on the street, they tell me they’re lifelong Republicans, but this year, for the first time, they’re voting for a Democrat. The mayor of Valdosta, Scott James Matheson, a friend of mine, a conservative Republican, he’s backing this campaign.

And when the storm hit, I was right there with him to check on folks, block by block, to serve meals, and then deliver federal disaster relief, because that hurricane didn’t check party affiliation when it comes to Georgia. And when it comes to serving Georgians, I don’t either. I don’t either.

And then up the road in Tifton, Mayor Julie Smith, another proud Republican who’s on this team. When her hospital needed new dialysis equipment, my office delivered it. When Tift County pecan farmers told me they needed help lowering foreign tariffs on Georgia pecans, I got it done.

I am grateful, I am grateful to Scott and Julie for their support. And there will be more bipartisan friends announcing their support in the weeks ahead. Because, because this is a campaign for everyone who craves sanity and competence and quality public service.

This is a campaign for decent folk of all stripes who love our state and our country and care for each other. Every day, I think about Congressman Lewis. His portrait hangs right above my desk in my Senate office.

And even in his final months, he kept reminding us that we all live in one American house. That we all live in one world house. John Lewis called it the inevitable truth that we’re all members of one human family.

And I suspect many of you are here because you’re so deeply troubled by the pain so many of our fellow human beings are enduring right now. The terror of a child watching ice take away her mother. The despair of a cancer patient losing coverage mid-treatment.

The silent panic of a grandmother when she sees the receipt for her groceries and then remembers there’s three weeks left until her next Social Security check. And that ache in your heart, that pit in your stomach, that’s what reminds us we’re all in this together. That we’re not just one United States, we’re one united people.

E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. How amazing is it that the most powerful nation on earth proclaims as our core values that all are created equal.

With inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, no matter how humble our beginnings. No matter our ancestry or when we arrived on these shores. Because Americans aren’t a race, we’re a people.

We’re a people. United not by ethnicity, but by shared convictions. And that is what makes us exceptional and a beacon to the world.

Because see, here’s the truth that small men like Donald Trump and Mike Collins will never understand. That our national greatness flows not through our blood or our genes, but through our ideas and our care for one another. Mike Collins, the bigot congressman.

Surrounded at work and at home by neo-Nazis and white nationalists. His office, briefing America’s most notorious white supremacists on their efforts to support a holocaust denier. And we’ve seen some of those records because they leaked, but Mike still refuses to release their communications in full.

So let me be clear, Mike Collins needs to release every email, every text, every call, every single communication between those white supremacists. And himself or his chief of staff or anyone in his office. And then there’s the neo-Nazi propagandist with a million followers producing neo-Nazi propaganda at Mike Collins’ house while producing promotional content for Mike Collins’ business.

This is a real thing that happened. And Mike still refuses to answer whether his business paid the neo-Nazi or if he just accepted the neo-Nazi services as a gift. The press asked him and he ran away.

Did you see it? He literally ran away from a press conference. It was Mike Collins alone standing in a field. A reporter asks if he paid the neo-Nazi, he won’t answer.

Another asks if Mike endorses white nationalism, he won’t answer. Mike literally gets so scared you can see his hand shaking at the podium until he just flees. A crumbling little bigot.

And the sad spectacle of a collapsing campaign. Because see, Brian Kemp was right about Mike Collins. There’s a reason Rick Jackson won’t commit to campaigning with Mike.

Why Brad Raffensperger won’t endorse him. Why conservative WSB radio host Shelley Winner called Mike a bottom feeder. Why Coach Dooley condemned Mike’s, quote, blatant taxpayer-funded corruption and said Mike’s, quote, disgusting behavior does not represent Georgia values or frankly any values.

Why, why Eric Erickson said that Mike, quote, knowingly hired a sociopath with a criminal record who was alleged to have used your and my tax dollars to subsidize his girlfriend. There’s a reason one of the founders of the Tea Party said this summer, quote, I cannot in good conscience vote for Mike Collins. He is unfit for office and warned that Collins would, quote, drag down the whole Republican ticket in Georgia.

There’s a reason. And that reason is Mike Collins is a known bigot under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars surrounded by neo-Nazis and white nationalists widely known for his poor character and low integrity who voted for war and voted to cut your healthcare and is unfit for any elected office. By the way, by the way, if you think what’s come out so far about Mike is bad, believe me, there’s more and worse on the way.

Last week, last week, just two weeks after he ran away from the neo-Nazi press conference, Mike got himself in trouble again when a man named Dominic Box came to a Mike Collins breakfast at a golf club in Savannah. Because, see, Mr. Box is one of those who helped lead the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Convicted on two felony counts, pardoned by Donald Trump on day one.

Never let them forget. They hunted the vice president to kill him. They built a gallows on the Capitol lawn.

They assaulted police officers with flagpoles and bear spray, and they tried to seize the presidency for Donald Trump. And to this day, Mike Collins supports that violent attempt to overturn the election. He honors and defends them.

He went to visit them in jail. And at that Savannah breakfast last week, Mike told Mr. Box he wants to pay those violent criminals with your tax dollars. They tried to seize the presidency.

And here we are in Fulton County where the president sent his spies and his agents to seize your ballots. And why Georgia? Why this obsession with Fulton County? It’s the same reason he’s obsessed with Philly. It’s the same reason he’s obsessed with Detroit.

It’s because the fact that black voters were instrumental to his defeat offends him even more than the defeat itself. But how foolish of them to launch an attack on voting rights right here at the political and spiritual center of the very black history they seek to erase. In Atlanta, if Donald Trump thinks Georgia voters will be deterred or intimidated from exercising their voting rights after all that was sacrificed to secure them, he will be dealt his most resounding defeat yet.

Because Georgia deserves better. Better than pro-war, pro-tariff, pro-cutting-your-healthcare Trump puppet Mike Collins. And America deserves better than Donald Trump.

Just think, 250 years on, what the founders would see if they visited us today. They’d see that slavery had been abolished. They’d see that Americans without land and then women and then the descendants of slaves had secured voting rights.

They’d see that our science and technology propelled human knowledge to unimaginable heights and that those 13 colonies had grown into a superpower that defeated the Nazis and communism. They’d see a pluralist democracy, people of all colors descended from every point on earth, stitched together out of many nations into one. But they’d also see a nation that at the height of its wealth and power fell into the very traps they most feared, consumed by bitter conflict between factions captured by special interests.

Losing touch with the great national spirit that defeated fascism. With the spirit that landed men on the moon and passed civil rights laws. They’d see that we did those great things, but then we succumbed to a small and self-serving politics unmoored from fixed moral principles, incapable of great inspiration or national achievement with no real horizon beyond the next election.

In Atlanta, what’s required of us now is so much greater than what that small, self-serving politics can muster.