Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in Saturday night and a few hours later the debate on his confirmation resumed, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine, shown above left) defending her vote for the nominee, which outraged Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) (above right).

“I found Dr. Ford’s testimony to be heart-wrenching, painful, compelling, and I believe that she believes what she testified to,” Collins told CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday morning on “State of the Union.”

“I do not believe Brett Kavanaugh was her assailant,” Collins added.

Hirono was outraged by Collins’ comments, telling Bash that the Maine Republican “said that she thinks that — she said that Dr. Ford thinks that she was assaulted, which is even more insulting than saying that she gave a very credible account.”

The senator from Hawaii didn’t stop there, however.

Later on Sunday morning, she told ABC’s Jonathan Karl, host of “This Week,” that she had already decided on her no vote on Kavanaugh prior to his testimony.

She explained that she had based her decision on reviewing the nominee’s judicial opinions, which she said showed he was “not for women’s reproductive choice.”

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Hirono and Collins were also at odds on appropriate responses in the he said/she said scenarios. Specifically, the two are of different minds on who deserves deference in such a situation, the accused or the accuser.

For Hirono, Kavanaugh’s hearing should be thought of as a job interview, and a cloud of doubt should preclude a hire. For Collins, though the hearing was not a trial, the accused should be presumed innocent, and in the absence of corroborating evidence, an accusation should not disqualify the nominee.

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“The one thing that [Ford] recollects with 100 percent accuracy is that … Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her.” Hirono told Bash.

“Here you have two people who are each 100 percent certain of what they’re saying under pain of perjury,” Collins told Bash.

Hirono also pushed back on Collins’ assertion that the supplemental investigation yielded no corroborating evidence supporting Ford’s account.

“There was no corroboration on Brett Kavanaugh’s bald assertion that he didn’t do it,” said Hirono, emphasizing her discontent with what she saw as an inadequate FBI investigation.

“[Witnesses who were interviewed] all said they have no recollection. That is hardly what I would call exoneration,” said Hirono, citing a statement by Ford that she had talked about the alleged assault to her spouse and to others and that she had taken a lie detector test.

Collins explained that her decision to support Kavanaugh was influenced by an absence of evidence corroborating Ford’s account, including the failure of Ford’s longtime friend Leland Keyser to corroborate it.

Hirono was not alone in her concerns about Collins’ speech on the Senate floor on Friday and the decision to vote for Kavanaugh.

“I have never disregarded, disrespected or mocked survivors,” Collins told Bash, when confronted with a scathing rebuke Planned Parenthood issued on Twitter.

One point on which both Collins and Hirono appeared to agree, curiously, was that Kavanaugh’s installment on the Supreme Court is unlikely to lead to overturning Roe v. Wade.

“I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn Roe v. Wade,” Collins told Bash on CNN.

Hirono told ABC’s Karl that she doubted a frank overturning of Roe v. Wade was in the cards, but she worries that the landmark, pro-abortion legislation could be “nullified” bit by bit.

States “are very busy passing all kinds of laws that would limit a woman’s right to choose,” Hirono said, pointing out that it is the constitutionality of those laws that could come before the Supreme Court.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.