MAGA candidate's Epstein attack backfires in campaign-defining moment: analysis

Republican Senate hopeful Mike Collins sparred with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) Tuesday night in their second debate, and during a pivotal moment, attempted to strike a blow against the Senate Democrat over Jeffrey Epstein — an attack that “backfired spectacularly,” security expert Miles Taylor argued Wednesday.

During the debate, Collins, a “stalwart Trump ally,” raised the matter of Epstein, and accused Ossoff of “hypocrisy” for having accepted campaign contributions from Reid Hoffman, a billionaire venture capitalist with deep ties to Epstein.

“You claim to fight against the Epstein class, but I’m gonna tell you, this call is coming from inside the house, and the Epstein class is on stage right now, and it’s you!” Collins said. “Will you condemn Reid Hoffman and apologize for your hypocrisy tonight?”

After a brief pause, Ossoff first responded with confusion.

“Mike, who on your team advised you to raise the Epstein files? You voted to cover up the evidence, Mike!” Ossoff said.

As explained in meticulous detail by Ossoff, Collins had voted to block initial efforts to force the Justice Department to release its files on Epstein, with Collins’ spokesperson echoing President Donald Trump’s claim that interest in Epstein and potential co-conspirators was a “hoax.” Collins also did not meet with Epstein survivors, though he did ultimately vote for the files to be released once Trump had begrudgingly endorsed the effort.

“You voted to cover up the evidence even though you knew 14-year-old girls had been raped because Donald Trump told you to. Donald Trump is named, by the way, 1,000 times in the Epstein files,” Ossoff said, a significant undercount of the 38,000 references to Trump in the files, per The New York Times.

“Have you ever met with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims when they asked you why you voted to cover up the Epstein files? Do you have an answer? What would you say to them tonight, Mike?”

Taylor, who served in the first Trump administration as a senior Homeland Security official, was left stunned by the exchange. He also flagged Collins’ behavior as Ossoff delivered his fierce rebuttal.

“You have to watch the video,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published Wednesday on his Substack. “Collins spends most of it looking down at his notebook and squiggling his pen, belatedly realizing he’d built a trap for himself and walked right into it.”