Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is highlighting the Trump administration’s cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to pressure Republicans to oppose the government’s public health agency layoffs.
Ossoff brought former CDC employees fired by the administration to a rally in Atlanta focused on the agency, which is headquartered there. The former CDC workers wore “Fired But Fighting” shirts to the rally.
The Trump administration has cut more than 2,000 jobs at the Atlanta-based CDC among its 10,000 job cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I will remain an outspoken champion of Georgia’s CDC and continue to oppose both through the legislative process, as you noted, as an appropriator, the proposed deep cuts to the CDC budget, continue to vigorously oppose and expose the foolishness of these mass firings at the CDC, and champion the CDC’s work nationally and internationally as a proud representative,” Ossoff said.
He said the “war on the CDC” should be opposed by any Georgian, including Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who has been floated as a 2026 GOP Senate candidate.
Ossoff is fighting to hold on to his swing seat ahead of the 2026 elections. He raised $11 million in the first quarter of 2025 — the most any senator has brought in during an off-year.
If Kemp runs in 2026 against Ossoff, it is likely to be one of the country’s tightest political battles. Kemp has won two gubernatorial races, both against former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams. President Donald Trump won the state by a thin 50.72%-48.52% margin in 2024.
Ossoff may be trying to build momentum in Georgia by aligning himself with the fired federal workers. He is likely to link frustration over the federal government’s reorganization to Kemp if he enters the race.
The senator said he was proud to grow up in Georgia around the “heroes at the CDC.”
“Always felt a surge of pride when I drove by the CDC campus and thought to myself, ‘Wow, right here in Georgia, that’s where they based the work that is eradicating disease around the world,’” he said. “This is is the site that we deploy the epidemiologists who work to prevent disease outbreaks in every part of our planet and protect the American people from threats to public health, threats to public safety, so I am 100% in your corner, and I will use every tool at my disposal in the legislative process to defend you as a public advocate, as a legislator, as a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Intelligence Committee.”
He also raised concerns that cuts at the CDC could put America in a public health crisis.
“Perhaps the most important thing that we have to do is to inform the public of how dire the threat to public health is resulting from this war on the CDC,” he said. “Because this gets me back to something that I said at the outset of this event, which I know is not easy to hear, but I have to level with you, there is no button that I can simply press that I’m not pressing, or some tool of procedure that I can use that I’m not using, that will reverse what they’re doing.”
Ossoff, who narrowly defeated then-Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) in a 2021 Senate runoff election, told the crowd that they needed to understand the future ramifications of the cuts.
“Ultimately, it will come down to whether or not the American people see and understand that they’re being put at risk, not just for the next six months, but for the next 60 years, by this destruction of our public health infrastructure and research,” Ossoff said.
FEDERAL WORKERS ORDERED TO RETURN TO WORK TO FIND THEMSELVES OFFICELESS
The senator said he “will work to make sure HHS, public health funding, and global health funding are robust and protected.”
Ossoff’s Senate seat is rated as a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report.