Transcription
This morning, Bur and I'd like to share with you some brief words on the subject of misrule as we endure the daily spectacle of this broken man and his ruined presidency. [applause]
Each day his allies are fewer and even they no longer deny his corruption. The obscene self-dealing while he plunges the nation deeper into reckless war. While the people pay more for everything, and millions lose health coverage while he rakes in billions and builds himself a ballroom and prepares again to attack our elections.
And Berean, let's be clear, just one man attempted election fraud in Georgia in 2020. Donald J. Trump, when he called Brad Raffensperger to demand he quote, "find precisely the number of votes he needed to win in a state he'd lost." Do you remember that phone call, Buria?
But Brad Raffensperger refused. He and enough men and women of integrity told the president that the law forbade him to overturn the rule of the people. And the failure of that scheme to seize the presidency has enraged him ever since. Now, nearly six years on, he returns to power, but more reviled than ever. He reanimates his 2020 obsession while he spirals in fear of the rebuke to come this fall and the accountability that will follow it, because accountability is coming, Brian. [applause]
So with each passing day, we see him dig the moral pit deeper and deeper. But Pastor Proverbs says, "Whoever digs a pit, whoever digs a pit, will fall into it." [applause] And scripture is full of wicked kings brought low by their own arrogance. How many remember the story of King Ahab? It was a reckless war that was his downfall. But first, he coveted a vineyard that belonged to the man Nabbath. And Nabbath was a man of integrity who refused the king because the law forbade Nabbath to forfeit his land. And likewise, the law forbade the king to seize it, because even in ancient Israel, the king was not above the law. First Kings 21:4.
So Ahab went home sullen and angry because Nabbath the Jezreelite had said, "I will not give you the inheritance of my ancestors." He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat. The king sulked because the rule of law had foiled his design. So instead, through forgery and perjury, Ahab's court set out to secure his objective by abusing the law itself. Queen Jezebel enlisted corrupt nobles in a scheme to manufacture false evidence against Nabbath. She instructs them in verse 8, "Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Nabbath in a prominent place among the people, but seat two sons of Belial opposite him, and have them bring charges that he has cursed both God and king." And in service to royal power, these sons of Belial bore false witness against Nabbath, the man who had refused the king. Sons of Belial in Hebrew, *b'nei beliyya'al*, translated often as scoundrels or wicked men.
See, in Ahab's time, when the law stood in the way of the king, he could rely on wicked men to lie and loyal nobles to corrupt the law on his behalf. Are you following me, Brienne? Oh, yeah. Because in our time, wicked men in high office lie and corrupt the law to serve this president's schemes against your voting rights. [applause]
In fact, in our time, the price of admission to the president's service seems to be proof that you're willing to lie for him. Yep. Have you seen it? Maybe you saw Jay Clayton, the president's nominee to lead our intelligence services, refuse again and again, while he was under oath, to affirm Donald Trump's defeat in 2020. Or Pete Hegseth before the Senate this week, refusing to recant his lies about the war. And there's something uniquely despicable about lying a nation into war, treating citizens as fools and the selfless patriots who serve as pawns.
Remember earlier this year, they claimed there was an imminent nuclear threat. After last year, they told us the Iranian nuclear program had been obliterated. Do you remember? Both times, lies. On day 12 of this war, the president said, "We won." On day 14, Hegseth said Iran's military was "destroyed." Five months later, we're still bombing. Americans are still dying. Iran still has its uranium. Hormuz is still closed. I challenge anyone to defend it. A war built on lies told by a White House utterly absent figures of integrity to dissuade the president from his delusions.
And Ahab too, surrounded himself with yes-men, and it led him to reckless war and to his downfall. As he weighed going to war, King Ahab consulted his 400 court prophets, and they assured him unanimously of victory. Just one man spoke truth to power: the prophet Micaiah, who warned the king against war. And for it, Ahab imprisoned him. Says Ahab of Micaiah in First Kings 22:8, "I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me." So Ahab silenced dissent and proceeded to war, and it was the costliest mistake of his reign.
Now, in the kingdom of Samaria, 3,000 years ago, those living under Ahab's misrule had little recourse. But in the United States today, the power of the presidency is nothing compared to the power of the people. Nothing. [applause]
And here we are in Georgia, where the president sent his spies and his agents to seize our ballots. Did you see it, Burian? And why Georgia? Why Fulton County? I submit to you it's because the fact that Black voters were instrumental to his defeat is even more offensive to this man than the defeat itself. [applause] But how foolish of them to launch an attack on voting rights here, at the political and spiritual center of the very Black history they seek to erase. [applause]
Nabbath said to the king, "I will not give you the inheritance of my ancestors." And Brian, if Donald Trump thinks Georgia voters will be deterred or intimidated from exercising their rights after all that was sacrificed to secure them, if he thinks in the year 2026 he's going to come down to the great state of Georgia and silence the people, he will be dealt his most resounding defeat [applause] yet, because he forgets your power.
Five years ago, on the morning of January 6, 2021, the president's mob sacked the Capitol. Do you remember? But it was that same morning that you shocked the world and sent to the Senate the young Jewish son of an immigrant and a Black pastor who holds Dr. King's pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church. [applause]
And then earlier this year, when the court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, the president's allies launched a campaign to remove Black elected officials from office, not by defeating them at the polls, but by manipulating maps to dilute minority power. Did you see that? Oh, yeah. But in the face of overwhelming opposition and mobilization last month, those who had plotted to diminish your power were humbled and full of fear, and they stood down instead. Because they forget your power.
I believe we will overcome this wickedness. We will overcome this wickedness [applause] and restore hope and return our nation to the path of progress. But change won't come from the top. It requires the people to move. And once again, that movement has to start right here in Georgia. So, Berean, are you ready to move?
Thank you so much for having me. God bless you. Thank you for the privilege of serving you and representing you. Come on, put your hands together. Thank you very much. Come on, somebody shout, "Six more years!"