Republican Announces Senate Run—and Misspells State He’s Running In

MAGA Representative Mike Collins of Georgia has his work cut out for him as he enters the 2026 Republican Senate primary field.

His GOP challengers will include another MAGA candidate and likely also former college football coach Derek Dooley, who reportedly has Governor Brian Kemp’s support. Meanwhile, Democratic spokesperson Devon Cruz told Fox News that incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff is “building massive momentum to take on whichever Donald Trump loyalist limps over the finish line.”

Collins, for his part, stumbled right out of the gate, with an early campaign video that misspells the name of the state he’s running in.

In the video ad, posted to Collins’s campaign account on X late Sunday, the lawmaker says, “We’ve got to be absolutely unrelenting. We’ve got to be unafraid to fight. We’ve got to be unafraid to call balls and strikes, a spade a spade. And I think y’all have seen I don’t mind doing that.” An audio clip of Donald Trump speaking approvingly of Collins plays, before the Georgia Republican chimes back in: “We’re gonna put the hammer down, and we’re gonna get it done.”

The video shows various B-roll footage, mostly of Collins, as text flashes on the screen accompanying his monologue. It all leads up to the end card, which absolutely bungles the landing: “GEORIGA, LET’S RIDE.”

“Oof, tough typo in an early Senate campaign ad,” wrote Amber Duke of the right-wing Daily Caller news site.

Critics of Collins relished the mistake in his replies, where some concerned supporters also pointed out the error: “Take it down! Quick,” pleaded one MAGA account on X, with another conservative writing, “Please correct the spelling of ‘Georgia.’ Otherwise, I approve this message.”

The egregious typo adds to a colorful digital footprint for the lawmaker who, in May, likened the addition of a halal restaurant in place of a Steak ’n Shake in the Rayburn House Cafeteria to “the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the 7th century,” and, during the 2024 campaign, shared a portrait of JD Vance in which the now vice president was digitally altered to appear more masculine.

One of the most shamelessly pro-Israel Democrats in Congress is beginning to change his tune, as Israel’s blockade has sent Gaza into famine, adding thousands to the death toll.

Torres told Jewish Insider in an interview published Monday that the relationship between the United States and the Israeli government “may be irreparable.” He later clarified that he meant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu specifically, citing the former’s “disrespect” for Barack Obama in 2016, rather than Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, which he still staunchly denies. “To see a foreign leader visibly disrespect [Obama] in the manner that Bibi Netanyahu did, I feel did irreparable damage to the relationship with the Democratic Party,” Torres claimed. He later added that U.S. public backing of Israel was “eroding, and anyone who denies it is ignoring the numbers.”

Torres is one of many domestic and international leaders who have suddenly begun to start caring about the assault on Gaza.

“Telling Palestinians in Gaza to ‘starve away’ is an evil thing to say,” Torres wrote Thursday on X, in response to a particularly abhorrent post from Republican Congressman Randy Fine. “The US must make every effort to secure the release of the hostages, end the war, enable new Palestinian self-governance in Gaza, build a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and expand the Abraham Accords in the service of broader Israeli-Arab peace.”

While this sudden change in rhetoric is welcome, it comes far too late—especially as President Trump called on Israel to “finish the job” just last week.

Longtime Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is now begging the president and the Supreme Court to unravel her prison sentence.

Maxwell filed a petition Monday asking the nation’s highest court to consider whether plea deals made by U.S. attorneys “on behalf” of the entirety of the United States are legally binding, arguing that her sentence violated a nonprosecution agreement that Jeffrey Epstein had made with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida in 2007.

“We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted,” her attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement.

Maxwell filed the appeal in April, but the sex trafficker made her final plea to the Supreme Court Monday, imploring it to take her case before it breaks for the summer recess. Lower courts have ruled that the deal was only applicable to the district it was made in and did not extend to the Southern District of New York, where Maxwell was tried.

“Rather than grapple with the core principles of plea agreements, the government tries to distract by reciting a lurid and irrelevant account of Jeffrey Epstein’s misconduct,” Markus wrote in the brief. “But this case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did.”

The British socialite was sentenced in 2022 for playing an active role in Epstein’s crimes, including identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse at the hands of her millionaire boyfriend. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding in the victimization of hundreds of girls.

But the bold new request is opportunistically timed, arriving mere days after Maxwell met with the Justice Department and reportedly provided more than a hundred names allegedly related to Epstein’s criminal empire in a potential pardon quid pro quo.

Speaking with reporters at his Scottish golf club Monday, Trump not only refused to say that a pardon for the convicted sex offender was off the table but underscored that he is “allowed” to give one. Actually getting to the point of aligning the Trump administration with Maxwell, however, has been a tricky play of political theater.

In an attempt to soothe his appalled base after claiming the Epstein affair was a Democrat-invented “hoax,” the Trump administration has opted not to release the relevant case files, which would ostensibly include the names of Epstein’s associates. Instead, it seems officials would rather lean on Maxwell as a potential source of “new” information.

But whether Maxwell—a reputed liar and convicted criminal—can be trusted at all is in doubt, or whether her testimony would be tampered with prior to being made public. It’s still unclear why the 63-year-old would choose to unveil supposedly new information related to Epstein’s associates now, after spending several years behind bars, rather than when the evidence could have been used to minimize or even prevent her initial sentence.

The renewed conundrum of involving Maxwell also casts confusion over the Justice Department’s July 6 memo, in which the agency claimed there was “no credible evidence” that Epstein blackmailed his clients and that there was no cause to bring investigations against “uncharged third parties.”

A staunch Senate moderate on Monday issued a remarkable statement regarding the hunger crisis in Gaza, saying he will not back U.S. support for Israel so long as its campaign of starvation continues.

The centrist Senator Angus King, an independent of Maine, stated, “I cannot defend the indefensible. Israel’s actions in the conduct of the war in Gaza, especially its failure to address the unimaginable humanitarian crisis now unfolding, is an affront to human decency.”

King, who has previously been critical of Israel’s actions, said the starvation gripping Gaza is “a deliberately induced famine among a civilian population—including tens of thousands of starving children” and “can never be an acceptable military strategy.”

The October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, King said, “cannot in turn justify the enormous toll on Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s relentless bombing campaign and its indifference to the current plight of those trapped in what’s left of Gaza.” While condemning Hamas in no uncertain terms, King noted that “recent events have placed a moral burden on Israel to ameliorate the current crisis, a burden it has thus far totally failed to meet.”

“For these reasons, I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate—and vote—for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy. My litmus test will be simple: no aid of any kind as long as there are starving children in Gaza due to the action or inaction of the Israeli government.”

King’s statement comes amid horrific images and reports of starvation in Gaza thanks to Israel’s blockade. Meanwhile, the tide appears to be slightly turning, domestically and internationally, against Israel’s actions—which B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organization, on Monday deemed a genocide, joining other organizations such as Amnesty International.

President Trump wants to immediately depose media tycoon Rupert Murdoch regarding his $10 billion libel lawsuit over The Wall Street Journal’s article about his questionable birthday letter to the late serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s lawyers essentially argued that they needed Murdoch, who is 94 years old, in court ASAP because he could keel over and die at any second.

“[Murdoch] has suffered, but thankfully overcome, multiple health issues throughout his life,” they wrote to a federal judge on Monday, putting it a bit more politely. “President Trump is requesting only to conduct Murdoch’s deposition and have him produce documents associated only with his involvement in, and any discussions related to, the decision to publish the article.” They also referenced Murdoch’s various health episodes, such as fainting in London in 2023, a broken back, pneumonia, and a torn achilles tendon. They requested that Murdoch be deposed within the next 15 days.

The Journal reported earlier this month that Trump sent Epstein a 50th birthday letter in 2003 accompanied by a signed sketch of a naked woman and the strange caption, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump denied even writing the letter on the grounds that he had “never wrote a picture” in his life. That was proven false quickly, as he had drawn and auctioned off multiple sketches for thousands of dollars. Nevertheless, Trump insists that Murdoch and the Journal appear in court over it.

Murdoch has yet to respond.