Gideon knocks Collins for being on all sides of the issue—voting against ACA then voting for repeal under Obama then voting against repeal under Trump.
Collins criticizes Gideon for backing a public option, says it’ll lower hospital payments.
Sara Gideon says she supports Joe Biden for president and challenges Susan Collins to say who she favors.
Collins dodges.
“I don’t think that the people of Maine need my advice on whom to support for president.”
(The senator has not said who she intends to vote for this fall.)
Susan Collins talked a lot about co-authoring the PPP program at tonight’s Maine Senate debate, taking credit for saving jobs in Maine during the pandemic.
“I just want to be very clear: I do not support defunding the police,” says Sara Gideon, Democratic Senate candidate in Maine.
Susan Collins dodges two questions about whether she supports a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
Sara Gideon, asked the same question, says yes, she support that.
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Democrats remain haunted by what happened to Ginsburg. Rewind to 2014: She was 81, Obama was president, Dems had 55 Senate seats; liberals called on her to retire. She rejected them. And died in 2020, got replaced by Trump pick A.C. Barrett—the 6-3 SCOTUS. nbcnews.com/politics/supre…
BLUMENTHAL wants Sotomayor to “weigh the competing factors.”
“The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included.”
Sen. WHITEHOUSE warns of a “full MAGA court” if it goes to 7-2.
“Certainly I think if Justice Ginsburg had it to do over again, she might have rethought her confidence in her own health.”
NEW: Republican Study Committee releases a sweeping budget plan
RSC chair is HERN; 170+ members incl Speaker and his full leadership team.
Highlights:
• Raises Social Security retirement age for future retirees
• Converts Medicare to "premium support" a la Paul Ryan plan
• Rolls back ACA
• Endorses Life At Conception Act
On Social Security, RSC budget endorses "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy." Calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries. No changes for current/imminent retirees. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
New RSC budget is a glimpse into how Republicans will seek to govern if they win power in 2024. It puts Trump in an awkward spot after he has been all over the map on what to do about Social Security and Medicare. One goal he and RSC agree on: undo ACA.
Ron Johnson: "How did we get ourselves in a situation where we’re being blamed for Biden's open border policy? How could that be possible? The answer is McConnell made that possible."
The Senate just unanimously agreed to fill committee slots vacated by Dianne Feinstein. Perhaps most significant: @LaphonzaB fills the empty Judiciary Committee slot and Democrats regain their majority on a key panel. Biden’s judicial nominees can now move without GOP support.
As we had been reporting for months, Republicans didn’t block Dems from filling the Judiciary Cmte seat. There were months of fabricated claims, amplified by figures like @HillaryClinton & @SenStabenow, that Rs would leave that seat open permanently if Feinstein vacated it. Nope.
Many were conflating two different things. What Republicans objected to was a *temporary* swap on one panel while Feinstein was still a senator. They didn’t threaten to permanently keep committee seats open if she left the Senate; unlikely that could’ve succeeded if they tried.
👀 @TedLieu tells me that a Speaker Jim Jordan could mean the House refuses to certify a potential Biden re-election win in 2024. “He will absolutely do everything he can to not certify a Biden victory. That’s what he did before.” nbcnews.com/politics/congr…