President Donald Trump took his midterm campaign blitz to the battleground Georgia on Friday and rallied with top Republicans in a state that’s long been the epicenter of his oft-repeated but false claims about 2020 election fraud.
In Dalton, the heart of conservative northwest Georgia, Trump praised Senate candidate Mike Collins and gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson as part of a larger White House effort to boost GOP enthusiasm in an election that could reshape the final years of his second presidency.
“You have to pretend I’m on the ballot,” Trump said as at least one man in the crowd cried “Trump 2028.” Later, he predicted, “On election night, Georgia is going to prove that America does not belong to those who hate us.”
A critical swing state, Georgia is unlike many of the solidly Republican places that Trump has recently visited, including Alabama, Montana and Tennessee. That means Jackson, a billionaire businessman, and Collins, a two-term congressman, will likely need more than Trump stalwarts to defeat their respective Democratic opponents, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Sen. Jon Ossoff.
When protesters decrying the Trump administration’s immigration policies interrupted his speech, the president suggested that “left-wing loser” Ossoff had paid the demonstrators to cause a scene.
Trump spent more of his speech decrying top Democrats, defending the war in Iran and promoting his U.S.-Mexico border policies rather than talking about Georgia Republicans.
He repeatedly called Ossoff “Pee-wee Herman” and mocked him for wearing makeup during public appearances. The president acknowledged that he himself also wears makeup but insisted it is “light” compared to the senator.
