Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) mocked the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development in a social media post on Tuesday, adding to his growing list of harmful social media posts.
“I got laid off at USAID today,” Collins wrote. “I was in charge of making the Taliban trans. Was really starting to make headway too.”
Collins’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the social media post seems to be referring to the idea that U.S. aid to Afghanistan helps fund the Taliban. The U.S. government has said that there are safeguards in place to make sure the aid goes to Afghan people and not the Taliban, but in 2023, John Sopko, a special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, said at a House Oversight Committee hearing that there was a chance U.S. taxpayers had helped fund the Taliban and other Afghan terror groups.
Collins’ remark about “making the Taliban trans” seems to come from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s complaint that USAID paid for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. She falselyclaimed that the agency had paid for a “transgender opera” in Colombia as one example.
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Collins regularly makes offensive statements on social media. In March, he responded and agreed to an antisemitic post pointing out that a Washington Post reporter was Jewish, and a month prior to that, he suggested that an undocumented migrant should be murdered via “Pinochet Air,” a reference to the Chilean military regime’s use of “death flights” in which political dissidents were thrown to their deaths.
Last month, Collins wrote on social media that Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who pleaded to President Donald Trump to have mercy on people, should be deported.