Ossoff: Trump's recent actions 'should chill us to the bone'

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said that President Trump’s recent executive actions “should chill us to the bone” and claimed that his “authoritarian impulses” are a danger to American democracy. 

“I think it’s clear. We have never seen a president try to wield the federal government to crush his critics and political adversaries. That’s something new in American history, and it is, in my view, un-American. And it’s something that should chill us to the bone, no matter our politics, no matter our policy preferences,” Ossoff said in an interview with The Associated Press (AP) that was published Saturday. 

Ossoff, who is running for re-election in a battleground state that Trump won in the 2024 presidential election, said he reminds his Republican colleagues, conservative friends and supporters in Georgia that “one day again” a Democrat will occupy the Oval Office and the “shoe will be on the other foot.”  

“This is about checks and balances. This is about whether or not the executive branch is constrained as designed by our Constitution, by judicious legislators who can put their partisanship aside to protect the public interest,” the Georgia senator told AP. 

The 38-year-old senator argued during the interview that the best approach Democrats can take now that they are the minority in both chambers of Congress is to work on informing constituents that the administration’s policies are not aligned with their interests. 

“When I see the president trying to advance a legislative agenda, the substance of which is slashing the vital health care programs that fund Georgia hospitals — for example, in Georgia, the Medicaid program covers 40% of all kids, Medicaid covers 50% of all births, Medicaid covers 70% of all seniors in nursing homes,” Ossoff said on Saturday. 

“The president of the United States wants to gut the Medicaid program to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country. That’s not a popular program in any part of Georgia. Closing down Social Security offices, gutting the Social Security Administration and the VA, these aren’t popular in any part of Georgia,” he added. “So part of my job right now is to inform the public here that these policies are not in our state’s interest and rally opposition to them.”

Ossoff, who has previously criticized the firing of workers at the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told constituents during an event Friday that he “strongly” agrees that Trump should be impeached, but added the push would unlikely gain traction in a GOP-controlled House. 

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense,” Ossoff said on Friday, according to multiple outlets.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republican campaign arm, said Friday that Ossoff’s suggestion was “disgusting” and added that the Democrat wants to “overturn the will of Georgia voters who just elected President Trump.”