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\n

President Donald Trump told reporters that the firestorm engulfing Maine oysterman Graham Platner is \u201creally a question of whether you believe the woman\u201d who accused him of sexual assault.<\/p>\n

The remark, made to reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday, was among the president\u2019s first public comments on the Democratic Senate nominee since POLITICO\u2019s report this week<\/a> that a woman who Platner dated said he forced her to have sex with him five years ago \u2014 which he has denied.<\/p>\n

Platner has lost significant support across the Democratic Party since the article published. He is expected to speak Wednesday<\/a> as his campaign publicly battles with the Maine Democratic Party over next steps, should he drop out of the race against GOP Sen. Susan Collins.<\/p>\n

My colleague, Megan Messerly, who is traveling with the president en route back to the United States from the NATO Summit, asked Trump whether Democrats should be able to pick a replacement for Platner, who won the Democratic primary last month. The president appeared skeptical and invoked the story of another woman, Lyndsey Fifield, who alleged Platner mistreated her<\/a> and faced attacks because of her ties to the Republican Party. Fifield did not accuse Platner of sexual assault.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the full exchange the president had with reporters on Air Force One.<\/p>\n

Do you think that the Democrats should be able to pick a replacement for Graham Platner? He\u2019s had all of these new allegations that have come out. Now Democrats are talking about picking a replacement for him. Should they be able to do that?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Trump: They\u2019re picking what?<\/p>\n

A replacement for Graham Platner if he steps out of the race.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Trump: Well, so he won the primary, right?<\/p>\n

And now there are these new allegations.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Trump: It\u2019s very hard for them to do. It\u2019s really a question of whether you believe the woman. A lot of people say big falsehoods. It\u2019s a \u2014 he\u2019s in a bind. He\u2019s in a bind. But should they be able to do it? Well, I guess he\u2019s going to lose. I would imagine he\u2019s going to lose.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very interesting when a Republican woman came out with the same charge, nobody believed her. When this woman came out, everybody believed her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump told reporters that the firestorm engulfing Maine oysterman Graham Platner is \u201creally a question of whether you believe the woman\u201d who accused him of sexual assault. The remark, made to reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday, was among the president\u2019s first public comments on the Democratic Senate nominee since Blue Light News\u2019s report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}