President Donald Trump launched a sharp critique of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia during a speech on July 22 at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia. As the Republican party works to defeat the one-term senator in the upcoming November midterm elections and preserve their 53-47 seat majority in the Senate, Trump characterized the senator as a "Democrat communist."
During his address, the president attempted to mock Ossoff by comparing him to a pop culture figure, though he initially stumbled over the name. "He reminds me of Pinky Herman. Did you ever see 'Pinky Herman?" Trump asked the crowd, intending to reference the 1980s television and movie character "Pee-wee Herman," famously played by the late actor Paul Reubens. Later in the lengthy speech, the president corrected the reference while discussing U.S. Representative Mike Collins, who is the Trump-endorsed Republican challenger to Ossoff. "Maybe the most important man in this room right now is not here. His name is Mike Collins and he's going to beat Pee-wee Herman," Trump stated. Collins, a congressman since 2023 and a close ally of the president, did not attend the event due to congressional obligations in Washington, which he explained in a video released prior to the rally.
Republicans currently view Georgia as a primary opportunity to flip a Democratic-held Senate seat. Democrats, meanwhile, need to maintain their hold on the state to keep their hopes of controlling the Senate alive. Recent polling indicates that Ossoff is maintaining a slight lead in the race for the seat he secured in 2020. That year, Ossoff, fellow Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, and former President Joe Biden all won their respective races in Georgia, marking a significant political shift in a state that had voted reliably Republican since the 1990s.
The event, which was officially billed as a White House visit to promote new Trump accounts for newborns, functioned largely as a campaign stop. "Jon Ossoff and the Democrat communists want to let the Marxists into power, bankrupt your families and leave you totally independent with wide open borders. But we will not let that happen to our country," the president told his supporters. Trump also dismissed Ossoff's political influence, noting, "I fought Ossoff before, and as you know, we won," referring to a 2017 special election for a Georgia congressional seat that Ossoff narrowly lost. "He's not respected at all in Washington. You don't even hear his name mentioned. He's not even a factor," Trump added. The Ossoff campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the remarks.
The visit to Georgia followed a primetime speech Trump delivered on July 16, in which he warned of election vulnerabilities and alleged, without providing new evidence, that China attempted to influence the 2020 election results. During his Georgia speech, he urged supporters to "Make it too big to rig and watch those machines." The FBI has opened an investigation into the 2020 election results in Georgia, where Trump has long claimed—without evidence—that he was the actual winner. Following his 2020 loss, Trump famously contacted Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state's top election official, and asked him to "find 11,780 votes" to secure a victory.
