Mike Collins, a Georgia trucking business executive, told Breitbart News Saturday that he’s running to succeed Rep. Jody Hice in Congress because “We need somebody to help represent that side of what the economy is.”
Before politics, Collins worked for his family trucking company and then started his own trucking company with his wife, where his two twin sons currently run the daily operations.
Now, Collins has decided it’s time to take his street smarts and trucking wisdom to the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives.
LISTEN:
Collins told Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle about speaking in Ohio alongside candidate Josh Mandel and Rep. Matt Gaetz before deciding to run for Congress.
“The one purpose that I had to go up there was to tell the folks of Ohio that it is okay to stand up to the RINOs like Anthony Gonzalez and the Liz Cheneys of the world and get rid of them,” he said.
Speaking on the upcoming midterms, Collins said, “you don’t have a better opportunity than the opportunity that is coming up in this midterm election— to not only elect republicans in open seats, like the one I’m running in, good, strong, solid conservative people— but you’ve got opportunity to knock out some of these folks that need to be gone.” He continued, “Some of these Adam Kinzinger’s of the world. The RINOs and establishment people that have been up there in D.C. forever, and they’re freaking ruining our country.”
Collins emphasized that he is running as a pro-trump, conservative, small businessman outsider on an America first agenda because he wants his country back.
Boyle asked for Collins’ thoughts on the ongoing supply chain crisis, given that Collins has decades’ worth of experience in the trucking industry. Collins criticized the “poor leadership of people that played identity politics to put people in leadership.”
“Maybe I should get Buttigieg a subscription to the emails I get because we saw this coming in August. You get ships coming across the ocean every day, but when you let China, who is our number one adversary out there, close down their ports … that has a ripple effect,” Collins said.
Collins had plenty of suggestions when asked about solutions Secretary Buttigieg could do to alleviate the pains of the supply chain crisis. “Well, the first call to action is you surround yourself with the people that are actually on the front lines with these problems that they see them coming. Why hasn’t he been out to these ports?” asked Collins. “You get out there, you get people together and say ‘whats your answer? how do we fix this?, where do we go from here?’” he explained.
“No, we don’t expect him to be a captain or own a truck or know how to drive a truck, but he is part of this new wave of people that don’t understand when a crisis hits, and you have been pegged as the leader, that there are sacrifices that have to be made,” Collins said when questioned about Buttigieg taking paternity leave amid the crisis. “And to me, that is a small sacrifice that at the end of the day, when that child gets older, and they look back on it, that’s something you can be proud of.”
Boyle noted that throughout the pandemic, truckers across the country have called into Breitbart News Saturday to provide their real-world experience about what they see on the ground and that it would be a good thing to bring that experience to Congress.
“You know, Matt, and I do too, and I say that biasedly. Because you take out of 435 ppl in U.S. house, there’s not a single one of them up there that owns and operates, on a day to day basis, a trucking company,” he said. “And then you take the trucking industry. It is the most regulated industry that there is in this country. Where else do you find someone that has to keep up with their hours that they operate and what they do 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of their career?”
“We need people up there in Congress. We need somebody to help represent that side of what the economy is.”
Collins also discussed how they opened up inland ports to alleviate some of the congestion in Georgia and how states like California can learn from the way Georgia handled things.
“There’s always been congestion at these ports. It’s the people that have been proactive. People like the state of California, we don’t even operate in California because of the additional state regulations that they put on trucking and transportation that hamper you out there.”
Collins understands the backlog first hand, as he discussed how frustrating it was for his drivers during the pandemic to have to turn around and come back when ports would close after someone there tested positive for coronavirus.
“I’m gonna win this race in the tenth district. I will take that experience and knowing what it feels like to have regulations and taxes beat the living snot out of you on a day to day basis and take that strong, hard-working conservative values that I have,” he said.
Collins is optimistic about his congressional campaign, saying, “we’re going to Washington, and we’re gonna join a small group of folks out there, and we gonna start kicking some rear ends, and we’re gonna ix this problem up there.” He continued, “and we’re gonna take this country back, and we’re gonna get back on our America first agenda. You’ll see this country hummed like a sewing machine like it was when Trump was running when he was running this place.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.