At a campaign rally in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday, the Democratic senator Jon Ossoff mocked Donald Trump’s rosy predictions on Iran and tore into what he called the unprecedented corruption of the president’s family.
While Ossoff is running for re-election in November, he trained most of his fire on the president, and the vice-president, amid mounting speculation that the Democrat could launch a bid for his party’s nomination for the presidency in 2028.
The senator began his remarks by making fun of the paltry turnout for an event headlined by JD Vance on Tuesday: “I don’t know if you saw, but JD Vance was in Georgia this week. Don’t worry – no one showed up.”
He then argued that Trump’s decision to attack Iran would be paid for by young Americans deployed to the Middle East and cuts to services for their families back home.
“Did you hear what this man said two weeks ago?” the senator asked supporters, referring to Trump. “Quote: ‘It’s not possible,’ the president said, ‘for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid or Medicare.’ He said: ‘We can only afford to fund war.’”
“Because draft-dodging Donald loves sending other people’s children to war,” Ossoff said.
The senator noted that the $200bn the White House requested to pay for the war on Iran would be enough to “fund a decade, ten full year years of nationwide, universal pre-kindergarten”.
“Instead? A war no one voted for and no one can explain,” Ossoff said. “And the daily, the hourly lying to the American public about why we’re at war, whether we’ve won, what’s been agreed to, not to mention the insane genocidal threats.”
The senator then recited, to laughter from the crowd, a list of the president’s false claims that the war in Iran he started was all but over. “On day 10 of the war, the president said, quote: ‘The war is very complete.’ That was day 10. Then, day 11: ‘Going to be finished pretty quickly.’ Day 12: ‘We won.’ Day 21: ‘Getting very close.’ Day 32: ‘Leaving very soon.’ Day 40: ‘Total and complete victory.’ Yesterday, day 49, Trump said Iran had opened the strait – except this morning the strait was closed, and it looks like Iran hit a cargo ship.”
Ossoff noted that Trump’s war on Iran has already caused the deaths of 13 US soldiers, and thousands of civilians, triggered “sky-rocketing inflation” and done “massive damage to our reputation” and yet “the regime is intact” as is “its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which it only assembled after Donald Trump shredded President Obama’s Iran deal”. As Ossoff’s supporters booed Trump’s embrace of war over diplomacy, a woman in the crowd shouted out, sardonically: “The art of the deal!”
The senator also attacked the president and his family for using the White House to enrich themselves.
“Donald Trump depicted himself as Jesus Christ,” Ossoff said, referring to the AI image the White House defended and then removed from social media after blowback from even some Trump supporters. “The faithless president depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into wars of choice, while he and his family rake in billions from foreign princes, while he plunders our healthcare to cut taxes for the rich.”
“Meanwhile, rent, power, groceries and healthcare have all hit all-time highs this year,” the senator said. “While you pay more for everything, the first family’s wealth is growing by billions of dollars – because they’re crooks, and everybody knows it.”
“How much do you guys know about Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband?” Ossoff asked. “He’s on the Saudi payroll for $2bn, did you know that? And now he’s leading American diplomacy in the Middle East, apparently, while at the very same time asking princes and sheikhs across the Arab world to give him billions more.”
“Can you imagine, like a normal, sitting US ambassador just hitting up Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for billions of dollars? But he’s a Trump, a royal, a princeling. The rules are for us, not for them. And it’s not just Jared getting in on the action,” the senator said, adding that the president’s sons had also sought to profit, as had his defense secretary, according to a Financial Times report.
“Never before have we seen so little effort to hide so much corruption. The Mar-a-Lago mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights,” Ossoff said.
