Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) on Monday said it’s too hard to tell whether President Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee in the 2020 election.
Collins on MSNBC said Trump “had an obligation, a moral obligation, to speak with absolute clarity from the very beginning” in his response to the violence that erupted at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Unfortunately he wavered back and forth,” Collins said. “I think the President failed to meet the standard that we would have expected a President to do in a time like that.”
“At what point, though, given what we’ve heard from your Republican colleagues too, does that talk turn into action?” Hallie Jackson asked. “At what point, if any, do you not support, for example, his renomination?”
“Well, I didn’t support the President when he was our party’s nominee. That was a very difficult position for me to take,” Collins said. “I’d never taken it before.”
“So what happens — he’s already running for reelection,” Jackson pressed. “What happens next?”
“Well, it’s far too early to tell now,” Collins replied. “There’s a long ways between now and that point.”
“Do you think he will end up the party’s nominee in 2020?” Jackson asked.
“It’s too difficult to say,” Collins said.
