After President Donald Trump said Friday that he was on the verge of making a “final determination” extending a ceasefire with Iran, Sen. Susan Collins pushed back against Graham Platner’s statements that she supports the war.
Speaking in Belfast Friday, Collins said she has voted twice to end the conflict once it went on for more than 60 days, after which congressional approval is required to continue military actions.
“We met the 60 day deadline on May 1,” she told reporters after attending a local event in Belfast. “And that is when I voted to cease military operations. I’ve done that twice, and anyone who says otherwise is not looking at the record.”
Platner, a Marine Corps veteran who fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — both of which Collins voted as a senator to support — has repeatedly criticized Collins for voting to block a bipartisan war powers resolution in March that would have required Trump to get Congressional approval before continuing the conflict.
On Friday, Collins also rejected Trump’s notion that the War Powers Act’s 60-day clock with Iran was paused when an initial ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran took effect in early April.
“I don’t believe the [Trump] administration‘s argument,” she said.
Collins said she had hoped that the threats posed by Iran — such as potential development of nuclear weapons, its possession of thousands of ballistic missiles and missile launchers, and its support of terrorist groups around the world — would be addressed within 60 days.
“I’ve always said on the war that I hope that it would be brief but successful,” she said.
Collins also responded to Platner’s statement that she sent him to war by voting to authorize the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In a video released Thursday, Platner said that instead of acknowledging she had been wrong about those prior wars, Collins “decided that she’s going to blame all of us who — in our late teens and early twenties — signed up to serve our country. That somehow it’s our fault that she and establishment politicians like her, wanted to abuse our willingness to serve, to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars.”
Collins said Friday that she respects “anyone who steps up and volunteers to serve in the Armed Forces. But the fact is that this had been a lifelong goal of Graham Platner.”
The Platner campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Platner talks frequently on the campaign trail about wanting to join the armed forces as a young boy, she added.
“He joined and enlisted two years after the war had already begun. He then re-enlisted.” she said. “I really don’t understand his argument.”
Collins also defended her votes on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, calling the George W. Bush administration’s decision to go after the Taliban after 9/11 “a logical and needed response to that terrorist attack.”