President Donald Trump heartily attacked Graham Platner on Wednesday following the latter’s victory in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary the night prior.
Platner has faced a litany of issues and scandals throughout his campaign, but he bested Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) Tuesday night by a healthy margin and is slated to face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in November.
Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, mocked the “Dumocrats” for letting Platner through the primary.
“I watched that thug that’s up in Maine. He’s a thug, and they’re trying to make excuses for him,” the president stated. “He’s worse than any human being that’s ever run for office, probably. I don’t know him.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s a thug. I know thugs. I had to deal with thugs. I built a lot of buildings. I dealt with the toughest people on Earth. I dealt with worse than thugs,” he continued. “This guy’s a thug. He’s a low-level thug, and he’s running to be a senator.”
The president proceeded to call Platner an “outright pig,” but backed off the label because he thought “pigs would be very upset about it.”
Later in his remarks, Trump noted that, though he and Collins often disagree on policy, she’s a “sane woman” and suggested he was endorsing her in the race.
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“She’s a sane person, and she’s a person that never missed a vote in many years. I mean, she’s like, had 10,000 votes,” he concluded. “But she never missed a vote, unfortunately, because sometimes she voted against me. She’s a sane woman, and she’s a respected person, maybe a little different ideology than me, but this guy is a thug, fake. He’s a fake, he’s a phony. I made a lot of money picking out phonies. He’s a real phony, and he’s a bad person.”
Watch Trump’s comments in full below: