Jon Ossoff Goes Hard at Trump in First Rally Since His Viral Natalie Harp Comment: ‘The Draft-Dodging Crook President!’
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) let loose on President Donald Trump at a Tuesday rally — his first campaign appearance since taking aim at the president’s relationship with close aide Natalie Harp — branding him “the draft-dodging crook president!”
The Georgia senator, who is running for re-election in November, sparked an uproar among MAGA supporters after calling out Harp by name during a Sunday rally. Notably, she was one of just three aides who accompanied the president during a secretive plane swap in July prompted by concerns about a potential Iranian assassination attempt, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and members of the White House press pool were left behind.
“He golfs and trades stocks,” Ossoff said of Trump over the weekend. “See, he doesn’t want to do the job; he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie to their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Trump was not happy with the jab, calling Ossoff “Pee-Wee Herman” when questioned about the comment in the Oval Office on Monday. Yet Ossoff doubled down later that evening, telling MS NOW, “The West Wing is full of sycophants who tell [the president] what he wants to hear and enable him.”
On Tuesday, speaking in Columbus, Georgia, alongside Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), Ossoff didn’t shy away from criticizing the president, despite the major reaction to his previous comments.
“I don’t think anything illustrates the times more aptly than that the draft-dodging crook president, who has plunged our nation recklessly into a war he knows not how to end or to win, tried to imprison this man,” Ossoff said. Here, he was referring to failed efforts by the Trump administration to prosecute Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers over a video in which they urged members of the military to refuse illegal orders.
Ossoff’s “draft-dodging” dig, meanwhile, was a reference to Trump receiving five draft deferments during the Vietnam War — four while attending college and a fifth for a medical diagnosis involving bone spurs in his heels.
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
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