"I've Looked at Life From Both Sides Now": Susan Collins (R-ME) Blames Both Trump and Biden for Trump Hurling Grenades to Blow Debate Up
October 2, 2020
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) is currently losing her re-election race in Maine to Democrat Sara Gideon.(Fortune Live Media)
By Josh Israel
American Independent Foundation
A day after Donald Trump’s widely panned debate performance, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) blamed “both sides” for the debacle.
According to a pool report Wednesday, Collins said Tuesday’s was “the least educational debate of any presidential debate I’ve ever seen.”
Asked who was responsible for that, Collins opined, “I think there was fault on both sides.”
Pressed on whether she believed the blame was equally shared, she answered, “I think that the interrupting on both sides, the name-calling was very unbecoming for a presidential debate.”
A Collins spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the report.
But even Fox News host Chris Wallace, the debate’s beleaguered moderator, made it clear on Tuesday that Trump was the one doing the vast majority of the interrupting.
“I think that the country would be better served, if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions. I’m appealing to you, sir, to do that,” he pleaded with Trump.
“Well, and him too,” Trump responded.
“Well, frankly, you’ve been doing more interrupting than he has,” Wallace answered.
Many Republican senators were critical of Trump’s aggressive and bullying behavior at the first 2020 debate.
“He’s gotta restrain himself,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told CBS News, calling Trump “too forceful.”
Polls showed voters too were unimpressed with Trump’s behavior, clearly rating Democrat Joe Biden the winner.
Collins has previously refused to weigh in on the 2020 presidential race, citing her own tough reelection bid.
“I have a difficult race. And I am concentrating my efforts on that race,” she told CNN in July. That has not stopped her from repeatedly making mild and noncommittal rebukes of Trump’s behavior — or from voting with him more than two-thirds of the time.
Her Democratic opponent, Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, has been leading in virtually every poll taken in the last three months. An average of polls by RealClear Politics puts Gideon currently ahead by 6.5%.
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