President Trump calls Sen. Jon Ossoff ‘Pinky Herman’ at Georgia rally
President Donald Trump said Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff reminds him of “Pinky Herman,” in an apparent jab at the Democratic senator seeking re-election.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump attacked Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, calling him a “Democrat Communist” during a speech in the midterm election battleground state on July 22, as Republicans seek to maintain their Senate majority by defeating one-term senators in November.
But the president couldn’t quite nail down the punch line.
“He reminds me of Pinky Herman. Have you ever seen ‘Pinky Herman?'” Trump said in a speech at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, intending to mock Ossoff by referring to the 1980s TV and movie character Pee-wee Herman, played by the late actor Paul Reubens.
Trump then made the right call in a lengthy speech, referring to Ossoff’s Republican challenger, Rep. Mike Collins, who was absent from the event.
“Probably the most important person in this room right now is not here. His name is Mike Collins, and he’s going to beat Pee-wee Herman,” Trump said.
Republicans see November’s midterm elections as their best chance to flip Democratic-held Senate seats, as they hope to maintain their 53-47 seat advantage in Georgia. Democrats need to keep the Peach State blue to have any realistic goal of controlling the Senate.
Recent polls show Ossoff holding a slight lead in the race for the seat, which was also won in 2020 by Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a fellow Democrat, and former President Joe Biden. It was a landslide victory for Democrats and signaled a political shift in the southern state, which had voted solidly Republican since the 1990s.
“Jon Ossoff and the Democratic Communists want to put Marxists in power, bankrupt your families, and give you complete independence with wide open borders. But we will not let that happen to this country,” the president said in his speech. The speech was billed as an official visit to the White House to promote President Trump’s new account for newborns, but it felt more like a suspension of campaign activities.
“I ran against Ossoff before, and as you know, we won,” Trump told supporters, referring to the 2017 Georgia special election that Ossoff narrowly lost. “He has no respect in Washington at all. You never hear his name mentioned,” the president said. “He’s not even an important factor.”
Ossoff’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Collins, a close Trump ally who will serve in the House of Representatives starting in 2023, released a video ahead of Trump’s speech saying he was unable to attend the event due to congressional commitments in Washington.
President Trump’s visit to Georgia comes on the heels of his prime-time address on July 16, in which he warned Americans of the vulnerability of the election and claimed, without new evidence, that China was trying to influence the outcome of the 2020 election. The aim was to sow distrust in U.S. elections ahead of voting in the midterm elections.
In a speech in Georgia, President Trump said, “We’re going to get too big to have machines to monitor us.”
Earlier this year, the FBI launched an investigation into the results of the 2020 Georgia election, which President Trump has long baselessly claimed he won, not Biden. Weeks after his 2020 loss, Trump called Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and asked him to “find 11,780 votes” enough to make him the winner in Georgia.
X Contact Joey Garrison at @joeygarrison.
