Susan Collins Accepts Reality, Concedes Trump Might NOT Have Learned His Lesson From Impeachment
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins was confronted with President Donald Trump’s continued insistence that he did nothing wrong by withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine into investigating his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden and she conceded that her prediction he would learn a “pretty big lesson” from impeachment might not prove true.
Speaking with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, Collins was reminded of her previous comments and Trump’s pointed rejection of those claims in a private meeting he had just before his State-of-the-Union speech on Tuesday.
“You said you believe the president had learned a lesson from this process, from this impeachment. Yet he continues to say he did nothing wrong,” MacCallum pointed out. “He is likely to take a victory lap tomorrow. Will something in you be disappointed if you never see any evidence that he has learned a lesson or if he does something like this again?”
“Very much so. I hoped that the president would have learned from the fact that he was impeached by the House, even though I think that was a partisan move,” Collins said. “There were so many of us that were Republicans in the Senate that were very critical of the call. The call was wrong. Parts of the call were fine. But then the president mixed in asking a federal government to investigate a political rival. He should not have done that. And I would hope that he would not do it again.”
“Did he give you any assurance he wouldn’t do that again? Did you talk to him?” MacCallum asked.
Collins then acknowledged that she had not spoken with Trump a single time during the Senate impeachment trial.
“Why do you have that feeling that he changed? That he learned a lesson?” MacCallum said, following up.
“Well I may not be correct on that, it’s more aspirational on my part,” Collins conceded, before adding that it was her “hope” that “he’s listened to the many voices in the Senate who have pointed out that the call was very problematic.”
“You think it’s safe to say if something like this did happen again the outcome would be different? You would vote differently?” MacCallum pressed.
“The president should simply not do it again,” Collins replied, without trying to explain what, exactly, would prompt Trump to change his behavior if he still insists his actions in Ukraine were “perfect” and he was acquitted of wrongdoing thanks to a slim majority of Senate Republicans.
“Nobody wants to put the country through this again,” she simply said in response.
Watch the video above, via Fox News.
