Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins was called out by a Fox News host after claiming she's the right person to continue being a Senator for the state because people want "independence."
Collins was speaking to Fox News host Martha MacCallum when she condemned Democratic candidate Graham Platner, calling him the "antithesis" of what Maine needs in a leader.
Platner's candidacy has been overshadowed by a string of controversies, including old offensive Reddit posts, a tattoo that critics said resembled Nazi imagery before it was covered up, and allegations that he exchanged sexual messages with other women while married. Those issues have raised questions about his ability to defeat Collins this November.
Collins said "in a different time" that any of Platner's controversies "would have been disqualifying for someone to be a candidate to serve our country and the state of Maine in the United States Senate, whether they were Democrat or Republican."
She added:
"I believe that the people of Maine want steady leadership. They want independence, and they want someone who cares deeply about the state and our country and has the character to serve."
MacCallum pointed out:
"You've voted with President Trump about 94 percent of the time, which might sound high but most people in your party have been with him 100 percent of the time."
You can hear what she said in the video below.
Collins' comments were met with swift pushback from critics, who also cited her voting record as evidence that she has largely aligned herself with the Trump administration.
In 2022, the Supreme Court published a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that once protected a person's right to choose reproductive healthcare without excessive government restriction.
And Collins' most notorious moment came when she voted to confirm Trump-nominated justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and went on record with her belief that the two men would not vote to overturn the Roe precedent.
Collins' vote to confirm Kavanaugh in 2018 proved to be especially controversial given Kavanaugh's history of hardline conservative jurisprudence and concerns over what that could mean for abortion rights.
At the time, Collins insisted that Kavanaugh would not vote to undermine or overturn Roe, but she would turn out to be wrong about him, such as the moment news outlets reported that he was among five justices who voted not to block a Texas law that prohibits virtually all abortions after a heartbeat is detected.
Since then, she has continued to support the Trump administration's objectives an overwhelming amount of the time despite expressing more critical opinions of him in remarks to reporters.
She was quickly called out.
Even Fox News isn't buying what Collins is selling—and that says a lot.
