Ossoff and Collins face off over white nationalism, Epstein, El-Sayed and Hasan Piker

JTA — Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff reaffirmed Israel’s right to combat Hamas in Gaza while stressing that its use of US weapons must be in compliance with international law during a debate on Tuesday ahead of the November 3 elections.

His opponent, Republican Rep. Mike Collins, seeks to unseat Ossoff in a race that could help determine which party controls the Senate. They debated a range of issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iran and antisemitism.

“The security of the Israeli people matters to me. I have relatives living in Israel,” Ossoff said, defending his votes to block certain US arms sales to Israel. “The safety and security of Palestinians matters to me, and it should matter to all of us.”

Ossoff maintained that “Israel had every right to go to war with Hamas after the despicable October 7 terrorist attack.” But he also emphasized the duty of US senators to make sure “that American laws and international laws are being respected by those who fight with our weapons.

“Bottom line: When it comes to selling weapons or giving weapons to a foreign government, we should assess in every case whether that foreign government is acting consistent with our interests, our laws and our values,” he added.

Collins, meanwhile, accused Ossoff of spending “his time in Washington focused on how he could defund our greatest ally Israel,” while also touting the Trump administration’s accomplishments in Iran.

“Thank goodness we had the leadership to send people over there to take care of those nuclear weapons that they were trying to create,” Collins said.

Ossoff disputed his opponent’s characterization of US success in Iran, citing the deaths of 21 US service members and the war’s disruption of global energy supplies.

“Congress is full of congressmen’s sons who are only in Congress because their daddies were congressmen, just like Mike Collins, who are perfectly happy to send other people’s children to die in the war,” Ossoff said.

Collins fired back, arguing that the only thing Ossoff “knows about work is working the ATM machine, getting his granddaddy’s money out of it.”

“We’re in Iran to make sure they don’t get a nuclear bomb and destroy America,” Collins said. “I’ve got kids and grandkids, and we want to make sure that they have a future.”

The Georgia race has generated national attention because Ossoff, who is Jewish, is considered to be a potential Democratic presidential contender. Ossoff has insisted that he has no such plans, and when pressed on the issue during the debate, he pledged to serve out the full senatorial six-year term if re-elected.

“I have zero interest in running for president; I am not running for president, I am running for re-election to the Senate,” Ossoff stated.

The rhetoric in the race has been particularly fierce because Ossoff has repeatedly accused his opponent, Collins, of ties to white nationalism, a charge Collins has rejected.

A debate moderator on Tuesday night recalled comments Ossoff made during last week’s debate, when he called Collins a bigot and accused him of hiring “half the Third Reich” to his staff. A former Collins staffer had posted Ku Klux Klan and swastika images on social media.

The moderator then asked Collins whether he is a white nationalist and what he would say to Black Georgians who question whether he’d represent them equally.

“I condemn any… hate speech, antisemitism, hate of any kind. It’s abhorrent,” Collins responded. “I’ve fired people when things happened.”

He then criticized Ossoff for supporting Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed. Collins described El-Sayed as “the guy that hates Israel.”

El-Sayed, a frequent critic of Israel, drew criticism from some Jewish community members for saying “Hurt people hurt people” while condemning a March attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, that injured a security guard. He has since apologized for the remark.

Collins also described Ossoff as “best friends” with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who previously named the senator as a potential presidential pick for 2028. Ossoff publicly rejected Piker’s rhetoric about American Jews in August.

Speaking on a Twitch livestream on August 20, Piker stated, “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action… Not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”

Collins also criticized Ossoff for accepting campaign contributions from Reid Hoffman, whose name appeared in the Epstein files. Ossoff countered that Collins had voted against an earlier effort to release the records.

Ossoff also questioned how weak a person must be “to be unable to stop someone under your own roof from disseminating neo-Nazi propaganda while you run for the Senate.”

Ossoff was referring to Collins’ son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, who has shared Nazi imagery and antisemitic material online and is registered to vote at a house Collins owns next to his estate, according to CNN. Collins said he condemned antisemitism and accused Ossoff’s rhetoric of fueling threats against his family.