U.S. Rep. Mike Collins speaking with attendees at the 2025 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican trying to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), has a history of joking about killing political opponents and downplaying the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, according to a new review of his past posts and interviews.
CNN's KFile found an August 2021 tweet during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal where Collins shared an image that purported to show the Taliban hanging someone from a helicopter and suggested U.S. leaders deserved the same fate.
“If someone said this is what should happen to some of our military/political leaders for everything that’s happened in AFG lately they’d probably get banned,” Collins wrote. “So good thing no one says that.”
Weeks earlier, on the conservative radio program “Sandy Rios in the Morning,” fellow GOP candidate Joe Kent joked that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would “be happy to give me a ride.” Collins chimed in: “Might push her out.”
“Oh, don’t say that. They’ll be after you. You know they will,” host Sandy Rios warned.
“I was joking,” Collins replied.
The revelations follow Ossoff’s accusation in last week’s debate that Collins called for immigrants to be thrown to their deaths from helicopters in a 2024 post. Collins sidestepped the charge.
KFile also found that Collins repeatedly praised Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who told a 2022 white nationalist conference organized by Nick Fuentes that “we need to build more gallows.” Arizona’s Republican-led Senate censured her 24-3, but months later, Collins thanked her for her support: “Very grateful to Senator Rogers! An early supporter who never backed down!” He thanked her again when she endorsed his Senate bid in July 2025.
Collins has also echoed Jan. 6 conspiracy theories. In a 2022 interview carried on the Stew Peters Network, a platform whose founder has promoted Holocaust denial, the host called the riot a “grandma-guided tour.”
“Amen, brother,” Collins replied, and he promoted the baseless theory that Jan. 6 rioter Ray Epps was a federal plant. “Who is Ray Epps? What role did he really play?”
On the fourth anniversary of the attack, Collins wrote that “thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building.”
The findings deepen the scrutiny Collins already faces. In July, KFile revealed that his son-in-law, who lives on property Collins owns, is a pro-white nationalist influencer who has shared antisemitic material and Nazi imagery. CNN has now found a comment from the son-in-law’s new skincare business account that used “goyslop,” an antisemitic slur popular in white nationalist circles.
Asked at the debate whether he’s a white nationalist, Collins answered, “No, I condemn any sort of hate speech, antisemitism, hate of any kind.” When Ossoff pressed him, he snapped, “I’m a little tired of this, Jon.”
Collins also dodged whether Trump won in 2020: “There was a lot of doubt in that election.”
His campaign did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
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