Yesterday, September 13, 2026, exactly one month before the start of early voting for the midterm elections, Georgia Democrat Senator Jon Ossoff held a rally in Athens, a university town in the northeast of Atlanta, alongside Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta and candidate for governor.
Ossoff, elected in January 2021 in the runoff that gave the Senate majority to the Democrats, is seeking a second term against Republican Representative Mike Collins, backed by Donald Trump. His seat is one of the few that Democrats are defending in a state that Trump won in 2024. At 39, Ossoff is also seen as a rising figure within the Democratic Party ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
If we chose to publish the full, annotated translation of this speech, it is less for its internal political dimension than for the way it crystallizes a new politicization of AI, whose impact we should not underestimate.
In the thirty-seven minutes of his remarks, Jon Ossoff follows the now familiar structure of his rallies.
The high cost of living and the war against Iran: “[Trump] pledged to lower prices on day one, and he also promised peace. Instead, the Commander-in-Chief who dodged the draft has built a monument to himself while dragging us into a war he cannot end or win. The greatest foreign policy debacle since Iraq.”
The cost of health care and inequalities (“Cancer patients losing their coverage while the rich get another tax cut.”), the corruption of the Trump family (“While the world burns and you pay more, your taxes become the fortune of the royal family, because it pays to be a Trump. Especially when the whole world knows that dad is a crook. A half‑billion paid by the Emirati intelligence chief… The Mar‑a‑Lago mafia has truly brought American corruption to spectacular heights.”).
The reform of political finance (“Even before the arrival [of Donald Trump], American politics operated like a coin‑operated dispenser. Money goes in, favors come out.”), polarization and Republican mayors backing his campaign (“The hurricanes, the diabetes and the gas leaks do not verify your partisan affiliation when they hit. And when it comes to serving Georgia, neither do I.”).
But it is in the concluding peroration directed at his two daughters about artificial intelligence that a genuinely new theme appears: “This week, we were warned once again about an existential threat to the human species. Have you seen that? And what fills us with dread is the crushing weakness of our politics in facing the immense stakes of our era. The tech titans dig in bunkers while warning that the new intelligence they are creating risks driving humanity to extinction. Congress debates youth sports, and the president builds a ballroom. An aging establishment, barely able to send an email, drifts through a technological revolution, while the president dismantles safeguards and calls us fools for worrying.”
At a prior rally in Atlanta, held on August 16, Ossoff touched the tech issue in a marginal way, in passing a brief development. In less than a month, AI has become a top domestic policy issue.
We can trace the chronology of events.
On July 21, OpenAI acknowledged that one of its internal research models, after two months of cybersecurity tests, bypassed its own testing environment, gained Internet access, opened covert channels between agents, and, ultimately, compromised Hugging Face’s servers, the world’s largest platform for AI models. The report published on August 26 described a “wake‑up call” and depicted agents cheating, persisting, coordinating, and undertaking “dangerous actions that no human ordered.”
On September 8, Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at Anthropic and OpenAI, posted on X that he was resigning, stating that “those who develop AI sincerely believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” With more than 150 million views in two days, the message was picked up by several researchers from Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind, who confirmed sharing the same fear, which had been voiced on September 6 by Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s head of research, and echoed on September 12 by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, in a lengthy piece urging the industry to slow down.
On September 10, the Senate opened an inquiry into the Hugging Face incident. On September 3, Bernie Sanders had announced a bill, drafted with Texas representative Greg Casar, aiming to suspend the development of advanced AI and to outright ban superintelligence.
During a private fundraising event with Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House, Barack Obama said that if he were to run for president in 2028, AI would be “one of his central themes” and that he would have prepared “a very clear plan,” while warning that this technology can no longer be “put back in the box.”
In the face of this broad public mobilization increasingly shaped as AI populism, the U.S. president remains surprisingly silent. Donald Trump replied yesterday that he is “not worried about any existential threat” and that the only thing that matters is maintaining the lead over China, a position shared by House Speaker Mike Johnson to refuse any emergency session of Congress.
Unlike Sanders, Ossoff does not propose stopping technology, but he advocates a proactive institutional role in response to a growing, bipartisan demand for protection: “A competent president would act without delay to protect and reassure the American people. He would send inspectors to cutting‑edge laboratories, harden the nation against bioterrorism, demand congressional legislation, and lead the world toward an AI treaty. But President Trump is compromised. A competent Congress would mobilize every one of its committees to investigate and legislate, to act quickly and wisely. These CEOs would be under oath next week. Instead, the president and the Speaker of the House sit idly by, hoping all goes well.”
By assigning to the United States the role of restraint that Thiel’s doctrine denounces as the work of the Antichrist, Ossoff inverts the katéchon against its theorists and exposes Trump’s inaction for what it is within its own logic: choosing to leave restraint to the apocalyptic and thus accelerating toward chaos.
“For, Athens, I refuse to leave my daughters a world as dark, as dangerous, and as cruel as this threatens to become. And I cannot stop thinking about it. I refuse to let Eva and Laya grow up with artificial friends and teachers, in a society where the sick die for lack of money while a cure exists, on a polluted planet that rearms for a world war, where human life is worth nothing and where might makes right.”
Athens! Thank you all for coming today. And thanks to Miss Ella Coker for that kind introduction. A round of applause for Ella.
Let every veteran, every active-duty service member, every spouse of a service member raise their hand high if you can, and keep it raised, so that we may all honor your service to our country. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Athens, the polling booths open in a month. A month before early voting. A month before you can cast your ballot to save our Republic. Athens, turn to your neighbor and say “one month.” Tell them “we’re getting mobilized.” We are mobilizing.
Because, Athens, the country is counting on us again. And the crowds I have seen over the past year at rallies like this, in gardens and living rooms across our state, and the army of volunteers already knocking on tens of thousands of doors each week, leave no doubt. Georgia is about to write history anew. Athens, are you ready to win?
A Scathing Reproach Against Donald Trump and His Circle
I know many of you are here today because you can no longer tolerate what has been done to our country. Our entire government has been transformed into a corrupted instrument serving the revenge, the power, and the fortune of a single man. Critics of the president are prosecuted or driven off the airwaves by intimidation. Prices soar while the president amasses billions. Cancer patients lose their insurance while the wealthy reap another tax cut. We are sinking into the quicksand of a reckless war. As immigrant families are torn apart and private prisons sink deeper into misery, the Department of Justice and even our intelligence services are diverted to serve the president’s vendettas.
But in a month, in Athens, we will vote to deliver a rebuke so sharp that no president will dare such abuses again for centuries.
In a month, we will vote to defeat the sectarian congressman, Trump’s puppet, Mike Collins. In a month, our coordinated Democratic campaign machine will go and gather the voters to elect Josh McLaurin, Penny Brown Reynolds, Tanya Miller, and all the Democrats on the ballot across our state. And in a month, we will vote to elect a governor who will expand Medicaid, Governor Bottoms, and put an end to our state’s public health emergency.
Dern, we need you, Athens. For our state, for our country, and far more than for me. Because some people simply have the luck to live in the era and place where history is written. And this year, once again, it is us. So, Athens, are you ready to work?
Now, if you are ready to win, let’s do one thing quickly. Take out your phones. I want to see them held high in the air. Here is something you can do right now to change things. Show me those phones as soon as they’re up. Very good. Very good. Now you are going to compose a new text message. Okay? I am serious. You will compose a new text message. I will give you the number to send it to. Are you ready? The number is 51015. 51015. You will send the word JOIN to that number. Now raise your hands and phones once you have sent JOIN to 51015. Done? Have you done it? Good. Because it will require each and every one of us, in Athens. We will all need to be present.
Remember, Trump promised to lower prices on day one. But last week, the old man spent two days partying in Texas. Filling up his pickup, stocking his fridge, and powering his home has never cost so much under the failed President Donald J. Trump, as food, diesel, and health care reach record highs. They doubled your insurance premiums and cut Medicaid to fund tax cuts for their corporate donors and the ultra‑rich. They made you pay more for everything. They lied to lead us into a war and spent most of the past year covering up the world’s most infamous pedophile. All the while the president and his band of crooks accumulated billions from around the world.
He had promised to lower prices on day one, and he had also promised peace. Instead, the Commander‑in‑Chief who dodged the draft built a monument to himself while pushing us into a war he cannot end or win. The greatest foreign policy debacle since Iraq. And once again, a war founded on lies.
On the fourth day, the president proclaimed victory. On the eleventh day, Trump declared, and I quote, “the war is very complete.” On the thirteenth day, he said, “We have won.” Day twenty‑one: “We are almost there.” Day thirty‑two: “We are leaving very soon.” Day forty, the president proclaimed a “total and complete victory.” And this Wednesday would be Day 200. Eighteen Americans have died and hundreds have been wounded. The president calls this “trifles.” Iran still has its uranium, its drones, and its missiles, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. They have emptied our stocks of weapons for nothing to show for it.
And while Pete Hegseth squanders our military power, his Pentagon channels your money to the first family. Listen closely: five days after his father’s re‑election, Don Jr. becomes a partner at 1789 Capital, a venture fund founded by hard‑right militants and Trump supporters. 1789 Capital then takes a stake in Vulcan Elements, a tiny startup that claims to produce the high‑tech magnets needed for drones, missiles, and satellites. And about a month after Don Jr.’s fund invested in Vulcan Elements, Pentagon officials learn that Peter Navarro, a convicted criminal, close ally of Don Jr., and a White House senior adviser, wants the Pentagon to use your taxes to fund Vulcan Elements. A Pentagon official said: “The call came from the White House. It has to be done.” And, to be clear, “has to be done” means channeling taxpayers’ money into the president’s son’s investment.
And so, of course, like a clock, on November 21, just three months after Don Jr. and his friends bought their stake, Vulcan received a $620 million loan, taxpayer‑funded, from Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, paid with your money. You see, while the world burns and you pay more, your taxes become the fortune of the royal family, because it pays to be a Trump. Especially when the whole world knows dad is a crook.
A half‑billion dollars paid by the Emirati intelligence chief to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency enterprise, just months before the administration granted the Emiratis access to our most sensitive AI chips. $1.6 billion of your money to support Trump’s sons’ mining interests in Kazakhstan. Jared Kushner on the payroll of the Saudis while posing as if he were directing our diplomacy in the Middle East. And so on. The Mar‑a‑Lago mob really has brought American corruption to spectacular heights.
But Athens, the corruption of American political life goes far beyond Donald Trump. And you see, I understand why people voted for him. Because even before his arrival, American politics operated like a coin‑operated machine. Money goes in, favors come out. It’s turned into corporate money, secret money, billionaire money, on both sides. Yes, on both sides. And when members of Congress aren’t raising funds from lobbyists and corporate PACs, they try to avoid being bombarded by these super PACs. A spectacular fortune buys an ever‑larger share of power over our national affairs. And that is why nothing works for ordinary people. That is why you pay a fortune for your medicines. That is why your insurer denies your cancer treatment after you have paid your premiums for decades.
So Trump promised to tackle a broken system. I understand. A tempting target. Yes, the system is indeed rigged, but he does not work to make it less rigged; he tinkers with it to serve his own ends.
So how to dismantle American politics? Well, first, follow the money. You see, Citizens United was the most destructive Supreme Court decision in modern American history. And Trump’s rise is a symptom of that deeper sickness. And I suspect many of you are here because you know our task is to contain his misdeeds and, beyond that, to repair the rot that gave rise to it. That moment, this broken moment, opens the way to reform, far more than to restoration.
Who can seriously contend that secret and unlimited political financing should sway the nation’s agenda from the shadows? In Athens or in Albany, in Columbus or College Park, if I ask anyone, Democrat, independent, or Republican, whether this is how things should work, the answer is no, no matter who it is. And yet, the champions of secret money come out of the woodwork to defend it. They will lose the debate. And if a constitutional amendment is necessary to end Citizens United, we will fight for a united Georgia to ratify it.
A Coalition to Win in Georgia
Every day, our wave grows and our movement broadens. This campaign isn’t just about Democrats. People approach me in airports and on the street, telling me they have been Republicans all their lives, but they will vote for a Democrat this year for the first time.
Over there in Valdosta, the mayor is Scott James Matheson, a staunch conservative Republican. We have expanded the city’s transit network together. We have also modernized Moody Air Force Base. When Hurricane Helene struck, I called him in the middle of the night to check in on the city. And once the storm subsided, I stood by his side, going door-to-door to help residents. We served hot meals to people who had just lost their homes. Back in Washington, I secured federal aid for the victims of southern Georgia. Today, I am honored to have the support of conservative Republican Mayor Matheson in this reelection bid.
Nearly every week, I call Georgia mayors, pastors, and farmers to learn how I can help them. One day, I called Julie Smith, a little farther down the road toward Valdosta, in Tifton. Mayor Smith is also a Republican. She told me that Tifton Hospital needed new dialysis equipment. She explained that the Tifton Dialysis Center serves twelve counties in southern Georgia and simply could not meet demand. So I secured the funds needed to modernize this southern Georgia clinic, which can now treat two hundred patients a day. Republican Mayor Julie Smith backs this campaign as well.
In Toccoa, in the northern part of the state, the then‑mayor, Gail Fry, another Georgia Republican, told me the city’s gas lines were deteriorating and that a leak could endanger lives. Swift action was required to replace miles of aging pipe. I secured the funds for the new gas pipelines in Toccoa. And Gail Fry, the Georgia Republican, supports this campaign, too.
Because, you see, hurricanes, diabetes, and gas leaks do not respect partisan affiliation when they strike. And when it comes to serving Georgia, I do not either.
But there is another reason so many Republicans are backing our campaign. That reason is sectarian Congressman Mike Collins, who is in office only because his father was, and who is surrounded by neo‑Nazis and white nationalists at work and at home.
You see, Brian Kemp was right about Mike. There’s a reason Rick Jackson refuses to campaign with him. Brad Raffensperger also refuses to back him.
There is a reason why WSB conservative radio host Shelley Wynter described Mike as a “vulture.”
There is a reason why Coach Dooley condemned, and I quote, “the flagrant taxpayer‑funded corruption” of Mike, and said his “revolting conduct does not represent the values of Georgia, nor frankly any values.” Erick Erickson said that Mike had “knowingly hired a convicted criminal for a public‑facing role who is suspected of using your taxes and mine to keep his girlfriend.” There is a reason why one of the Tea Party’s founders declared this summer, “I cannot, in good conscience, vote for Mike Collins. He is unfit for public office,” and warned that Collins would “drag down the entire Georgia Republican slate.”
The reason is that Mike Collins is a notorious sectarian, under federal investigation for the illegal use of public funds. He is widely known for the weakness of his character and integrity, and is unfit for any elected office in the United States. Today, the sectarian seeks a promotion in Athens, but we will end his career instead.
An hour’s drive from here lies Lavonia’s St. Mary’s Hospital, which just closed its maternity ward citing Medicaid cuts, reductions to which Mike Collins contributed by voting to fund tax cuts for the rich. Thus, because of him, pregnant women in his district must drive an hour while in labor to reach a maternity ward. Georgia has already lost twenty‑one hospitals in twenty years, the life expectancy of a child born today in this state is shorter than that of a child born in Lebanon, and thanks to Donald Trump’s and Mike Collins’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act, 300,000 Georgians lost their health insurance this year and a million saw their premiums double. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.
What could drive a man, so spoiled and hateful, like Mike Collins’s son, to vote for closing a maternity ward in his own district or for doubling the insurance premiums of his own voters? It isn’t just money that has corrupted our politics. There is also moral corruption. The cynical indifference of the powerful. That is the evil.
You see, my office is known for the quality of its service. What astonishes me is how shocked people are to be treated well. Nancy Lancey is 81 and lives in Jesup. Her husband died after years of dementia. She was exhausted and alone. Her widow’s affairs were all tangled in this bureaucratic labyrinth, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the IRS and Social Security. So we took care of everything for her. I will never forget what she said. She declared, “It was a new experience for someone to actually care about me.” A new experience that someone cared for her.
How did it come to pass that the experience of sincere attention is so rare and surprising for so many Americans? Official indifference and the contempt of businesses have become systemic. When millions face a medical bill, a late paycheck, or a broken down car, you work harder, but the treadmill speeds up and becomes steeper, and bills keep rising. A sixty‑hour week and you still need food stamps. Come on. Or that trip you had hoped for, canceled for good. And instead of reading your daughter her favorite book, this precious hour of freedom after work is spent on the phone begging insurance to reimburse a drug that keeps her seizures at bay. The military has misplaced the documents you need to claim your veteran rights, and it takes a year and twelve calls to sort it out. You report black mold to your landlord, who does nothing. And an ambulance for your child’s asthma attack is followed by a $3,000 bill.
And the situation is even worse for the most vulnerable. You may have seen my investigation into Georgia’s foster families. In just four years, hundreds of Georgia children were likely subjected to sexual exploitation while in state custody. Many others were abused and neglected. Children placed in state care.
Rachel Aldridge testified about her two‑year‑old daughter Brooklyn. Despite repeated objections from Rachel, Georgia’s child protective services placed little Brooklyn with her father and his partner, despite their criminal backgrounds. State officials ignored Rachel’s pleas. They skipped the mandatory background checks. Two months later, Rachel’s precious, perfect, irreplaceable two‑year‑old daughter died. When she testified before my committee, Rachel said she had flown for the first time in her life solely to tell her story to senators. She pleaded with us: “Please, remember Brooklyn.”
Tiffany, a young woman, went eight months without a social worker visiting at a closed psychiatric facility. She was forcibly given sedatives, housed in facilities whose staff were using drugs, and sexually assaulted. She testified that her newborn spent three weeks in neonatal intensive care, then the following six weeks in an emergency shelter because the state services could not find a bed for them. During that time, Tiffany spent six months after giving birth without seeing a gynecologist.
Listen carefully. Georgia’s child protective services are so decayed that they lack enough places for children with special needs. Juvenile judges testified that the head of these services had tried to imprison these children in juvenile facilities. But the judges refused and informed me of the situation. They attempted to imprison disabled children. And when my investigation revealed all this, when we held Senate hearings and laid it all out, instead of resigning or at least acting to repair, state officials hid behind denial, spin, and counterattack.
Because foster children have no lobbyists, no super PACs. Nor do women subjected to medical abuses in the irregular‑immigrant detention centers. Nor do inmates sexually assaulted by the warden and chaplain of their federal prison, or a young military family neglected by the defense contractor who holds a fifty‑year lease on Fort Gordon’s privatized housing. But they deserve leaders who see them and who expose those who mistreat them. And that is exactly what I will continue to do.
Because we are all in the same boat. Every day, I think of Representative Lewis. His portrait hangs just above my desk in the Senate. And until his last moments, he reminded us that we all live in a single American house, in a single global house. Do you remember? John Lewis called this the inescapable truth: we are all members of one human family.
And I suspect many of you are here today because the suffering of so many of our fellow human beings troubles you deeply. The fear of a child watching immigration police take away his mother. The despair of a cancer patient losing social coverage in the middle of treatment. The quiet panic of a grandmother looking at a grocery receipt and realizing there are three weeks left before her next pension check. And that pain in your heart, that hollow in your stomach, do not ignore them. Do not simply scroll past them. Feel them. Turn them into action. Because that feeling is what reminds us that we are all human. That we are more than the United States. We are a people united. E pluribus unum. From many, one. From many, one.
This feeling has driven thousands to lace up their shoes and walk beside John Lewis. It is what turned a Great Depression into guaranteed retirement and a living wage. It is also what animated the Georgia patriots who faced down a tyrannical king in Savannah and at Kettle Creek. What an inspiration this nation is, the mightiest on Earth, proclaiming as its founding values that all people are created equal, with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! See, Americans are not a race. We are a people united by shared convictions rather than by a common ancestry. And that is what makes us exceptional and a beacon to the world.
And you see, here is what little men like Donald Trump and Mike Collins will never understand. Our national greatness flows from our ideas, our aspirations, and the care we show for one another, not from our blood or our genes.
Mike Collins, whose campaign operation kept some of America’s most notorious white supremacists informed about his efforts, including a Holocaust denier. We have seen some of it because it leaked, but Mike still refuses to publish these exchanges in full. Mike Collins must publish every email, every text, every call, and every communication between those white supremacists and his office.
And then there is that former staffer who posts swastikas and Klan outfits. Did you see that? And that neo‑Nazi followed by a million people who produces neo‑Nazi propaganda from Mike Collins’s home while generating promotional content for his business. Stop for a moment and think. An elected representative, a Senate candidate, hosts a neo‑Nazi in his home. The neo‑Nazi produces neo‑Nazi propaganda from the representative’s own house, and the representative does not want, or cannot, make the neo‑Nazi stop producing neo‑Nazi content from his home while campaigning for the Senate. But Athens, a man who cannot own what is happening under his own roof cannot be entrusted with our national affairs.
Mike still refuses to say whether his company paid the neo‑Nazi or simply accepted his services as a gift. The press asked him, but he fled. He literally ran away from a press conference! You saw that? Mike Collins, alone, standing in the middle of a field. A journalist asks if he paid the neo‑Nazi. Mike does not respond. Another asks if he approves white nationalism. Mike does not respond. He was so afraid his hand would tremble on the lectern that he ran away. A petty sectarian crumbling and the sad spectacle of his campaign collapsing.
But that is not the only question he refuses to answer, for he is like a piñata of scandals. Every time you shake him, new misdeeds fall out. And he is not only surrounded by neo‑Nazis. He is also under a federal investigation for improper use of public funds. He is widely known for the weakness of his character and integrity, and is unfit for any public office in the United States. Today, the sectarian wants a promotion in Athens, but we will end his career instead.
An hour’s drive from here lies Lavonia’s St. Mary’s Hospital, which recently closed its maternity ward citing Medicaid cuts, cuts to which Mike Collins contributed by voting to fund tax cuts for the rich. Thus, because of him, the women in his district who are about to give birth must drive an hour to reach a maternity facility. Georgia has lost twenty‑one hospitals in twenty years, the life expectancy of a child born today in this state is shorter than that of a child born in Lebanon, and thanks to the attacks by Donald Trump and Mike Collins on the Affordable Care Act, 300,000 Georgians lost their health insurance this year and one million saw their premiums double. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.
What could drive a man, so pampered and hateful, like Mike Collins’s son, to vote for closing a maternity ward in his own district or for doubling the insurance premiums of his own voters? It isn’t just money that has corrupted our politics. There is also moral corruption. The cynical indifference of the powerful. That is the evil.
You see, my steadiness has become known for the quality of its service. What amazes me is how surprised people are to be treated with care. Nancy Lancey is 81 and lives in Jesup. Her husband died after years of dementia. She was exhausted and alone. Her widow’s affairs were all tangled in this bureaucratic labyrinth, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the IRS and Social Security. So we took care of everything for her. I will never forget what she said. She proclaimed: “It was a new experience for someone to actually care about me.” A new experience that someone cared about her.
How did it come to pass that the experience of genuine attention is so rare and surprising for so many Americans? Official indifference and the contempt of corporate interests have become systemic. When millions face a medical bill, a late paycheck, or a broken alternator after a disaster, you work harder, but the treadmill speeds up and grows steeper, and bills rise ever higher. A sixty‑hour week, and you still need food stamps. Come on! Or that trip you dreamed of, canceled for good. And instead of reading your daughter her favorite book, this precious post‑work hour is spent on the phone begging the insurer to reimburse the drug that prevents her seizures. The military has lost the documents you need to claim your veteran rights, and it takes a year and twelve calls to sort it out. You report mold to your landlord, who does nothing. And an ambulance for your child’s asthma attack is followed by a $3,000 bill.
And the situation is even worse for the most vulnerable. You may have seen my investigation into Georgia’s foster families. In only four years, hundreds of Georgia children were likely subjected to sex trafficking while in state custody. Many others were abused and neglected. Children entrusted to the state.
Rachel Aldridge testified about her two‑year‑old daughter Brooklyn. Despite repeated objections from Rachel, Georgia’s child protective services placed little Brooklyn with her father and his partner, despite their criminal histories. State officials ignored Rachel’s pleas. They skipped mandatory background checks. Two months later, Rachel’s precious, perfect, irreplaceable two‑year‑old daughter died. When she testified before my committee, Rachel said she had flown for the first time in her life solely to tell her story to senators. She pleaded with us: “Please, remember Brooklyn.”
Tiffany, a young woman, remained eight months without a social worker visiting at a closed psychiatric facility. She was forcibly given sedatives, housed in facilities where staff were using drugs, and sexually assaulted. She testified that her newborn spent three weeks in neonatal intensive care, then the next six weeks of her short life in an emergency shelter because state services could not find a place for them. Meanwhile, Tiffany spent six months after giving birth without seeing a gynecologist.
Listen carefully. Georgia’s child protective services are so dilapidated that they lack enough placements for children with special needs. Juvenile judges testified that the head of these services had attempted to confine these children in juvenile prisons. But the judges refused and informed me of the situation. They attempted to imprison disabled children. And when my investigation revealed all this, when we held Senate hearings and laid it out, rather than resign or take steps to fix it, state officials retreated into denial, spin, and retaliation.
Because foster children have no lobbyists and no super PACs. Nor do women subjected to medical abuses in immigrant detention centers. Nor do inmates sexually assaulted by the warden and chaplain of their federal prison or the young military family neglected by the defense contractor with a fifty‑year lease on Fort Gordon’s privatized housing. But they deserve leaders who see them and expose those who mistreat them. And that is exactly what I will continue to do.
Because we are all in the same boat. Every day, I think of Representative Lewis. His portrait hangs just above my Senate desk. And until his last moments, he reminded us that we all live in a single American home, in a single world home. Do you remember? John Lewis called it the inescapable truth: we are all members of one human family.
And I suspect many of you are here today because the suffering of so many of our fellow humans troubles you deeply. The fear of a child watching immigration officers take away his mother. The despair of a cancer patient losing their social coverage in the middle of treatment. The silent panic of a grandmother staring at her grocery bill, realizing there are only three weeks left before her next pension check. And that pain in your heart, that empty feeling in your stomach, do not ignore them. Do not simply scroll through the screen. Feel them. Turn them into action. Because that feeling is what reminds us that we are all human. That we are more than the United States. We are a people united. E pluribus unum. From many, one. From many, one.
That feeling has driven thousands to lace up their shoes and march alongside John Lewis. That is what turned a Great Depression into guaranteed retirement and a minimum wage. It is also what energized the Georgia patriots who stood up to a tyrant king at Savannah and at Kettle Creek. What an inspiration this nation is, the strongest on earth, proclaiming as its core values that all are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! You see, Americans are not a race. We are a people united by shared convictions rather than by a common ancestry. And that is what makes us exceptional and a beacon to the world.
And you see, that is what little men like Donald Trump and Mike Collins will never understand. Our national greatness comes from our ideas, our aspirations, and the care we give one another, not from our blood or our genes.
Mike Collins, whose office kept some of America’s most notorious white supremacists informed of his efforts on behalf of a Holocaust denier. We have seen part of it because it leaked, but Mike still refuses to publish these exchanges in full. Mike Collins must publish every email, every text, every call, and every communication between these white supremacists and his office.
And then there is that former aide who posts swastikas and Klan outfits. Did you see that? And that neo‑Nazi followed by a million people who produces neo‑Nazi propaganda from Mike Collins’s home while also producing promotional content for his business. Stop and think for a moment. An incumbent congressman, a Senate candidate, hosts a neo‑Nazi in his home. The neo‑Nazi produces neo‑Nazi propaganda from the candidate’s house, and the candidate refuses or cannot stop this from happening while campaigning for the Senate. But Athens, a man who cannot own what happens under his own roof cannot be entrusted with our national affairs.
Mike still refuses to say whether his company paid the neo‑Nazi or simply accepted his services as a gift. The press asked him, but he fled. He literally ran away from a press conference! You saw that? Mike Collins, alone, standing in a field. A journalist asks if he paid the neo‑Nazi. Mike does not respond. Another asks if he approves white nationalism. Mike does not respond. He was so afraid his hand would tremble on the lectern that he ran away. A petty sectarian crumbling and the sad spectacle of his campaign collapsing.
But that is not the only question he refuses to answer, for he is like a piñata for scandals. Each time you shake him, new misdeeds fall out. And he is not only surrounded by neo‑Nazis. He is also under a federal investigation for improper use of public funds. And he dodges those questions as well. There is the public money he routed to a girlfriend, with his chief of staff, convicted of assault. There are also thousands of dollars in alleged “reimbursements,” funded by taxpayers and paid to his aides, with receipts that Mike refuses to publish. Rather than admit it, the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics, which investigates lawmakers’ misconduct, reports that Mike “refused to cooperate.” It has recommended that he be subpoenaed and compelled to testify. And Mike still refuses to say whether he will. Listen, Athens, Mike Collins must testify.
See, Georgia deserves so much better than Mike Collins. And the United States deserves better than Donald Trump.
“Mastering Technology Rather Than Letting It Master Us,” A New Government for the AI Era
Imagine what the Founding Fathers would think if they could visit us today, two hundred fifty years later. They would see that slavery has been abolished. They would see that landless Americans, then women, and finally descendants of slaves, have earned the right to vote. They would see that our science and technology have propelled human knowledge to unimaginable heights, and that these thirteen colonies have become a superpower that defeated the Nazis and communism. They would see a pluralistic democracy, people from every corner of the globe, of every color, united by many origins into one.
But they would also see a nation that, at the height of its wealth and power, has fallen into the very traps they feared most: a ferocious factional conflict, special interests that have captured it, and a rupture with the national spirit that defeated fascism, sent men to the Moon, and enabled civil rights laws to pass. They would see that we have accomplished great things, then surrendered to a narrow, self‑interested politics, detached from any fixed moral principle, incapable of inspiration or great national achievement, and whose horizon is only the next election. And they would see that what is demanded of us today far exceeds what this narrow, self‑interested politics can deliver.
I have two little girls at home. Eva is four and Laya is one. I am so grateful to this country for the safety and opportunities it provides them. But this is not the world I want to leave to them. Soon enough, they will learn that there is plastic in the human bloodstream and in breast milk. They will discover that toxic, persistent pollutants are present in half of our country’s drinking water. Eva loves nature documentaries. She will learn that butterflies are disappearing. She will also learn that nuclear weapons still threaten to annihilate us. She will ask me why I let all this happen.
And when you step back and think about it, the situation seems absurd. This week, we were warned again about an existential threat to humanity. Have you seen that? What fills us with dread is the overwhelming weakness of our politics in facing the immense stakes of our era. The tech giants dig bunkers while warning that the AI they create could wipe out humanity. Congress debates youth sports, and the president builds a ballroom. An aging establishment, barely capable of sending an email, lumbers forward into a technological revolution, while the president dismantles safeguards and calls us fools for worrying.
Hear this clearly. From day one, Donald Trump repealed the AI safety order, which aimed to shield us from catastrophic risks, including the design of biological weapons. Meanwhile, 1789 Capital, the fund of his son Don Jr., acquired large stakes in data centers and AI laboratories. Four days before the inauguration, the head of Emirati intelligence invested $500 million in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company. Four months later, the Trump administration granted the Emiratis the right to purchase our most sensitive AI chips.
A capable president would act without delay to protect and reassure the American people. He would dispatch inspectors to cutting‑edge laboratories, harden the nation against bioterrorism, demand congressional legislation, and lead the world toward an AI treaty. But President Trump is compromised.
A competent Congress would mobilize each of its committees to investigate and legislate, in order to act quickly and with discernment. These CEOs would be under oath next week. Yet the president and the Speaker remain with folded arms, hoping everything will turn out well.
So, looking at this scenario and the state of our politics, our faith in the future is unsettled. I understand. But in Athens, we can and will take control of our destiny again. We can and will honor our obligations to our children. And that begins with victory this fall.
Because, Athens, I refuse to leave my daughters a world as dark, as dangerous, and as cruel as this threatens to become. And I cannot stop thinking about it. I refuse to let Eva and Laya grow up with artificial friends and teachers, in a society where the sick die for want of money when a cure exists, on a planet poisoned that is rearming for a world war, where human life has little value and where might makes right.
You see, when Eva asks me why I did nothing, I intend to tell her the truth: I did nothing. I will tell her that, in the year her sister turns five, Georgia overcame every doubt and every low blow to win, of course, but also to chart a new course for our state, our country, and our world. I will tell her that our generation did not shy away from its obligations to hers, but instead came together, clear-eyed about the stakes and what was required. We protected the sacred character of the vote from those who attacked it. We elected those who understood the moment and had the will to respond. We restored American leadership in service of peace and human rights. We guaranteed health care for every citizen. We mastered technology rather than allowing it to master us. We ensured every generation experiences greater health and prosperity than the one before, and we lived up to the promise of equal justice for all.
We can and we will achieve these things, and it begins with victory in Georgia, because, in Athens, our power is there, right in front of us, waiting to be seized. And a wave is forming. The kind of wave that comes once in a generation when people have been pushed too far and decide, all at once, to say enough is enough. The polls will open in a month. Athens, are you ready to get to work? Are you ready to win?
Thank you. May God bless you. Let us do this together. Thank you so much, Athens. Thank you.