Transcript: This State’s Senators Are Changing the Democratic Party

This is a lightly edited transcript of the February 25 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.

Perry Bacon: This is Perry Bacon. I am honored to be joined this morning by—a Louisville native, I should note first, because I am a Louisville native as well, and I am here in Louisville right now, actually—Louisville native Tia Mitchell. She is the Washington bureau chief of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A great reporter, great friend as well. Tia, welcome.

Tia Mitchell: Thank you so much for having me, Perry.

Bacon: I want to talk today about—Georgia is in the news a lot because it’s a swing state now, which wasn’t the case for a long time. But also you have these two very interesting senators in Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who both were elected in the 2020 cycle. Ossoff is up for election this year, Warnock will be up in 2028. I want to start with the news, which was like, Ossoff made this comment about this “Epstein class.” That made the news, and that was the first time I had heard that phrasing used.... Was that new to you? Talk about where that came from a little bit.

Mitchell: I think Ossoff is very underrated as far as his oratory skills, because he has been less visible over this six-year term he has served. He has chosen to not be the person who is always in the hallways talking to reporters. He keeps his head down, keeps a lower profile.

So I think people in Georgia were less surprised. Democrats in Georgia who follow him and go to his rallies and pay attention to what he says, were less surprised that he has a way with words. But I think it did take people outside who maybe have not paid as much attention to him by surprise. He is a great debater and a pretty good speaker, and so him coming up with this punchy phrase, the “Epstein class,” is par for the course for him, because he does a really good job—he had his own investigative journalism company before he became a senator.

So he knows how to write, knows how to punch up the drama, and again, has a way with words. That being said, I did feel like his “Epstein class” line was pretty new. Again, it was for a rally, though. It was a speech; one of the kickoff events, if you will, for this campaign. This was a speech he put some time and effort into and wanted to make it stick with people. And he did with that phrase, among others.

Bacon: Georgia politics is such where you have got to win some purple voters. You probably have to win some actual Republicans if you are Ossoff.... So “Epstein class” is a way of attacking both parties’ elites, right? Is that the campaign he’s running?

Mitchell: Yeah, I think for “Epstein class” in particular, he was talking about MAGA Republicans, and the whole notion that President Trump has been quoted saying the release of the Epstein files would hurt people and that his friends could get hurt. Not necessarily saying “I’ll get hurt,” but “I know people who may be hurt if the Epstein files are released.”

Tying Trump to the “class” of people who are in the Epstein files and resisted their release and are now—perhaps the perception that they’re trying to avoid accountability still by standing in the way of the full release, I think that’s what Ossoff was driving home.

But to your bigger point, yes. For Ossoff to win in Georgia—for any Democrat or Republican, quite frankly, to win in Georgia—you’ve gotta get folks in the middle. Lately the pattern for success for people like Brian Kemp and Raphael Warnock is crossover voters. Voters that don’t necessarily vote strictly one party line. There were Kemp–Warnock voters in 2022, for example.

Bacon: Is he a populist?... He is not going to say defund the police, but is he more populist? Is that what we are thinking about now?

Mitchell: I think that is a great way to describe Senator Ossoff. I’ll give you a good example. When Hamas attacked Israel, and of course Israel began to really decimate Gaza, Ossoff spoke out. He was critical of the destruction in Gaza, he was concerned about the humanitarian impact, and that angered some conservative Jewish leaders in Georgia, in metro Atlanta.

Ossoff is Jewish, and some conservative Jewish leaders felt that it was somewhat of a betrayal that he would criticize the Israeli government. And even at that time, Ossoff was like, “It’s OK for some people to criticize me, because I know the people, the voters, agree with me. It’s not unpopular to say that the people of Gaza are dying, their neighborhoods are being destroyed, they’re being displaced and we’re concerned about that. That shouldn’t be controversial.” Even though there were fellow Jewish people who really leaned on him and were really upset with him.

Bacon: It looks like Ossoff is going to do well. He is running for reelection this year. Talk about the race there. The Republican field is not quite settled. He got lucky because Kemp is popular, but Kemp is not running. So Ossoff is in a good position. He has fundraised well. Let’s talk about that race.

Mitchell: Ossoff is definitely fundraising well. He has raised more than any other candidate on the ballot this year.

Bacon: In Georgia, or anywhere?

Mitchell: Anywhere in the nation. And the Republican field is somewhat in disarray. There are three leading Republicans. President Trump was just in Georgia last week. They want him to endorse. He has not endorsed. It seems more and more that he is perhaps going to choose not to endorse. All of them want his support. But without Trump’s endorsement, it’s remained this thing where all of them have celebrated their strengths and aligned themselves with Trump. And so you have—I would call the front-runner Congressman Mike Collins.

He has raised more money than the other two. He polls in the lead, but of course, lots of undecided voters. Also, if you watch the State of the Union or listen to Donald Trump, the immigration crackdown, the Laken Riley Act, all of that is a big part of Trump’s agenda. Mike Collins was the lead sponsor of the Laken Riley Act. He is also a social media MAGA [person]. Some people consider it trolling. Some people consider it problematic. He considers it talking to the people.

But that’s Mike Collins. So in a lot of ways, he has the brand. I personally think Mike Collins should be the candidate that Ossoff is most worried about. Not saying that Ossoff can’t win—he definitely can. Republicans believe he can. But I think Mike Collins is the one that would give Ossoff the most run for his money.

We also have Congressman Buddy Carter. He has been working really hard to boost his MAGA bona fides. He is the one that introduced the Gulf of America Act and all these bills ... to curry favor with President Trump. And then the third one—and here is the wild card—Governor Kemp is supporting Derek Dooley. Derek Dooley has a famous last name, because his dad was a famous University of Georgia coach, Vince Dooley. Derek Dooley was also a football coach, but at rival SEC school Tennessee, and he also was nonpolitical for two decades. Didn’t vote, didn’t really donate to Donald Trump until recent years.

For a lot of people, that was a curious choice for Governor Kemp. But Governor Kemp continues to say he thinks Derek Dooley is the type of candidate that Georgia voters will resonate with. But so far he is not really surging the way people who want to believe Governor Kemp want him to surge.

Those are the three that are competing. It could go to a runoff, which also troubles Republicans, because that means they are going to be attacking one another until April while Ossoff just gets this long runway.

Bacon: So I was on social media in late January and I saw Senator Warnock was in Minnesota, and he spoke the way he does, very slowly: “This is a moral moment.” You know how he sounds. He sounds very pastor-like, that’s how he is. So talk about what he was doing in Minnesota. Did that surprise you?

Mitchell: No. And I just want to correct myself. The runoff would be in June, so May primary, June runoff. OK, Let’s switch to Warnock. Warnock for months has been on this mission to be this—first of all, he is a reverend. He has always said he is the “senator reverend.”

He is never putting on one hat and taking off the other. At all times he is a reverend and at all times he is a senator. He has always taken that approach to serving in Congress. But I will say, since Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has spoken more and more about feeling that he needs to help people navigate the darkness they feel during the Trump agenda.

Even before the immigration crackdowns in Minnesota, he worried about the effect that Trump was having on particularly Democratic voters feeling very down. The layoffs, DOGE, the cuts in spending, the closure of various agencies in the federal government—he was concerned it was demoralizing people and leading to a darkness. So he’s been talking about that and encouraging people to find ways to resist losing hope.

When the ICE crackdowns in Minnesota began to happen, he said that he felt led to go there to speak to the activists and encourage them to speak to the people, and again, be that moral leader, that religious leader, but also political leader to say, “We support you. We think what you’re doing is righteous. We know it’s not easy in these circumstances. How can we both pray with you but also try to advocate for you in Washington?” So that was a lot of what you heard from him when he went to Minnesota.

Bacon: He’s ... a Black senator. Most African Americans do not like Trump, obviously, just by the data. He’s not the loudest, but what’s his posture day-to-day in D.C.? I don’t have a good sense of that.

Mitchell: It’s interesting. He’s one of those people, he’s a little bit more—like my media colleagues say, “Ossoff never talks to us. He is invisible. He avoids us,” which isn’t the case; Ossoff is just very careful about who he talks to and why. Warnock is a little bit more accessible. He’s a little bit more willing to talk to the media, do national interviews and things like that. But I do think Warnock really wants to be perceived as someone who, when he talks, people listen. When he talks, it has impact. I remember his first floor speech was so highly anticipated that even Republicans went to the chamber to hear him deliver his first speech on the Senate floor.

Bacon: He is also a very good speaker in a way.

Mitchell: The benefit of being a Baptist preacher is that he is a very good speaker and communicates very well. Again, him and Ossoff are both very talented in that way, and I’m sure we’ll get to what those talents have led to. But yeah, I think that Warnock really [is] in the spirit of John Lewis and Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King was his hero. It’s why Warnock went to Morehouse. It’s one of the reasons why he’s a pastor, and now he is pastor of Martin Luther King’s church. John Lewis was a member of that church—Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

So for several years, Raphael Warnock was John Lewis’s pastor. He joined Congress shortly after John Lewis passed away. And he really talks about being in that legacy of someone who—again, John Lewis was considered the conscience of Congress when he served. And I really think—he wouldn’t say that—but if part of his legacy is when we talk about Raphael Warnock, we say he became the new conscience of Congress, I think that would make him proud.

Bacon: So one of the commenters here has noted ... Ossoff voted for the Laken Riley Act. Warnock and Ossoff both voted for this crypto bill that deregulated a crypto site. Let me ask this more directly: They’re not the most progressive members in the Senate. Is that because … they’re sincerely moderate, or are they pretending to be moderate because it’s Georgia?

Mitchell: So the Laken Riley Act was a special case for Georgia’s delegation because Laken Riley was from Georgia. She was killed in Georgia. There were several Georgia Democrats who, maybe if the case wasn’t so close to home, may not have supported it, but they did. Particularly with Ossoff and Warnock, they tend to provide each other cover on difficult votes.... Republicans still are using the Laken Riley Act to criticize Ossoff, even though he voted for it. So think about how damaging that would’ve been in Georgia if he had voted no, and then would’ve tried to go to the people of Georgia and say, “I need to speak to the center on such a high-profile, tragic case.” In that way, Warnock also said similar things. It helped that they were in tandem on this. Even in the House, Lucy McBath, who lost her own son to gun violence, she voted yes on the Laken Riley Act as well.

The crypto thing, I have not talked to them specifically, but I personally, as a journalist who’s been watching that, think the crypto thing is about money. There’s a lot of political donations—

Bacon: They will spend to defeat you if you vote against them.

Mitchell: Or they’ll spend to help you. That being said, Ossoff does not take corporate dollars. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t take money from individuals tied to certain industries. I don’t know that for sure, I haven’t looked into it, but that’s my overall perception of crypto. I think it’s less about specific crypto policy at this point. But I think the crypto industry is trying to make friends, knowing that the conversations are happening, and members of Congress or people who want to be in Congress are willing to listen to those friends, because those friends have a lot of money.

Those are just two examples. But to your bigger point, Perry and the commenter: They’re both pretty progressive, but neither one of them wants to be labeled an AOC progressive. Again, both of them were pretty critical of Israel when it came to concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They have been very, very critical of the “one big, beautiful bill.” They voted repeatedly with most Senate Democrats to shut down the government by not approving the funding bills that didn’t have the extension of the health care subsidies. And now they’re voting to continue the partial shutdown because the Homeland Security funding bill doesn’t include money for reforming ICE enforcement. And even when a few Democrats caved to end the shutdown, Ossoff and Warnock were not part of that group and were not expected to be part of that group.

Bacon: So I’ll close with this, which is probably what brought me to interview you in the first place. I’ve known Tia a long time, but we were talking internally about who might run in 2028, and then I brought up Ossoff, because I think he is charismatic and he’s youngish, and he had done some things where I was like, “Oh.” He went on Crooked Media and he had done something, maybe Colbert or somebody like that. He had done a couple of national things. So I was like, “Oh.” And then my colleague was like, “I think you’re talking about the wrong senator.” They were like, “Warnock, actually. If you want to build a Democratic coalition, start with Black voters, move to progressives. He’s a great speaker.” I don’t know if either one of them are thinking about it, but what’s your assessment? One, do you think one of them or both could go national, and two, do you think they want to go national? I’ve heard Warnock is maybe a little shyer than I think, but anyway, go ahead with both of them.

Mitchell: So of course, both of them, when you ask, say, “I’m serving the people of Georgia.” Ossoff is saying, “I’m here to defeat the Republicans and get elected to another term.” That was the same thing Warnock said two years ago. But both of them have a national profile and I think both of them are in the conversation, the speculation about 2028. And quite frankly, both of them are open to hearing people out, and if either one of them believes he has a pathway, then I think they would test it out privately and possibly publicly. Again, this is just my speculation.

Here’s ... the difference between the two. Warnock to me is someone who, again, his chosen career path was preacher, and politics is something he found himself falling into or being led into because of his activism as a Black pastor in the liberation theology vein of Martin Luther King and John Lewis and other Black males who … politics and the church have always been very closely aligned in the Black community. That led him to be an activist and eventually led him to joining the Senate. Will that lead him to running for president? I think he’s open to whether that’s a pathway, but I don’t necessarily think it’s on his long-term, written-out goals that “I’m going to run for president.” I think he has to see it. I think he’s going to have to be convinced. He wants to hear from people, and if he feels that the people need him and want him, he might be open to testing it out. That’s Warnock.

Ossoff … I think there’s a piece of paper from 16-year-old Jon Ossoff that says, “I’m going to run for president.” I just think he’s one of those … highly motivated young people that said, “I’m going to be president one day.” And it would be easier for Ossoff to test the waters, because he’s not on the ballot in 2028. So he wouldn’t necessarily have to choose; he can test the waters and still run for Senate, quite frankly, and still be a senator, not have to resign his seat.

Bacon: You’re saying Warnock’s term being up in 2028 means he can’t really—

Mitchell: He can’t do both.… At some point he would have to make a decision, which one is he doing. Whereas Ossoff would not have to make that decision because his term is not up in 2028. I do think that Warnock’s name comes up in the conversation more right now, but Ossoff is the one that’s going to get all the attention later this year when he is one of the high-profile Senate races on the ballot.

Perry Bacon: And if he wins, he’ll have won a hard swing state.

Mitchell: And people are going to be paying attention. His rallies, they’re going to start being taken live on national TV, and he’s going to be doing more national interviews. There’s going to be more national coverage of his race as it heats up. We know how the media is in November 2026. There are going to be certain races that really draw national attention, and his is going to be one of them. And Georgia in and of itself is going to draw a lot of attention because of all the races on the ballot in a swing state. So his star is going to rise, and if he wins, he definitely will be part of the conversation.

Bacon: What I’m hearing from you is … I’m an opinion person, so I can say what I want to say. If I want Warnock, I need to write a piece saying ... we have to draft Raphael Warnock in. But Ossoff is not going to need a lot of hints.

Mitchell: I think Warnock would definitely have to be drafted. I think Ossoff has to see it as part of his trajectory. And I think for Ossoff, he is very deliberate. I don’t say this in a bad way, but he is someone who is methodical. He thinks through every word he says. He thinks through every interview he grants.

He’s just one of those people. As young as he is—and he is affable ... very young, but very calculated, old spirit. Very cautious. He has two girls. The internet has never seen a picture of either one of his children, and I think that’s just an example of how careful and cautious he is with everything. The internet didn’t even know his wife was pregnant for the first child until the child was born. So that shows that he is very careful and deliberate. I think he has to see it. But if he’s successful in November, I think a lot of people will see it for him.

Bacon: Jon Ossoff is 39. I just checked. Good for him to be a U.S. senator at 39. Tia, this was great. Thanks for joining me. I appreciate it.

Mitchell: Thank you so much for having me, Perry.

Bacon: Good to see you. Bye-bye.