Okay, we get it, President Trump. You don’t like it when you don’t get your way, or someone – rightly or wrongly – pushes back against your authority.

But when you start calling senators out by name, it makes it very obvious who you have a beef with at the moment. On Thursday on Truth Social, Trump named five current senators whose vote he disagreed with.

Donald J. Trump Truth Social Post 12:49 PM EST 01.08.26 pic.twitter.com/MLap0neEhA

— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) January 8, 2026

Now, here lies the problem. Murkowski and Young don’t run for reelection until 2028. Hawley and Paul don’t run again until 2030. Senator Susan Collins, on the other hand, is up for reelection this year.

It’s one thing to have Trump privately complain about certain votes to his White House staff. It is completely another thing to have him bitch publicly about a senator whose seat needs to be kept in the Republican column.

Frustrations at the White House boiled over on Thursday after Collins and four other Republicans sided with Democrats on a war powers resolution that would block further military action in Venezuela. While Republicans were miffed at the attack on the handful of members, it’s Collins they are most concerned with as she potentially holds the key to them retaining the majority next year.

“There were a lot of people shaking their heads and a lot of eyerolls,” one Senate Republican said of the reaction in the conference to the attack on Collins. “[You] probably ought not take on the chair of Appropriations, who’s a little bit pissed off about not getting regular order appropriations done. And now you’re s——g on her on this sort of stuff?”

“It’s almost reminiscent of, ‘Don’t come to vote for the Georgia senators. It’s not worth your while,’” the senator continued, referring to Trump’s message to voters in the Peach State ahead of the Jan. 2021 special elections that Democrats swept.

Senate GOP leaders have long been protective of Collins, a Maine centrist who has frequently drawn Trump’s ire, given what both sides readily acknowledge: Collins is the lone Republican who can win the seat next year. Without her, the seat is likely lost for good, similar to what Democrats experienced in Montana and West Virginia in recent years.

Let’s be blunt. Susan Collins is the best the GOP can do in Maine and win a statewide election. If there happens to be a more Trump-friendly primary challenger appear (and so far, there has been no serious challenger), it could weaken Collins in the primary and then create problems in the general. And while yes, Trump can grouse about Collins and her vote, she has generally been a solid Republican vote. In fact, her support and vote likely ended up saving Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination in 2018. But because President Trump has a the memory of a goldfish when his temper is riled, he has forgotten that Collins saved that nomination after all the sheer ugliness that had been sicced on Kavanaugh.

And Maine is just itching for the chance to go completely blue. That Collins has managed to hang on to her Senate seat as the Democrats move further left is a sign that she has a connection to the people of her state. Can I just remind President Trump that the Democrat front-runner for the Senate race is the current governor, Janet Mills? Does the president remember this little spat that he had with Mills in February of last year?

The president froze federal funding to Maine over Mills’s comments, and it wasn’t until May that things were settled. But President Trump would rather have Janet Mills as an adversary than Susan Collins as a lukewarm ally? Mills is salivating over Trump’s comments.

Trump’s attack on Collins was met with laughs from Democrats who said that they, too, would like to see Collins never elected again. She is their top target on a tough Senate map, and if they have any hopes of flipping the upper chamber they need to defeat the shrewd senator.

Mills painted the vote as one of election-year political expediency.

“Susan never does the right or hard thing the first time when it’s needed most — only when it serves her politically. She is always a day late and a dollar short,” Mills said in a statement to POLITICO. “To the President, I say ‘See you in the Senate!’ Wait until you see what I’ve got in store for your MAGA agenda.”

Oh, well, that’s encouraging. But Mills has her own primary challenger. Remember Nazi tattoo aficionado Graham Platner? He’s still in this race, and he has to take on Mills first. And if you haven’t checked, Platner is still a socialist mouthing off on X when he has opinions.

When you send armed, under-trained amateurs into American communities with vague orders and no accountability, this is inevitable.

ICE must be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/la3Z2rAASu

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) January 7, 2026

Platner reacted to the Trump comments on Susan Collins with a wide-eyed emoji, but has made no other statement. In fact, Platner and his wife announced today that they’re going to be “taking a break” from his campaign because they are heading to Norway to try IVF in order to get pregnant. (Naturally, Platner took a beat in their video announcement to point out the politics of infertility treatment, so I expect that the success or failure of their attempt will become part of his political platform.) Despite this new announcement, does President Trump really want to deal with avowed democrat socialist and Nazi fanboy Platner in the Senate?

Trump can feel as frustrated with Collins as he wants, but there are no viable Republican alternatives in the race that can win. Mr. President, for the love of all that’s holy, play the hand you’re dealt. We do not need a defeatist attitude coupled with intentionally shooting ourselves in the foot. If you were wise enough to realize that Marjorie Taylor Greene couldn’t win a statewide race in Georgia, then please listen to the pollsters again and accept, however reluctantly, that Susan Collins is the best that the Maine GOP can give you.

Featured image: composite collage image of President Donald Trump (Official White House Photo by Juliana Luz, cropped, public domain) and Senator Susan Collins (from the office of Senator Richard Blumenthal in 2023, cropped, public domain)