Listen here:
Full Transcript:
Guy Benson: Well, joining us now is U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican. Senator, great to have you back on the show.
Sen. Susan Collins: Thanks so much. It’s a great honor.
Guy Benson: Well, my audience nationwide might be sick of me talking about your race. I know my audience in Maine certainly isn’t, but it’s such a pivotal one in the country. You’re making your closing argument to Mainers. You’ve been counted out before–six years ago, trailing in every poll, you won comfortably. This one’s showing a very tight race in the polls. What are you seeing and feeling on the ground?
Sen. Susan Collins: I’ll tell you, the response has never been better on the ground. I attend the fairs and festivals in Maine in the summer and fall, and it has been wonderful how strong and supportive the response has been. Yesterday, I was in Southern Maine in York County, and we did 12 different stops. It was a very long day. Today, I was at the Bath Iron Works, which we’re so proud of in Bath, Maine, and which builds destroyers for our Navy. And once again, the response from the workers was terrific.
Guy Benson: Your opponent was not your original opponent or the nominated opponent from the Democrats. We all know what happened with Graham Plattner and that whole mess. This is the replacement guy, Troy Jackson, who’s been all over the map–a Republican, an independent, a Democrat, now a socialist who’s backed by Hasan Piker, the guy who thinks America deserved 9/11. He’s very scattered ideologically. And one of the challenges to me, just trying to put myself in your shoes in debating him as you did four times, is a lot of his attack lines that he came back to were against you on things that actually the federal government doesn’t do. And you’d think he would know those things because he was the Senate president in Maine, and yet you had to sort of educate him on this several times in a row. What does that tell you about Troy Jackson and his competency to be a U.S. Senator?
Sen. Susan Collins: Well, I’ll tell you, it is surprising, to put it mildly, that someone who could spend more than 20 years in Augusta, including six as Senate president, doesn’t seem to know how government works. And I think that’s why he always resorts to slogans and to attacks. He rarely talks about what he wants to do for Maine or for the country, and that’s because he’s running a totally negative campaign. When he ran for governor and lost in the Democratic primary earlier this year, he was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and who has he brought to Maine to campaign for him? Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren–I think that pretty much tells you that he would be an automatic vote for the far left.
Guy Benson: Not just the left of center, the far left, which is why AOC is up there, why Bernie wants to come up there, why you had glowing comments about Troy Jackson by Hasan Piker, who’s a really hateful bigot. And meanwhile, if you want to react to that, feel free, you’re running a much more positive campaign overall. I know one of the big themes that you keep coming back to, and frankly, voters keep talking about in terms of your years of service is: whatever you think of Susan Collins, agree or disagree, red, purple, blue, you are focused on Maine and you deliver for Maine. And that know-how, that seniority–these aren’t minor considerations for the people of Maine. Talk about that element of your record and how it contrasts with what Troy Jackson would try to contend with should he get elected.
Sen. Susan Collins: Well, first of all, it had been 92 years since the Maine senator had been the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee when I became the chair last year. And that has provided me with a once-in-a-century opportunity to really help the state that I love and to shape policy on a national level as well. It’s meant that in the last five years, I’ve been able to secure funding for community projects all over the state–672 of them, including 45 new fire stations for small communities that put in as much towards rebuilding or replacing the fire station as they could, but they simply couldn’t do it without help.
And I’ve been able to help our community colleges expand their welding programs. That has helped companies like Bath Iron Works, which builds destroyers for our Navy, and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which overhauls nuclear submarines, and the Air National Guard Base in Bangor, Maine, and the Pratt & Whitney plant in Southern Maine.
So, this is funding–$1.5 billion over five years–that there is no way that a brand new senator, particularly one on the far left of the party, would ever be able to secure. And we vet these programs very carefully. It’s helped our rural hospitals, which have been struggling, and it’s helped provide childcare centers and wastewater treatment plant improvements. It’s really made a difference. And that is something that would simply all go away were Troy to be elected.
There’s a big impact nationally as well. I am very strong on our national defense. I’m a strong supporter of both Israel and Ukraine. Troy Jackson has made it very clear that he wants to cut off all assistance to our best ally in the Middle East, Israel–the one country that respects women’s rights, Israel. And it’s just incredible to hear him mouth the kinds of antisemitic phrases that we’re hearing nowadays far too often, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. I want to say, what do you think happened on October 7th when Hamas attacked Israel and killed more Israelis, more Jewish people in a single day since the Holocaust? But that just doesn’t seem to move him.
And the second thing that I’m passionate about is medical research. I think that that is so important. And I love putting together bipartisan coalitions to make sure that we’re leading the world in biomedical research.
Guy Benson: Well, there’s a lot at stake, of course, in all of these elections coming up next Tuesday. And yours is one of the biggest contests on the map. We’re following it very closely, and we wish you luck. We really appreciate your time, Senator. I know you’re very busy for our audience, especially at WLOB in Portland. We’re grateful and we’ll see what happens on Tuesday.
Sen. Susan Collins: Thanks so much, really appreciate being on your show
