Transcript: Jon Ossoff Remarks at Atlanta, GA Rally

Yes. The president’s son-in-law, the so called special envoy responsible for diplomacy with Russia and in The Middle East? Do you remember the other special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who cofounded the president’s crooked crypto business, World Liberty? Okay.

So follow me through on this. What Jared and Steve are doing right now is negotiating with Putin to sell billions in Russian oil fields and refineries and gas stations to the president’s friends.

You’ve got Sheikh Tahnoon, the Emirati spy chief who paid $500 million to the Trump Witkoff crypto business. Then you’ve got the Al-Khayyat brothers, two Syrians who are financing Jared and Ivanka’s multibillion dollar Albanian resort project. And then the third partner, a billionaire mega donor to Trump’s campaign.

Oh, and the US government would take a 15% stake, by the way. Are you getting the picture? Amidst a global energy crisis, the president’s son-in-law and the president’s business partner are brokering the sale of Russian oil fields to the First Family’s friends. The same friends who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump family businesses. What?

And then there’s Marco Rubio committing $1.6 billion of your money to back the Trump boys’ mining interests in Kazakhstan. Did you hear about that? Pete Hegseth steering hundreds of millions of Pentagon dollars to back Don Junior’s magnet investment. Venezuelan oil money turning up in Qatari bank accounts. Because see, they are literally the elites they pretend to hate.

And here’s the bottom line. If you’re involved in any of this, next year, you’ll be raising your right hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God in front of the United States Congress.

The Mar-a-Lago mafia really has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights. But Georgia, corruption in American politics runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump.

Unrigging American Politics and Ending Citizens United

And see, I get why people voted for him. Because even before he came on the scene, American politics was coin operated. Money goes in, favors come 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 trying to dodge getting bombed by these super PACs.

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 after you paid your premiums for decades.

So Trump promised to attack a broken system. I get it. Right target. Yes. The system really is rigged, but he’s not unrigging it. He is rerigging it for himself.

And how do we unrig American politics? Well, first, follow the money. Follow the money. Citizens United was the most destructive supreme court decision in modern American history. And Donald Trump’s rise is a symptom.

See, the crisis we must meet is deeper than this presidency. Trump’s rise is proof that business as usual has failed. That our politics, sickened by corruption, is failing the American public and compromising our national integrity. And that the hour is late to fix what’s broken.

And I suspect many of you are here because you recognize that our task is not just to contain this wickedness, but to repair the brokenness beneath it. That this 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 Athens or Albany or Columbus 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.

So let the defenders of secret corporate money in politics come out and defend it. They’ll lose the debate. And Georgia, if it takes constitutional amendment to end Citizens United, will deliver a united Georgia to ratify it. A united Georgia.

Republican Mayors Backing the Campaign

Every day, our wave grows taller and 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, they’re voting for Democrats for the first time. For the first time.

Down in Valdosta, the mayor’s named Scott James Matheson, a lifelong conservative Republican. We expanded Valdosta’s transit system together. We upgraded Moody Air Force Base together.

When Hurricane Helene hit, I called him up in the middle of the night to check on the city. And when the storm cleared, I was there alongside him to help going block by block. We served hot meals to folks who had just lost their homes. When I got back to Washington, I delivered federal disaster relief for South Georgia.

And now I’m honored to have conservative Republican Mayor Matheson’s support in this reelection campaign. See, just about every week I dial up Georgia mayors and pastors and farmers to find out how I can help.

One day I called up Mayor Julie Smith, just up the road from Valdosta in Tifton. Mayor Smith’s a Republican, too. She told me the Tifton hospital needed new dialysis equipment. She explained how Tifton’s dialysis center serves 12 South Georgia counties, and they just couldn’t meet the need.

So I delivered the funds to upgrade that South Georgia clinic, and now it can serve 200 dialysis patients. And Republican mayor Julie Smith is backing this campaign too.

Up north in Toccoa, then Mayor Gail Fry, another Georgia Republican. She told me Toccoa’s gas lines were wearing out and a leak could risk lives. We needed to get moving quick to replace miles of old pipes. So I delivered the funds for Toccoa’s new gas lines and Georgia Republican Gail Fry’s backing this campaign too.

Because, see, hurricanes and diabetes and gas leaks don’t check your party affiliation when they hit. And when it comes to serving Georgia, I don’t either.

The Case Against Mike Collins

But there’s another reason so many Republicans are backing our campaign, And it’s the bigot congressman, Mike Collins Whoo. Who’s only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman Yay. Surrounded at work, at home, and on his campaign by neo Nazis and white nationalists.

See, Brian Kemp was right about Mike. There’s a reason Rick Jackson doesn’t campaign with Mike. Why Brad Raffensperger refuses to endorse him. Why conservative WSB radio host Shelley Wynter 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 Erick Erickson said 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 conscience vote for Mike Collins. He is unfit for office.” And warned that Collins would, quote, “drag down the whole Republican ticket in Georgia.”

And that reason is that Mike Collins is a known bigot under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars, widely known for his poor character and low integrity, and unfit for any elected office in The United States. And Georgia, now the bigot wants a promotion, but this year will end his political career instead.

Because in his pathetic childlike devotion to Donald Trump, Mike Collins has sold out our state. He voted every time for the war. He voted every time for the tariffs. He voted to double your health insurance premiums and for the biggest Medicaid cut in American history.

Listen to this. Saint Mary’s Hospital in Lavonia is in Mike’s district, and they just closed their maternity unit, citing the Medicaid cuts that Mike Collins voted for to fund tax cuts for the rich.

So now thanks to Mike Collins, delivering mothers Mike Collins represents have to drive an hour in labor to get to a labor and delivery unit in a state where we’ve already lost 21 hospitals in twenty years. In a state where if you’re born today in Georgia, your life expectancy is shorter than if you were born today in Lebanon.

Where thanks to Donald Trump and Mike Collins and their attacks on the Affordable Care Act, 300,000 Georgians lost their health insurance this year and a million saw their premiums double.

Moral Corruption and the Cost of Indifference

Now what could drive a man, even one as spoiled and hateful as the congressman’s son, Mike Collins, to cast votes that close a labor and delivery unit in his own district or double his own constituents’ health insurance premiums. See, it’s not just the money that’s corrupted our politics. It’s moral corruption. The cynical indifference of powerful people.

See, my office is known for world class service. But what amazes me is how surprised people are to be treated well. Nancy Lancy is 81 years old in Jesup. Her husband died after years of dementia. She was worn out and alone. And now her affairs as a widow were all wrapped up in this bureaucratic labyrinth from the VA to the IRS and Social Security.

So we took care of things for her. And I’ll never forget what she said about it. She said, quote, “this was a new experience to have someone caring about me.” A new experience to have someone caring about me.

How has it come to pass that for so many Americans, the experience of genuine care is rare and surprising? Official indifference and corporate disrespect have become systemic. When millions are just one medical bill, one short paycheck, one bad alternator from financial disaster.

You work harder and harder, but the treadmill gets faster and steeper and the bills get higher and higher. A sixty hour work week still needs SNAP. And that bucket list trips off the table for good.

And then instead of reading your daughter her favorite book, that precious spare hour after work, you’re on the phone begging the insurance company to cover the medicine that prevents her seizures.

The army lost the records you need to claim your VA benefits, and it takes a year and 12 phone calls to fix it. You report the black mold to your landlord who doesn’t fix the leak in the ambulance for your toddler’s asthma is followed by a $3,000 bill.

Investigating Georgia Foster Care

And it’s the worst for the most vulnerable. Maybe you saw my investigation of Georgia foster care. In just four years, hundreds of Georgia children likely sex trafficked in the care of our state. Many more abused and neglected.

Rachel Aldridge testified about her two year old daughter, Brooklyn. See, over Rachel’s repeated objections, DFACS had placed two year old Brooklyn in the care of her father and his girlfriend despite their criminal histories. State officials ignored Rachel’s pleas. They skipped mandatory background checks. And two months later, Rachel’s precious, perfect, irreplaceable two year old girl was dead.

And when she testified before my committee, Rachel said she had flown on an airplane for the first time in her life just so she could tell senators her story. She begged us, “please remember Brooklyn.”

And listen to this Georgia DFACS is so broken that when they couldn’t find enough placements for kids with special needs, the DFACS commissioner tried to lock those kids up in jails for children. What? The judges refused and reported it to my office. They tried to put special needs kids in jail.

And then when my investigation brought all this to light, when we held Senate hearings and exposed it all, instead of resigning or at least leaping into action to fix it, state officials retreated into denial and PR and counterattack because foster kids don’t have lobbyists or a super PAC.

Neither do the women subjected to medical abuse and ICE detention. Neither do the female inmates sexually abused by the warden and the chaplain in their federal prison or the young military family neglected by the defense contractor with a fifty year lease on privatized housing at Fort Gordon. But they deserve leaders who see them and expose those who abuse them, and that’s exactly what I’ll keep doing, Georgia.

“We’re All in This Together”

Because we’re all in this together. Every day, I think about congressman Lewis. His portrait hangs right above my desk in my senate office. And even in his final moments, he kept reminding us that we all live in one American house, that we all live in one world house. Do you remember? John Lewis called it the inevitable truth that we’re all members of one human family.

And I suspect many of you are here today because you’re so deeply troubled by the pain that so many of our fellow human beings are enduring right now. The terror of a child watching ICE take away his mother. The despair of a cancer patient losing coverage mid treatment or 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 feeling is what reminds us that we’re all in this together, that we’re not just one United States, we’re one united people. Pluribus unum, out of many, one.

How inspiring 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. Because see, Americans aren’t a race. 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.

Neo-Nazi Ties and a Federal Investigation

And see, this is what 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, our aspirations, and our care for one another.

Mike Collins, who put people with Klan ties in campaign leadership roles, Who personally himself has promoted neo Nazi propaganda. Who praised a mob that was harassing a black woman on a college campus with monkey sounds.

And I don’t know if you saw the debates last week. Mike, if you want to go again, I’m ready. I’m ready, Mike. But see, at last week’s debate, he couldn’t even bring himself to say he’d stop the production of neo Nazi propaganda from his own house. Did you see that? Yes.

I told Mike we could shake on it. All he had to do was stop neo Nazi propaganda from his house for three weeks. He refused. Just stop and think about this for a second.

A sitting congressman currently running for the senate hosts a neo Nazi at his house and that neo Nazi produces neo Nazi propaganda from his house and the congressman won’t or maybe can’t get the neo Nazi in his house to stop producing neo Nazi content from his house while he’s running for the United States Senate. A crumbling little bigot.

See, Georgia, a man who won’t take responsibility for what happens under his own roof can’t be trusted with our national affairs. That’s not the only question Mike won’t answer. Mike’s like a scandal piñata. Every time you shake him, more misdeeds fall out. He’s not just surrounded by white nationalists. He’s also under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars.

And rather than come clean, the Office of Congressional Conduct reports that Mike, quote, “refused to cooperate.” They recommended he be subpoenaed and forced to testify. And Mike won’t even say if he’ll testify. Listen, Georgia, Mike Collins needs to testify. See, Georgia deserves so much better than this. And America deserves so much better than Donald Trump.

What the Founders Would See Today

Just think two hundred and fifty 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 slave had secured voting rights.

They’d see that our science and technology propelled human knowledge to unimaginable heights and that those 13 colonies grew into a superpower that defeated the Nazis and communism. They’d see a pluralist democracy, people descended from every point on earth of all colors 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 rival factions captured by special interests. Losing touch with that great national spirit that defeated fascism and landed men on the moon.

They’d see that we did those great things, but then succumbed to a small and self serving politics unmoored from fixed moral principles, incapable of inspiration or great national achievement with no real horizon beyond the next election. And they’d see that what’s required of us now is far, far greater than what that small self serving politics can muster.

The World We Leave Our Children

I’ve got two little girls at home. Eva’s four and Lila’s one. And I’m so grateful to this country for the security and opportunity it affords them. But this isn’t the world I want to leave them.

Soon enough, they’ll learn there’s now plastic in human blood and breast milk, that toxic forever chemicals are in half the country’s drinking water. Eva loves animal documentaries, and she’ll learn that the butterflies are dying off. She’ll learn about the nuclear weapons that still threaten annihilation. She’ll ask me why I allowed these things to happen.

And when you step back and consider it, the situation is absurd. Tech titans dig bunkers while warning us the artificial intelligence they’re creating risks human extinction. Meanwhile, our Congress debates youth sports and the president builds a ballroom. An ancient establishment barely capable of email sleepwalks into a technological revolution while the president dismantles precautions and calls us fools for worrying.

And what fills us with dread is the crushing weakness of our politics against the massive stakes of our times. You see this scenario and you look at the state of our politics and it shakes your faith in the future. I get it.

But Georgia, we can and will reclaim control over our own destiny. We can and will meet our obligations to our children. And that begins with victory this fall because, Georgia, I refuse to leave my girls a world as dark and dangerous and cruel as this one threatens to become. And I can’t stop thinking about it.

I refuse to accept that Eva and Lila will grow up with artificial friends and teachers in a society where the sick die, not because there’s no cure, but because they have no money. Where we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world a thousand fold, but we still refuse to guarantee health care for every citizen. On a poisoned planet, re arming for world war where human life is cheap and might makes right.

See, when Eva’s old enough to ask me why I let this happen, I’m determined to answer truthfully, but I didn’t. I’ll tell her how the same year she turned five, Georgia overcame every doubt and dirty trick, not just to win, but to set a new course for our state and our country and the world.

I’ll tell her our generation didn’t shrink from its obligations to hers. That instead we came together clear eyed about the stakes and what was required of us. That we protected the sanctity of the vote Yes. And defeated those who attacked it. Yes.

That we elected those who understood the moment and had the will to meet it. That we restored American leadership toward peace and human rights, that we guaranteed health care for every citizen, and that we mastered technology instead of letting it master us. That we ensured each generation achieves health and prosperity greater than the last, and that we lived up to the promise of equal justice for all.

We can and will do these things, and it starts with victory in seventeen days, Georgia.

Defending the Vote in the Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement

Because Georgia, our power is right there just waiting for us to pick it up. Freedom’s guaranteed at our founding, made real through struggle and sacrifice in places like Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall. Over centuries, despite our sins and through courageous struggle, the flame of American freedom has grown brighter and bolder and given hope to the whole world.

But we see that in the winds that blow today, that light is flickering. The Fulton County ballot raid. Executive orders attacking voting. The MAGA loyalists on our state election board. The election deniers and insurrectionists and their accomplices have made their plans very clear.

But when voting rights and civil rights that heroes marched and died to secure are under attack, we defend those rights by using them. And that’s why Georgia Democrats are answering with a mobilization so massive and a defense of voting rights so fierce that no plot against the franchise will foil the will of the people.

Because how foolish of them to come to the cradle of the civil rights movement to spread those lies and seize those ballots. They launched an attack on voting rights at the political and spiritual center of the very black history they seek to erase. And their attacks have only strengthened our resolve.

And when we do what we must do, the sound of feet marching to the polls this fall will be heard in every corner of our state and all the way up on high where congressman John Lewis will look down and see a job well done.

“Are You Ready to Win?”

See, Georgia, a wave is building. The kind of wave that comes once a generation when the people have been pushed too far and they decide altogether, all at once to say enough is enough.

We have seventeen days, Georgia. The polls are open. Find yours at iwillvote.com. Georgia, are you ready to vote? Are you ready to win?

Thank you. God bless you. Let’s get it done together. Thank you so much.

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