U.S Senate candidate Sara Gideon: “Donald Trump has failed to respond to this crisis and Sen. Collins has failed to hold him accountable”

Governor Mills: “If you’re an everyday Maine person, Donald Trump does not care about you”

Ahead of Donald Trump’s desperate last minute campaign stop in Maine, U.S. Senate candidate Sara Gideon, Governor Janet Mills, and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey called out Trump’s failed pandemic response and broken health care promises, as well as Senator Collins’ refusal to hold him accountable.

Portland Press Herald: Democrats rally in advance of Trump’s Bangor visit

  • Maine Democratic leaders lambasted President Trump shortly before his arrival in Bangor on Sunday afternoon, attacking his coronavirus response and his stance toward truth and the rule of law.
     
  • Gideon attacked Collins’s votes to confirm more than 100 Trump judicial appointees, some of whom have been rated unqualified by the American Bar Association. Gideon also went after Collins’s vote to acquit Trump in his Senate trial after impeachment this year, as well as Collins’s assertion after her vote that Trump had learned a “lesson” from the backlash to his attempts to leverage the power of the presidency to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, who became the Democratic presidential nominee. “The only lesson that Donald Trump learned is that you won’t do anything to hold him accountable,” Gideon said.
     
  • In 2017, Mills said she was willing to give Trump “a shot” at governing after his election. “I am not willing to give him the benefit now, and no one should,” she said. Her voice rising to stir an animated crowd, Mills assailed Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying the president had repeatedly “lied about” the seriousness of the virus and his response to it. Mills accused the president of being indifferent toward working Mainers and people working long hours to pay for health care or to put food on the table.
     
  • “If you’re an everyday Maine person, Donald Trump does not care about you,” Mills said.
     

Bangor Daily News: Janet Mills says Trump ‘doesn’t care about’ Maine working people as he visits Bangor area

  • Mills, House Speaker Sara Gideon and Attorney General Aaron Frey also called out Trump’s response to the pandemic and his failure to disavow white supremacists during the first presidential debate at a news conference they scheduled around the corner from Bangor International Airport less than an hour before the president’s scheduled 2:30 p.m. landing.
     
  • “We’ve seen this pandemic spread in every county in the state and this president has done nothing to stop it,” Mills said. “He’s welcome to come here, but I encourage him for once to start speaking the truth.”
     
  • At the news conference, Gideon also criticized Sen. Susan Collins for falling in line with the president. “Donald Trump has failed to respond to this crisis and Sen. Collins has failed to hold him accountable,” she said.
     
  • Frey focused on multi-state legal action against the Trump administration that he’s signed onto with other attorneys general, including an effort opposing a Trump-supported pending lawsuit seeking to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional and another lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service over policy changes that led to mail delays.
     

News Center Maine: Governor Janet Mills, Sara Gideon criticize President Trump prior to his Maine visit

  • "Donald Trump is here today, bringing his divisive campaign back to our state. Now the stakes in this election are clear. This president has sought to sow division. And to be clear, he has been enabled by this and emboldened in this by a Senate led by Mitch McConnell and supported by Susan Collins," said Gideon.
     
  • Most of Governor Mills' remarks focused on how Trump decided to make a 'last-gasp' stop in Maine. "He finally discovered the state of Maine and he is trying to discover the second congressional district," said Mills. Mills expressed President Trump has not 'turned the corner', on the coronavirus pandemic.
     
  • Governor Mills ended the press conference criticizing the Senate Republicans and President Trump for their handling of healthcare issues. "Mitch McConnell is not of that ilk. He does not support Health care. He's made every effort to tear down the Affordable Care Act while he and Donald Trump have made noises about protecting people with pre-existing conditions. They've done nothing zero to protect any of us," said Mills. "And so many people in Maine do have underlying conditions that make us vulnerable to the next epidemic of to the next Health Care crisis.
     

Fox Bangor: Maine Democrats respond to President Donald Trump’s visit

  • “In Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we have a ticket that’s gonna put our future first, that has a plan not how to serve themselves like the Trump administration, but also how it is that they’re gonna make sure that during this COVID-19 pandemic, people are kept safe,” Frey said. “When it comes to health care, people are gonna have access to it, and we’re gonna strengthen and expand the Affordable Care Act.”
     
  • Gideon said incumbent Sen. Susan Collins enables Trump’s actions. Mainers deserve better,” Gideon said. “We deserve someone who will stand up for what is right. We deserve someone who will protect and expand our health care, someone who will strengthen our democracy.”
     

WMTW: Gov. Mills says President Trump 'doesn't care about everyday Mainers' at press event in Bangor

  • "He has never grown in the job," Mills said. "He has never learned to accept expert advice, wise counsel, even from medical doctors and experts like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx. He's never learned to listen to people. He's never learned to feel the pain of other people.”
     
  • Gideon also gave remarks, focusing her speech on the hotly contested race in the U.S. Senate and her opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Gideon called attention to the fact that Collins has voted with Trump 94% of the time, more often than she's voted with any other president in her 24-year career.
     

WABI: Sara Gideon, Janet Mills hold press conference in response to President Trump’s visit to Maine

  • Mills says the president also started trade wars that hurt Maine industries. Gideon also criticized incumbent Senator Susan Collins saying she has not held the President accountable for his actions.


###