President Donald Trump is increasingly turning his fury at Democratic Senate candidates, MS NOW's Jen Psaki said on Wednesday — because he's seen the data and he's getting scared.
The president, she noted, "spent part of his time in the Oval Office today ranting about the Democratic nominees for U.S. Senate in the upcoming election. And he seemed to be focused on one candidate in particular" — that being veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner, who won a landslide nomination in his primary this week despite a cloud of scandals about his personal life.
Psaki played a clip of Trump speaking about Platner.
"Yeah, once that thug that's up in Maine, he's a thug. He's a thug," said Trump. "I know thugs. I had to deal with thugs. I built a lot of buildings. I dealt with worse than thugs. This guy's a thug. He's a low-level thug. But this is a thug. You know, he's not a businessman at all. His parents supported him. He's a loser. Other than that, he might be very nice."
"That is Trump's new line of attack against Graham Platner. He's a thug, the kind of thug who — wait for it — needs help from his parents to start a business, as thugs do," said Psaki, taking care to note that Trump himself relied on his father to get his business off the ground.
The key takeaway, she continued, is that "Trump is clearly worried about the Senate. He's clearly worried about Graham. He's clearly worried about [Texas nominee] James Talarico ... And he's not the only one," as a memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned Maine Sen. Susan Collins is uniquely vulnerable to a challenge from Platner.
"He's still currently leading Susan Collins in the polls," noted Psaki — and "it comes as Platner released his first general election campaign ad today, focused on how he will take on what he calls the 'Epstein class' in Washington."
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