The Dictatorship
Ossoff predicts Trump’s primetime address will be a ‘pretext for an abuse of federal power’
Ahead of the president’s primetime address on Thursday, Sen. Jon Ossoff is warning that Donald Trump could be setting the stage for an “unconstitutional use of federal power” to interfere in November’s midterm elections.
The Georgia Democrat sat down with MS NOW’s Just Psaki on Tuesdasy to discuss the upcoming remarks and why, almost six years after the 2020 election, Trump is still obsessed with the Peach State. MS NOW reported that the president’s speech will focus on voting machine security and alleged efforts by foreign nations to influence U.S. elections, two claims central to the election conspiracy theories Trump has pushed, without evidence, since his 2020 loss.
The president is also expected to release declassified intelligence documents on both subjects, including files related to Georgia’s 2020 results and the January 2021 Senate runoffs that followed. In that election, the two Democratic candidates, Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnockwon both of the state’s open Senate seats.
When Psaki asked Ossoff why he thinks Trump is so focused on Georgia, he told her the president is “obsessed” with the state “because he can’t get over the fact that it was Black voters and Black political power who were instrumental to his defeat in Georgia.”
He also addressed reports that the president could use his primetime address to declare that he and Warnock are illegitimate senators. “Obviously, the president has no power to do that,” he said. “But he does have the power to try to intimidate people.”
The Georgia Democrat said Trump has “demonstrated his will to abuse power” and predicted the speech will be used to “lay the groundwork” for challenging any midterm result the president is unhappy with. Ossoff told Psaki he expects Trump “to use whatever he puts out there on Thursday as a pretext, either for some attempted unconstitutional use of federal power to interfere in the election or to give his proxies and loyalists in state and local jurisdictions some cover for whatever they might attempt.”
He added: “I think that he is trying to create some pretext for an abuse of federal power, trying to create cover for state and local allies to get up to no good in those jurisdictions, and try to lay the groundwork for some kind of potential challenge to the results. That’s what I think his goal is.”
Ossoff said it was important to take a “step back” and look at the context of the president’s worsening political situation. The senator argued that Trump’s return to pushing election conspiracy theories shows his desperation as his party faces the very real possibility of losing control of Congress in November.
“You’ve got the American public broadly furious with the president for war and tariffs and healthcare cuts that are making everything more expensive — this palpable anger that he doesn’t care about the cost-of-living crisis [and is] more concerned with lining his own pockets,” Ossoff said. “And so now he’s pivoting — with the election just a few months away — from ballroom obsession to election conspiracy theory obsession.”
You can watch Ossoff’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”