Lawrence O’Donnell slammed Rep. Mike Collins (Ga.) — the Donald Trump-backed GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia — for dropping AI-generated attack ads against his opponent, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).
“What Mike Collins has to say in his TV ads is the stupidest and most childish and most fraudulent stuff you have ever seen in a political ad,” the MS NOW host said.
He continued: “And in the presentation of these ridiculous ads, he insults the intelligence of every Georgia voter deeply. And he proves that he and the Republican president he supports and the Republicans in Congress he works with have absolutely nothing, I mean, nothing to run on in this election.”
One of the ads from the Senate Leadership Fund, Senate Republicans’ super PAC, starts with a man sitting in a forklift claiming that Ossoff spends more on any D.C. politician on hair and makeup, “even more than the ladies.” The ad shows AI-generated visuals of Ossoff getting his hair blow-dried, having makeup applied, and receiving a manicure.
“Pretty boy has an ugly record,” the man concludes.
The ad neglects to mention that both Republicans and Democrats have reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on professional hair and makeup services.
O’Donnell accused Collins of counting on voters to “care nothing about the issues” like Trump’s unpopular war of choice in Iran, a conflict the candidate has approved of.
Earlier in his monologue, O’Donnell highlighted how Ossoff demanded on Tuesday that Collins release all communications between his office and Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes, whom the senator described as “some of the most notorious white supremacists in the country.”
Slate, in a bombshell report in May, reported that Collins’ then-chief of staff Kip Talley attempted to free Holocaust denier Charles C. Johnson from jail, communicating with Spencer and Fuentes in his efforts to do so.
Talley, who reportedly wrote in the chat that he’d try to “use the levers of the legislative branch to check into his detention,” told Slate he acted solely in his “personal capacity.”
Collins’ campaign declined to comment at the time but has since stated that Talley is no longer employed by it, adding that the congressman “continues to condemn antisemitism and hate from all sources.”
O’Donnell highlighted a recent poll showing that a majority of Americans (76%) believe the Iran war isn’t worth the cost in American lives or resources.
“Mike Collins has nothing to say to anyone who thinks that,” O’Donnell said.
“Nothing to say about the people working for him who support white supremacists.”