ATLANTA — Democrats fired back after President Donald Trump’s visit to Georgia where he touted his policies and promoted Republican candidates ahead of the November midterm elections.
Trump called Democrats “Dumocrats,” and he accused the party of dragging the nation toward communism.
Democrats accused Trump of using the event at Wheeler High School in Cobb County Wednesday to distract from rising costs for everything from gas to groceries, adding that Republican policies were depriving thousands of Georgians of access to health insurance.
Trump used the event to promote GOP candidates for statewide office.
“This is a disaster for Georgia Republican candidates at every level of the ticket, who will be forced to own the failed president’s corrupt and unpopular agenda every day between now and November,” Charlie Bailey, chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement.
The event was billed as an opportunity for Trump to promote new tax-advantaged accounts for American minors.
Babies born during his current term also are getting $1,000 grants from the federal government to get their “Trump accounts” started.
But Trump’s speech, which lasted well over an hour, went far afield of that one topic. He also covered the war in Iran, drug prices, economic development, immigration, inflation, the stock market, tax breaks and voting laws.
And he promoted several GOP candidates, from Rick Jackson for governor to Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, for lieutenant governor, whom the president called “fantastic” while mispronouncing his surname as “Dolezwall.”
“You have my complete endorsement,” Trump said.
The campaign of Dolezal’s opponent, Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, accused Dolezal of blowing “baseless election-denier whistles” on stage because Dolezal had said Georgia was a red state in 2020, when Trump lost against Joe Biden, and that it remained one now.
“Don’t you believe for a second when the fake news will tell you this is a purple state,” Dolezal had said.
Dolezal cast the upcoming elections as existential, and not just for the state or the country.
“I believe that we are not only in a fight to save America, but we are in a fight to save Western civilization,” he said from the stage before Trump arrived. Dolezal returned to that theme near the end of his speech: “We are in a fight to save Western civilization. We will do it by saving America. And providentially, we will save America by saving Georgia. And we will save Georgia by saving the American Dream.”
McLaurin dismissed that part of Dolezal’s plank, saying in a statement that his opponent “continues to drone on about his battle for ‘the West.'”
McLaurin also criticized the Cobb County School District for hosting what was effectively a campaign event in a school.
“I was under the impression Cobb Schools was willing to host Trump as an official event, not as a GOP campaign rally with a series of statewide candidate stump speeches,” McLaurin said.
The district had already heard such criticism before the event.
John Floresta, the district’s chief strategy and accountability officer, said in an interview at the school before the candidates took to the stage that he did not see an issue.
After all, Trump was coming to talk about the Trump accounts, Floresta said. “We don’t think it’s controversial for moms and dads to hear about a thousand dollars being put in their kid’s bank account.”