Collins Demands Apology After Jackson Accuses Her of Profiting Off Iran War

Their second televised debate lasted an hour. The sharpest moment came when Troy Jackson accused Sen. Susan Collins of profiting from the war in Iran.

Jackson, the Democrat challenging Collins in Maine’s Senate race, said Thursday night that Collins is not using “her leverage to stop” the conflict because she and her husband, Tom Daffron, “are making money off this war.”

“And so are a whole bunch of other people,” he said, “and that’s why this doesn’t stop.”

Collins fired back. “That is absolutely outrageous, and you owe me an apology,” she said. “To say that my husband and I are making money off the war in Iran is absolutely outrageous.”

“No, you owe me an apology,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s campaign pointed to energy holdings. During the debate his account on X posted that Collins and her husband hold “up to $100,000 in oil and gas stock” and that “while our prices go up, she’s getting richer.” Jackson offered no evidence tying those holdings to the war. A PolitiFact fact-check noted that the holdings in defense and energy companies are relatively modest, though the couple’s broader finances are much larger.

Collins answered with her voting record. “I have voted nine times to bring the war in Iran to an end under the War Powers Act,” she said. She did not back war powers resolutions during the first 60 days of the conflict, she explained, because the law gives the president “broad discretion” during that window.

Corruption dominated much of the rest of the hour on WMTW. Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and is seeking a sixth term, dismissed a recent ProPublica report alleging a pay-to-play scheme involving her office and a defense contractor.

“I have served Maine with integrity the entire time and I deeply resent these false allegations,” she said. She also rejected a September report suggesting she had been under FBI scrutiny in the final months of the Biden administration, calling it “absolutely false” and “proven false.”

Jackson, who spent roughly two decades in the Maine legislature, including time as Senate president, distanced himself from a political action committee he once led that courted tobacco, gambling and pharmaceutical money.

“I didn’t make decisions on who and what and when we were going to take money,” he said. “When we took money from a company, it meant nothing that we were actually going to support a bill.”

The two also clashed over abortion, electric rates and President Donald Trump. Jackson said Collins votes with Trump 96 percent of the time. Collins challenged the methodology of the study behind that number, then tied Jackson to the Democratic legislature in Augusta, which she blamed for Maine having the “fourth highest electricity rates in the country.”

Jackson became the Democratic nominee in July, after Graham Platner left the race over a rape allegation he denies. The Maine contest is a battleground that could determine control of the Senate.