Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) is being accused of antisemitism for an X reply he posted on Sunday about a Washington Post reporter’s Jewish background.
“In case you were wondering, yes she is,” wrote the X account @GarbageHuman23 in response to a New York Post story about a Washington Post feature on how a D.C. CVS store “got spun by the culture wars into a symbol for America’s shoplifting panic.”
The New York Post article took issue with reporter Maura Judkis writing that “America is a sticky-fingered nation built on stolen land” and argued Judkis implied there is “ancestral guilt about stealing and colonization at play in this ‘moral panic.’”
The response from GarbageHuman23—an apparent reference to Judkis’ Jewish heritage—caught the attention of Collins, who replied: “Never was a second thought.”
Collins’ post quickly came under fire, with several X users likening his response to Nazism.
“Your Nazi armband is showing, Mike,” wrote one user.
“The GOP isn’t even trying to hide its antisemitism,” replied someone else.
“Spell it out, Congressman,” wrote another account. “Own your antisemitism.”
Attorney Bradley Moss replied: “Say it to our face, Congressman.”
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) weighed in as well, writing: “Hey Mike what is she? Sincerely, Your former colleague.”
“Nothing to see here, just a rep or his staff engaging in a little antisemitism as a treat,” another X user wrote.
Left-wing commentator Mehdi Hasan reacted to the post, doubting that Collins’ “brazenly antisemitic tweet” would receive the same level of backlash Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) received after claiming Israel’s allies in Congress were motivated by money.
“It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” Omar said in 2019—a reference to $100 bills.
Omar was widely accused of playing into antisemitic tropes about Jews and money, and later apologized for the post, saying that it was never her intention to offend “my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole” and “unequivocally” apologized. One censure resolution against Omar directly mentioned the post as an example of Omar’s “anti-Semitic comments.”
“Imagine if Republican Congressman Mike Collins’s brazenly antisemitic tweet (below) got even 1% of the coverage (it won’t!) of Ilhan Omar’s now-infamous ‘Benjamins’ tweet about AIPAC,” Hasan wrote. “Imagine if Dems insisted on a censure motion. Imagine…”
“He really thought it was ‘subtle’ by the looks of it, wtf,” reads the top reply to Hasan’s post.
Collins has not elaborated further about the meaning behind the post, however he has posted two troll-like reactions to the criticism he is facing that appear to deny the allegations of antisemitism.
“Some of y’all having a rough time wanting to see something that ain’t there. But don’t give up!” Collins posted Sunday night along with a grasping at straws GIF from the sitcom “Bob’s Burgers.”
The quippy GIF response prompted a Democratic Georgia state lawmaker to tell Collins that “it’s one thing to mistakenly respond to an antisemitic account” but “it’s another thing to double down on it and gaslight us like it never happened” and pledged to fight antisemitism.
“A nobel cause. Just don’t waste ammo,” Collins replied.
