Ossoff says Trump is ‘re-rigging’ broken political system
Senator Jon Ossoff attacked President Donald Trump’s handling of the US-Israel war on Iran at a rally in midtown Atlanta on Sunday, calling it “uniquely despicable” and accusing Trump of lying the nation into war while personally profiting from office.
Ossoff, a Democrat who is running for reelection in Georgia in November, used the speech to tie the Iran conflict to what he framed as a broader pattern of presidential corruption. “They made you pay more for everything, and took us to war on lies,” Ossoff told the crowd, “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.”
He turned next to the sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, who he said were enduring a “record-setting deployment of nearly nine months.” Trump last week suggested the deployment had not been “nearly long enough.” Ossoff said: “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.”
Ossoff has repeatedly stoked speculation that he is laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential bid through a series of stump speeches that use plain, sharp language well-tailored for social media. At the Sunday rally, he accused the administration of deceiving the public about the war.
“They’ve lied non-stop about this war like they lie about everything,” Ossoff said. “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.” He added: “There’s something uniquely despicable about lying a nation into war, treating citizens as fools and those who serve as pawns.”
The senator also attacked what he called the president’s “re-rigging” of a political system he had pledged to unrig. “Trump promised to attack a broken system. I get it. Right target. Yes, the system is really rigged,” Ossoff said. “But he’s not unrigging it. He’s re-rigging it for himself.”
Ossoff highlighted what he characterized as the vast increase in Trump’s personal wealth since the president’s January 2025 return to office. He cited Trump’s announcement of tariffs Ossoff said had been labeled “liberation day” and that “crashed the markets because it was clown policy.” Ossoff then described a sequence he said showed the president trading on his own announcement: Trump purchased stock after the market fell, then posted on Truth Social on April 9 — “This is a great time to buy” — and three hours and 41 minutes later, Ossoff said, “he cancelled the tariffs and triggered one of the biggest same-day rebound rallies in market history. He’s trying to get money.”
Ossoff also criticized a subscription service Trump launched on August 1 that charges up to $100,000 a month for early access to Truth Social posts. The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation have filed suit against Trump, two of his aides and the executive office of the president over the service. “Just understand what’s for sale here,” Ossoff said. “The sitting president’s pronouncements on war and peace and economic policy delivered first to paying customers. What an absolute crook.”
Ossoff’s personal wealth is held in a blind trust. He has pursued a ban on stock trading by members of Congress and their families as a signature political issue. The Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks Act passed out of the preliminary committee stage in July 2024 but has not been brought to a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Early voting begins in Georgia in eight weeks. Ossoff has maintained a polling lead well above the margins for error over the Republican nominee, US Representative Mike Collins, according to the Guardian.