Today with David McCullagh
Who is Senator Jon Ossoff & is the 2028 Democratic ticket already taking shape?
23 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the political implications of the upcoming midterms?
Now, this November's US midterms are fast approaching with huge political consequences, not just for the remainder of Donald Trump's term in the White House, but for the shape of the race to succeed him in 2028. And one name at the centre of the conversation is Georgia Senator John Ossoff, whose high stakes re-election fight this year is being viewed as an early presidential testament.
Meanwhile, in an unexpected twist, Hunter Biden has re-emerged in the public eye. Joining me now to unpack all of this is journalist and broadcaster Marion McKeown. Marion, good morning to you. Good morning to you, David. Great to be here. John Ossoff, who he and why should I be paying attention?
Chapter 2: Who is Senator Jon Ossoff and why is he significant?
I think first of all, you should be paying attention because I think I can say with some degree of certainty, although we know nothing is certain in American politics, that John Ossoff will be on the 2028 election. Democratic ticket, either as a running mate or indeed as the main man. Wow.
He's won, you know, he's been very, I remember covering his campaign when he was first running for Senate back in, God, 2020. And he is, he was a real surprise at that stage. He's 39 now. He was 32, 33. He was a young journalist. He was a young Jewish guy. This was when Georgia was really deep red at that stage. And it was astonishing that they managed.
They had two Senate seats that the Republicans held and they lost both of them. They lost both of them to one, to a young Jewish journalist and economist and the other to Raphael Warnock, a black preacher. And really, and I think the great untold story behind all of this was, of course, Stacey Abrams, who went hugely unrewarded.
The most, the Democrats most talented organiser, activist and everything who really went on this massive registration campaign in Georgia for Democrats really was never appreciated for the phenomenal work she did. She ran for government. She ran for governor twice and was defeated both times.
And the thing is, people don't like to talk about race in American politics, but Georgians were not going to elect a black woman as their governor. They just weren't, even though she was one of the smartest people in the Democratic Party.
And was gender or race the main barrier, do you think? Both.
Absolutely both. You know, people say that about Kamala Harris. I think, yeah, maybe to a lesser degree. She also didn't run a great. I mean, she ran a good campaign on some levels, but she was she never made the separation from Biden. But anyway, Abrams legacy was to get two Democrats elected. And now also is running against a really mediocre by Collins campaign. for the seat.
My prediction is that unless there's some very strange shenanigans down in Georgia, he will hold on to it. He's a really smart guy. He's so articulate. And what he has done that Democrats have so far failed to do, which is why I'm watching him for 2028, is he has managed to pull together some very coherent threads into a message that really is resonating.
He's saying that the corruption that is endemic in this Trump campaign is costing ordinary Americans money. That the reason that everything is so unaffordable, the reason that things are gone to the dogs, the reason that petrol, etc., is because of a mixture of Trump grift and incompetence. And he's really nailing that message home.
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Chapter 3: What role did Stacey Abrams play in Georgia's political landscape?
And I think we're going to have a bit of a wild ride. I think on the Republican side, it's going to be a free-for-all. You're going to have Don Jr. You're probably going to have Pete Hegseth. You're probably going to have Robert F. Kennedy. Pete Hegseth? Yeah, these people don't want to give up the megaphone once they get it. And he thinks that he has the...
Yeah, but he thinks he has the Christian, evangelical, he has a lock on those people because of what he's doing, because of the way he's destroying the Department of Defence, effectively. But you're going to have all these wild cards. Tucker Carlson will get into it just to create mayhem. So I think there's going to be a lot of mayhem on that side.
I think with the Democrats, you're going to have the obvious. You're going to have Gavin Newsom. You're probably going to have J.B. Pritzker, who I wouldn't underestimate as a candidate. He's the governor of Illinois. Yeah. And he brings a sort of a certain gravitate. He has a bit of that kind of energy of Trump that it's a bit macho.
It's a bit tough where guys like Andy Beshar, who's widely he's very he's one that a lot of people are watching. I think he's a bit too lightweight is my view. He's the governor of Kentucky. I don't see him being ahead of any ticket yet. And then you've got Gretchen Whitmer, who I think would have been a terrific candidate last time round. She said she wouldn't run, then she said she might.
I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will get into it just for the hell of it. But I think what she really wants is Chuck Schumer's Senate seat. And I think she's in a good position to get that. And what about Kamala Harris? No, I don't see her going anywhere. I think her big mistake was not running for governor of California.
She's not going to win the nomination for this because she's done nothing essentially for the last couple of years and also she didn't... She was given... so much money and so much opportunity, but she never knew how to separate herself from Biden. She was never willing to forge her own path. And if you want to be a leader, you've got to make those tough choices. She never made them.
Speaking of the Bidens, Hunter Biden. Keepers, would they just go away? All of a sudden, Hunter Biden appears to be back. And the question, I suppose, is why?
You know, that is the question, David, that I've been asking myself as well. He's doing this sort of redemption tour. Now,
Hunter Biden, back in 2020, before Joe Biden decided, well, he always knew he was going to run, I think then, but Hunter Biden wrote a book and it was called Beautiful Things and it was basically to get out all the Hunter Biden scandal that everybody knew was there, the rehab, the addiction, the alcoholism, all of these things.
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Chapter 4: How is Jon Ossoff positioning himself for the 2028 election?
And the two of them ended up in this love fest there, talking about going off to the Vatican together. And then he did another couple of far-right sort of podcasters, reaching millions and millions of people. Now he's on X and he's, you know... I don't find anything particularly interesting about his posts.
Like he's taking on a couple of far right people with, you know, kind of that FU energy and, you know, trolling a few other people. I don't see the point of him. I don't see the point of his comeback. I suspect his comeback is his paintings have stopped selling. They did sell for a while. He went out to California and became a painter.
And he's probably the Biden's never to their credit, although Hunter Biden certainly tried to monetize his father's presidency with all of his gigs with Burisma and all that. And he really Hunter Biden was the single biggest drag on his father's presidency. But he's never admitted that or acknowledged that.
Chapter 5: What strategies is Ossoff using to resonate with voters?
And instead he blames other people for taking down his father and other people for not, you know, talking about his age and all that. But he did, you know, and when Joe Biden pardoned him as well, he gave him a preemptive pardon. Now, you can understand a father doing that for his son when he knew Trump was going to come after him.
And a lot of legal people I spoke with said Hunter Biden should never have been prosecuted. He had already done a deal. It was a misdemeanor tax thing. He'd already repaid it. You know, the gun thing that would never have happened if he wasn't Joe Biden's son. So he was.
And I think it's fair to say objectively, he he got the thin end of that wedge, you know, by being because Merrick Garland, the attorney general, who would have been better off to have gone after, to investigate the Epstein files. He had them all sitting on his desk for four years, but he decided to show that he was apolitical by prosecuting the president's son, essentially.
So I think Biden, Hunter Biden, has some reason to feel aggrieved. But look, he did a lot of awful things. You know, like, I mean, some of it is down to addiction. Some of it is just down to lousy judgment. And I don't see him as any kind of a hero. And I don't find his ex-posts in any way particularly interesting. I think he should just go away, as should Jill Biden. and indeed Joe Biden.
They all need to just go away.
OK, Marion McKeown, journalist and broadcaster, thank you so much for giving us that whistle-top tour of American politics.
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