ATLANTA — The first debate between Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican nominee challenging him, centered on President Donald Trump.
It was also an opportunity for the two opponents to paint each other as dangerous extremists.
The matchup, hosted by Atlanta News First on Thursday night, featured television journalists peppering the two with questions about the economy, healthcare, the Iran war, immigration and other issues.
Unlike Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, who tacked more toward Gov. Brian Kemp than the president in a similar clash with Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms on Tuesday, Collins hewed closely to Trump, defending the president's policies.
Collins, who represents a district between
Atlanta and Augusta, painted Ossoff as a liberal extremist who sides with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and supports transgender athletes while opposing tax cuts.
"He wants to take control of this country with these weird and dangerous ideas with his radical friends," Collins said.
Ossoff attacked Collins over Collins' son-in-law, who lives on Collins' property and has been posting social media content that promotes white supremacy and borrows from Nazi propaganda.
Ossoff also pointed to reports about former Collins congressional staffers' links to white supremacists, saying Collins had "hired half the Third Reich" and had himself amplified neo-Nazi content online.
When moderator Rick Folbaum asked Collins what he had said to his son-in-law about his online posts and whether Collins would "once and for all denounce white supremacy," Collins blamed Ossoff's attacks for a recent death threat against Collins and his son-in-law that led to the arrest of a man in New York.
Then, Collins said he had "condemned racism, antisemitism, hate. I don't care where the source is and I tell him that too. It's wrong."
Ossoff called Collins a "bigot" and said his proximity to white supremacists should disqualify him from office.
"Imagine running for the U.S. Senate while neo-Nazi propaganda is disseminated to an audience of millions from your home," Ossoff said. "That's Mike Collins."
Ossoff started the debate by criticizing Collins for his ties to white nationalists and also for his "pathetic, childlike devotion" to Trump.
Collins tried to tie Ossoff to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan who has been critical of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and, as Collins put it, "hates Israel, loves Iran."
When Folbaum asked Ossoff whether he believed Israel had committed genocide, Ossoff, who is Jewish and said he had family in Israel, deferred judgment to the International Criminal Court. But he said he believed Israeli forces in Gaza had "violated the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law."
Ossoff attacked Collins over the war in Iran, blaming rising fuel costs on Trump and on Collins' support for the president's policies. Collins said Trump had to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Ossoff also attacked Collins over tariffs and their effect on the cost of living.
Collins said he supported an "America first" policy and that the country had "bowed down" to other countries and their tariffs. American "tariffs now are making it fair," he said.
Ossoff shot back: "You just heard Mike Collins say the tariffs are working. Go buy groceries."
The debate also touched on the rising cost of fertilizer, a concern for farmers.
Ossoff blamed the war and tariffs. Collins blamed a reliance on imported fertilizer.
Collins pivoted to Democrats' role last year in the government shutdown, blaming Ossoff for delaying Hurricane Helene relief funding to farmers. Ossoff said he had helped Georgia farmers by meeting repeatedly with India's ambassador to get that country to reduce its tariff on pecans.
Collins criticized Ossoff and Democrats on immigration policy, saying his Laken Riley Act — the first bill signed by Trump in his second term — had secured the borders. Ossoff blamed the Trump administration's aggressive deportation enforcement for the deaths of American citizens.
Collins blamed Democrats for rising healthcare costs. Ossoff blamed Republicans for cutting Medicaid and for allowing enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire, saying that a hospital in Collins' district had closed its labor and delivery unit partly due to Medicaid cuts. Ossoff said the Congressional Budget Office had warned that service cuts at rural hospitals could result from passage of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Collins blamed the subsidies. "The only people getting rich on these subsidies are our health insurance carriers out there," he said.
In a rare instance of agreement, both suggested that more price transparency could help restrain rising healthcare costs.
This article is available through a partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Association's nonprofit, tax-exempt Educational Foundation.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Ossoff and Collins spar over Trump and extremism
