Role at the time: Jon Ossoff U.S. Senate campaign
"“He wants to push you off Social Security.”"
An Ossoff campaign television ad used a portion of Collins’s radio interview—“get off of Social Security, get back into the workforce”—to argue that he wanted to push beneficiaries off Social Security.
- First noted
- September 4, 2026
- Published here
- September 10, 2026
- People and groups discussed
- Mike Collins
Why we used this label
The campaign uses the excerpt to make a critical policy characterization of Collins’s position on Social Security.
Context
Before the quotation
The ad first aired on August 8, 2026 and cited a June 2025 radio interview. It depicts older adults while making its Social Security claim.
After the quotation
Asked about the characterization, the Ossoff campaign said the ad did not allege coercion, but said Collins had made clear that he wanted to exert influence and pressure to move beneficiaries into the workforce. August 8 is the first-airing date; 12:00 UTC is a date-only storage placeholder, not a verified broadcast time.
Sources
Reporting that identifies when the Ossoff television ad began, links the full June 2025 radio interview and ad, and records direct responses from both campaigns. It is used for the campaigns’ stated interpretations; the radio interview remains the primary record for Collins’s full wording.
Primary full interview record. Collins was making an argument for tax cuts and work incentives and referred in one sentence to Medicaid, Social Security, and returning to work. This is the full record from which the campaign ad excerpted audio. The brief quotation is corroborated by FactCheck.org's transcription; the audio was not independently retranscribed during this update. The timestamp is episode publication, not a verified recording time.