President Donald Trump on Wednesday unloaded on Graham Platner, the 41-year-old political newcomer taking on five-term incumbent Susan Collins in this fall’s U.S. Senate race — a must-win for both parties.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump called Platner “a thug — a cheap, no-good person,” and criticized Platner’s oyster farming business for getting help from his mother, who is his biggest client.

“He’s worse than any human being that’s ever run for office, probably,” Trump said. “Every day somebody comes forward with really proven stuff.”

Platner’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Platner’s campaign was rocked by scandals in the week leading up to Tuesday’s primary. National outlets reported that he sent sexually explicit messages to at least six women after getting married in 2023. And the New York Times detailed accounts of three former girlfriends who accused him of unsettling behavior.

For his part, Trump was found liable in civil court for sexually assaulting a woman, and was found guilty of 34 felonies related to business fraud. And his business empire was built with the help of his father’s fortune.

Trump’s attacks come the day after Platner won the Democratic primary with more than 70% of the vote. And it signals a bruising, scorched-earth general election campaign for Maine’s Senate seat.

Republicans are pouring millions of dollars into ads highlighting Platner’s offensive posts on Reddit, in which he blamed women for sexual assault and made other misogynistic, homophobic and racists comments.

Platner has apologized for the posts, saying he was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said the posts no longer reflect who he is today, and he has made transformational politics and redemption a central theme of his campaign, barnstorming the state to give voters an up-close-and-personal look at him.

Republicans are also drawing attention to Platner’s tattoo of a Nazi Totenkopf, or “Death’s Head.” Platner said he got the tattoo while inebriated on leave with fellow Marines in Croatia in 2007. He said he didn’t know its meaning until last fall, when he got it covered. His former political director disputes that claim.

Platner is running a populist campaign, aimed at taking on billionaires and both political establishments.

On Wednesday, his campaign launched an ad featuring Jeffrey Epstein, the late and notorious financier who established a sex trafficking ring. The ad says that powerful Democrats and Republicans were tied to Epstein, and that the “the only thing they agree on is a love of Jeffrey Epstein.”

“I approve this message because together we will take back our government from the Epstein class,” Platner said. (Trump was a friend Epstein’s for years.)

Also on Wednesday, national Republicans warned supporters to take Platner’s campaign seriously, since independent polling shows a close race. In several polls, the newcomer is leading Collins.

Despite months of reporting on Platner’s Reddit history and breathless national coverage of the new allegations last week, Platner’s standing has only gotten stronger, and money has continued to flow into his campaign.

“The political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee said in a memo to interested parties. “He is currently leading.”

Collins is considered especially vulnerable this cycle. Her favorability ratings are at an all-time low, and she’s the only Senate Republican running in a state won by Democrats in 2024, when Kamala Harris won by 7 percentage points.