In heated Georgia Senate debate, Jon Ossoff says he won’t run for president in 2028
NBC News · LC · trust 29/100
Ossoff made the statement in response to a question as he faced off with his Republican challenger, Rep. Mike Collins. Ossoff is seeking a second six-year term in Georgia and said he would serve the full term.
“I have zero interest in running for president,” Ossoff said when he was asked directly by one of the moderators. “I’m not running for president. I’m running for re-election to the Senate.”
Ossoff has been regularly discussed as a potential Democratic contender in 2028. If he were to win the presidency, he would have to give up his Senate seat, which he stressed Tuesday night that he would not do.
After the brief remark, Ossoff quickly transitioned to pressing Collins about why he has supported President Donald Trump’s tariffs, a main focus of both his campaign and a debate the two held last week . Tuesday was the second debate in the nationally watched Georgia Senate race, this one organized by the Atlanta Press Club.
Collins quipped that Ossoff was actually trying to run for president and will be “your DSA candidate,” a reference to the Democratic Socialists of America.
The exchange came at the beginning of the hourlong debate, which covered ground including data centers; the economy under Trump, whose approval rating is at record lows; the war in Iran; and the issue of Collins’ son-in-law’s promoting white nationalist posts on social media.
Ossoff asked Collins directly whether he considered himself a “white nationalist.”
“I condemn any sort of hate speech,” Collins said. “Antisemitism, hate of any kind. It’s abhorrent.”
The exchange continued when Collins again asked Ossoff to denounce Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democratic causes — including Ossoff-aligned political committees — whose name appeared in the Epstein files . Collins brought up Hoffman several times last week and did so again during the second debate.
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“How weak a person do you have to be to be unable to stop someone under your own roof from disseminating neo-Nazi propaganda while you run for Senate?” Ossoff said. “The paper reported it’s still going on today.”
Given a chance to respond, Collins did not address it directly. But he said rhetoric like Ossoff’s had motivated a New York man who is accused of making death threats against him.
“I’m a little tired of this, Jon,” Collins said. “This crazy person is in jail right now because of your rhetoric.”
Neither candidate directly answered the other’s charges.
Collins also, once again, did not answer questions about whether or not Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He was asked about audio of a call Trump made after the 2020 election asking Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “ find 11,780 votes ” to help overturn the 2020 election.
“You know, Joe Biden went into office, and boy, Georgians paid for it,” Collins said.
Share Add NBC News to Google Matt Dixon Matt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.
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