Democratic senator Jon Ossoff has attacked Donald Trump’s “uniquely despicable” handling of the US-Israel war on Iran, accusing the US president of “re-rigging” a corrupt system for himself in an excoriating speech.

Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia in November, has repeatedly stoked speculation that he is laying the ground for a bid for the US presidency in 2028 by delivering a series of stinging attacks on Trump and his administration.

“They made you pay more for everything, and took us to war on lies, and spent most of last year trying to cover up for the world’s most famous pedophile while the crook president and his crook family raked in billions while your tax dollars were put to work backing Trump’s businesses,” Ossoff said at a rally in midtown Atlanta on Sunday afternoon.

He pointed to the US sailors enduring a record-setting deployment of nearly nine months on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, amid mounting concern over conditions and mental health issues onboard the aircraft carrier, whom Trump suggested last week had not been deployed “nearly long enough”.

“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings,” Ossoff said. “He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Amir of Qatar.”

Ossoff appears to have been referring to Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, who has drawn scrutiny on social media for her perceived closeness to the US president. It emerged last week that Harp accompanied the president when he left Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent and other key officials on a decoy plane as they left Turkey under threat of Iranian attack in July.

Stump speeches like the one he delivered on Sunday, with plain, sharp language well-tailored for social media, have become a staple of Ossoff’s campaign.

“They’ve lied non-stop about this war like they lie about everything. And they know they’re lying, but they lie and they keep lying anyway because in this White House, they view persistence in deceit as a virtue,” the senator said. “And there’s something uniquely despicable about lying a nation into war, treating citizens as fools and those who serve as pawns.”

Early voting begins in eight weeks in Georgia, and Ossoff has maintained a lead well above the margins for error in polling above the Republican nominee, US representative Mike Collins. But Ossoff has framed his campaign as something more than a referendum on his term in office, raising broader questions about Americans’ tolerance for corruption.

“Corruption in American politics runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump,” Ossoff said, pointing to what he called the “coin-operated” politics of political action committees. “Trump promised to attack a broken system. I get it. Right target. Yes, the system is really rigged. But he’s not unrigging it. He’s re-rigging it for himself.”

Ossoff’s personal wealth is held in a blind trust. He has pursued a ban on stock trading by members of US Congress and their families as a signature political issue. The Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks Act passed out of the preliminary committee stage in July 2024, but has not been put to a vote in the Republican-controlled US Senate.

Ossoff also highlighted the vast increase in Trump’s personal wealth since he returned to office in January 2025.

“When he first announced the tariffs, you remember that? He called it liberation day and it crashed the markets because it was clown policy,” Ossoff said, noting how the president then purchased stock a week after the markets fell. “And then the very next morning, April 9th, he posts on Truth Social. ‘This is a great time to buy.’ Three exclamation marks.

“Okay, now listen to this. Three hours and 41 minutes after that post, one day after he bought millions in stock, he cancelled the tariffs and triggered one of the biggest same day rebound rallies in market history. He’s trying to get money.”

Trump launched a subscription service on 1 August charging up to $100,000 a month for early access to his posts on his Truth Social platform. The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation have launched a suit against Trump, two of his aides and the executive office of the president over the service.

Ossoff attacked the president over the offering. “Just understand what’s for sale here,” he said. “The sitting president’s pronouncements on war and peace and economic policy delivered first to paying customers. What an absolute crook.”