WASHINGTON (AP) — Maine Democrat Troy Jackson says he doesn’t regret telling Republican Sen. Susan Collins that she should “shut up” after she suggested that a protester who interrupted their recent debate was one of his campaign supporters.
Read more: What happened in the first Maine Senate debate between Collins and Jackson
“She said it was a Troy supporter. She accused me of orchestrating this. I don’t know who it was,” said Jackson, the former state Senate president who sought to deny Collins, the longest-serving Republican woman in Senate history, a sixth term. He spoke during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” which aired Sunday.
On Thursday night, anti-data center protesters began shouting as Collins spoke as the Nov. 3 election neared in the hotly contested race. While the moderator called for the man to be expelled, the senator said the demonstrator “was clearly one of Troy’s supporters.”
Jackson responded: “Oh, shut up. I don’t even know that kid.”
Watch the debate moments in the video player above.
The Sunrise Movement posted on its Instagram page that the outbreak came from one of its members. “We are so proud of this Sunrise volunteer who took action yesterday,” the organization’s page wrote in the caption of the Instagram post.
The New York Times said protester Henry Elgie, a 19-year-old student at Bowdoin College in Maine, told the newspaper in an interview on Saturday that he had “zero cooperation” with Jackson’s campaign. “I don’t know Troy Jackson personally, or at all,” he said.
The Sunrise Movement is a left-wing political advocacy group that advocates for the Green New Deal, which aims to shift the U.S. economy to 100% renewable energy. The group has branches across the country and regularly organizes protests, sit-ins and climate strikes.
Jackson told CNN he shook Collins’ hand after every debate.
“But the things I won’t do have been pushed down by Senator Collins,” he said. He added: “I’m fighting for Meiners and I just think this was another situation where she spoke condescendingly to me and I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Watch: Collins and Jackson face off in heated US Senate debate in Maine
Collins told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Friday that she was “shocked by how reflective the ‘Oh, shut up’ response was.” “The fact that it seemed like an automatic, quick response is very telling,” Collins said.
She cited what she called Jackson’s “reputation” in the Legislature, “particularly when it comes to his dealings with women who disagree with him. So in some ways, that doesn’t surprise me.”
Some state legislators who worked with Jackson criticized him for his short temper, including once throwing a plastic water bottle to the ground in frustration during a disagreement with a congresswoman. Asked by reporters during the campaign about the confrontations, Jackson said, “I poured my heart out.” He took responsibility for his outburst and apologized to those he clashed with at the time.
Jackson was asked in an interview with CNN what some Republicans said about reports that he has had an aggressive tone toward women since his time in the Legislature, and his remarks Thursday night were another example.
Jackson said some Republicans have spent millions of dollars “attacking me and my family and making false claims … so that doesn’t surprise me.”
A free press is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy.
Support trustworthy journalism and civil dialogue.