Saturday, March 28, 2026
‘No kings,’ Ossoff declares in weekend speech in Savannah - The Current
‘No kings,’ Ossoff declares in weekend speech in Savannah
"Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator steps up reelection campaign with criticism of the ‘big, beautiful bill’
Jon Ossoff came to Savannah over the weekend to deliver “a report from our nation’s capital.” And the news, he said, isn’t good.
“Donald Trump wants the whole country to fear,” the 38-year-old Democratic U.S. senator from Atlanta told hundreds of supporters gathered at the Kehoe Iron Works building on a sweltering, mid-summer afternoon.
“I’ve heard it from people at every level, including people with power, people with status, people with resources. They come to my office, and they tell me they’re afraid to say anything. They’re afraid of retribution, investigation, destruction, vengeance from their own government.”
Ossoff’s visit to Savannah comes as he steps up campaigning ahead of what is expected to be one of the most crucial — and most expensive — election races in the nation next year. At stake could be control of the U.S. Senate.
Ossoff has already raised over $15 million for his campaign this year, as he prepares to take on a spate of Republican challengers. During his visit to the coast, he also attended a fundraiser at a private home in the Hostess City.
Finding a message?
In his 26-minute speech, Ossoff lambasted the GOP’s recently passed tax-and spending bill, which is expected to balloon federal debt by at least $3 trillion. He decried provisions that will make cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while lowering taxes for the wealthiest Americans — moves that Ossoff said contradict Republican claims to be the party of the working class.
Those remarks by Ossoff on Saturday suggest that he and other Democrats might have already found their main message for next year’s midterm elections.
Again and again on Saturday, he returned to what he said was the betrayal of working-class Americans by the president, as exemplified by what Trump and his supporters have dubbed the “big, beautiful bill.”
“Donald Trump said he was going to fight for working-class Americans. What he really meant was he was going to take away your health care to cut taxes for the rich,” Ossoff said.
Ossoff, who narrowly flipped his seat alongside Rev. Raphael Warnock in 2020, is viewed as the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for reelection in 2026. Although Democrats won Georgia in 2020, the Peach State returned to its Republican roots in 2024, and Ossoff’s GOP election challengers, including Coastal Georgia Congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter, see the state as too Republican to have two Democrats in Washington.
Promises kept, broken
But Ossoff appears to believe that healthcare is a winning issue for him and other Democrats.
He said Saturday that Republicans are “destroying” Medicaid, which in Georgia covers 40 percent of children, nearly 50 percent of all births and about 70 percent of nursing home residents. While on the subject of healthcare, Ossoff narrowed in on the high costs of ambulance rides and the lack of healthcare infrastructure in rural areas, problems that have been exacerbated since Trump took office, he said.
Following Trump’s signing of the mammoth tax-and-spending bill in a ceremony on the White House lawn on July 4, the White House led a chorus of Republicans in the slogan, “Promises made, promises kept.”
In his remarks, Ossoff sought to turn that boast on its head, listing off Trump’s “broken promises,” ranging from his vow to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza to his assurance that he’d release sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list.”
“Did anyone really think the sexual predator president who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein was going to release the Epstein files?” Ossoff quipped.
That message resonated with Ossoff’s sympathetic audience on Saturday.
“Everything in the big new bill is just a crime, and I know Senator Ossoff opposed that big time,” Carol Young, who came to the rally from Pooler, said.
“Our federal government is gutting everything, like the Weather Service and FEMA and health care, and I’m terrified of just everything they’re going to do.”
As to why Trump and the GOP have backed a bill that eliminates what many Americans consider essential government services?
In a message that is likely to resound in campaigning for next year’s midterm elections, Ossoff said it was to give wealthy donors a tax break. Starting with Trump, the corruption driving American politics, he said, is the worst in the Western world.
“He’s a crook, and he wants to be a king,” he said. But, “Georgia will bow to no king.”
Lily Belle Poling is a rising junior at Yale. She is a summer 2025 intern at The Current GA with support from the Ida B. Wells Society in collaboration with the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News."
Live updates: 'No Kings' protests in metro Atlanta on Saturday | 11alive.com
Live updates: 'No Kings' protests in metro Atlanta on Saturday
Thousands are expected to attend demonstrations in Atlanta and around the metro area on Saturday.
Thousands are expected to take to the streets this weekend as the 'No Kings' protests make their way back to metro Atlanta for a third time.
These protests are in response to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies and the deadly January shootings that happened in Minneapolis, which left two people dead. Previous iterations of "No Kings" protest days have been held in the last year. Organizers of the rallies are saying they expect their largest demonstration to date on Saturday.
11Alive is tracking protest developments throughout Saturday morning and afternoon, with at least one large demonstration planned near Downtown Atlanta. 11Alive+, our streaming channel, will have coverage starting at 10:30 a.m.
Atlanta demonstration largely wrapped up
Following an earlier rally near the Georgia Capitol and march around the building, the protest in Atlanta trickled back to the Memorial Drive Greenway and has now by and large dispersed as of 1 p.m.
As for the rest of the day, organizers for "No Kings" demonstrations listed several more happening later into the afternoon in metro Atlanta. Those include one in McDonough running from 12:30 to 2 p.m.; one in Marietta from 1-3 p.m.; one in Sandy Springs from 2:30-4:30 p.m.; one in Smyrna from 3-5 p.m. and one in Fayetteville from 4-5:30 p.m.
11Alive's live coverage has discontinued as of 1 p.m. You can see clips both in the blog entries below and in the video player above this story, as well as on our YouTube page.
Memorial Drive march video
Here's a sped-up version of the Atlanta "No Kings" march moving along Memorial Drive a little after noon.
Atlanta march returning to Memorial Drive Greenway
The march paused for a moment at Memorial Drive and Capitol Ave., and is now coming down Memorial.
As of about 12:20 p.m., it's crossing the Fraser Street and Memorial intersection.
'No Kings' protest also in Cobb County
There's also a No Kings demonstration underway in East Cobb, at the intersection of Roswell Road and Johnson Ferry Road.
Several dozen people were lining the four corners of the intersection arond noontime.
'No Kings' protesters are marching around Georgia Capitol
The protest Saturday includes a march from the greenway running about a half mile to the state Capitol, going around the Capitol and returning. It's currently underway.
Traffic cameras showed the rear of the march was passing back through the intersection of MLK Jr. Drive and Piedmont/Capitol Ave. (northeast corner of the Capitol complex) just before noon.
Senator Raphael Warnock speaks at rally
Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, the Ebenezer Baptist Church pastor, spoke at Saturday's rally.
Warnock spoke at length about the funding standoff over ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, which has left a funding gap for agencies under DHS such as TSA (resulting in callouts and long security waits at airports), the Coast Guard and FEMA.
Democrats are aiming to gain concessions from Republicans on immigration enforcement through the standoff, and Senator Warnock said Saturday said he would "not vote to give ICE another single dime until they fix this situation."
"I've been on the floor of the Senate all week fighting Donald Trump's ICE and fighting the SAVE Act," Warnock said, referring to the voting bill endorsed by the president and conservatives that would, among other provisions, create a national voter ID requirement.
The Democrat returned to the subject of ICE, saying he was "afraid that a wannabe king, who is busy building himself and his billionaires a ballroom, intends to use ICE as his own private army to do his bidding to make him king. But he is not a king, this is our land, this belongs to 'We the People,' and these powers that he arrogates to himself, these buildings that he tries to put his name on, these things no more belong to him than that fake Nobel Peace Prize that he had somebody to give to him."
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