In an appearance Wednesday on CBS-TV’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Maine horror novelist Stephen King was sharply critical of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

King, who has frequently assailed Republican politicians including President Trump on Twitter, told Colbert that he wanted a senator with “a little bit more of a liberal bent.”

“She claims to have a liberal bent. But really, that’s not true,” King said, clenching his fist in the air.

Colbert held up a photo of a King tweet from a few days earlier that read, “Hey-hey, ho-ho, Susan Collins has got to go.”

King said he doesn’t mix his politics into his fiction but does have strong political views in real life.

“Let’s put it this way, Susan Collins has been there for about a thousand years and it’s time for somebody a little newer and somebody’s whose got a little bit more of a liberal bent,” King said.

Kevin Kelley, a spokesman for Collins’ re-election campaign, said he was not surprised by King’s criticism.

“Stephen King has opposed Sen. Collins in each of her reelection races,” Kelley wrote in an email to the Portland Press Herald.


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