A Willingness to Overlook...Everything! Jason Rantz Talks to A&G

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand Episode: "A Willingness to Overlook...Everything! Jason Rantz Talks to A&G" Date: July 12, 2026 | iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This lively episode centers on the unraveling political scandal involving Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate in Maine, and uses it as a lens to discuss the shifting standards of character and accountability in American politics. Armstrong & Getty welcome Jason Rantz (host at Seattle’s Red 7:70 AM and frequent national commentator) for a nuanced discussion about the Platner scandal, the willingness of parties to overlook candidate flaws, the rise of socialists within Democratic primaries, and broader reflections on institutional change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Graham Platner Scandal: Analysis and Fallout

• Background: Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate in Maine, faced a cascade of scandals, including a prior Nazi tattoo and, most recently, a credible rape allegation. The crew discusses why Platner may have chosen not to fight the allegations in court and the likely end of his political career.

  • Jason Rantz: (03:01) “I think he’s a degenerate. I'm disgusted that it got this far. But looking at this objectively, there are some legitimate reasons why you don’t just jump in and sue... it's really expensive and embarrassing. And even if you did nothing wrong, it could still be embarrassing.”
  • Armstrong: (04:06) Platner’s response video showed “just this reluctance to take any responsibility at all…he still seems to want to lead that movement. And I do think he’s got a base of people who are willing to go with him.”

• Political Consequences: Getty predicts Platner will fade from national memory, surfacing only as an example of poor candidate vetting, while Rantz highlights the disturbing loyalty of a core base willing to ignore repeated transgressions.

Memorable Quote:
“They were willing to overlook a Nazi tattoo. They were willing to overlook every other allegation against him that was credible...I do think he still probably has a base. And that's the sad and scary part about the Democratic Party and what it's become, is that they're willing to accept that.” —Jason Rantz (04:42)

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2. Changing Standards: Character, Media, and Public Expectations

• Shifting Cultural Lines: The hosts reflect on the erosion of candidate character as a disqualifier, suggesting both parties now tolerate much more as long as “they’re on our team.”

  • Getty: (05:21) “I don’t know what happened there…in any sniff of ethical impropriety… your candidacy was over and you were out of the race. And we seem to be willing to overlook anything now as long as they’re on our team.”
  • Rantz: (05:57) Counters that historic political figures (e.g., Clinton, JFK) survived scandal, and that social media and ideological polarization have made voters more inclined to forgive flaws. “All of us do that all the time...we just have to pick the one with the least amount of flaws.”

• Media Double Standards:

  • Getty: (07:24) "Obviously the mainstream media would have not been as accepting of a Republican with a Nazi tattoo..."
  • Rantz: (07:33) Suggests the party only acted after unfavorable polls and suppresses early warnings about Platner.

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3. False Equivalence and Scandal Comparisons

• Platner vs. Kavanaugh:
  • Getty: (08:29) Condemns comparisons between the Platner situation and the Kavanaugh hearings, highlighting the clear evidence and history of allegations against Platner versus the lack of substantiation in Kavanaugh’s case.

Notable Pushback:
“They’re apples and oranges 100%.” —Getty (09:01)

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4. Rise of Socialists Within The Democratic Party

• Election Trends: The group discusses recent socialist successes in primary elections, particularly in deep-blue districts, and the impact on mainstream Democrats.

  • Jason Rantz: (09:43) “The socialists win when there’s low turnout elections...they’re not picking up seats from conservatives. They’re picking up seats from more 'mainstream' Democrats.”
  • He suggests a paradox: while the growing socialist wing may prevent Democrats from passing legislation if they take the House, this could benefit Republicans by mired gridlock (10:54).

• Democratic Party Infiltration:

  • Getty: (11:13) Raises David French’s observation that socialists often oppose establishment Democrats more than Republicans.
  • Rantz: (11:30) “All any of these people are doing…they are using the infrastructure of the Democratic Party...their interest is to destroy it.” Describes the process as “dismantle and rebuild”—a stated goal since BLM protests.

Key Warning:
“These are not Democrats...Their interest is to destroy it [the Democratic Party]. They've told us this about institutions very loudly since the BLM movement.” —Jason Rantz (11:51)

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5. Closing Thoughts: Cycles of Political Experimentation

• Getty: (12:57) Hopes that the failures of socialist-led cities, like Seattle and New York, will remind voters to re-evaluate such policies and eventually correct course.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Platner’s Reluctance:

  • “What you heard in that video was just this reluctance to take any responsibility…” —Jason Rantz (04:06)

• On Shifting Standards:

  • “We seem to be willing to overlook anything now as long as they’re on our team.” —Getty (05:21)
  • “We all do that all the time… we just have to pick the one with the least amount of flaws.” —Jason Rantz (06:37)

• On Party Dynamics:

  • “Their interest is to destroy it. They’ve told us this about institutions very loudly since the BLM movement.” —Jason Rantz (11:51)

• On Political Learning:

  • “I'm hoping...people realize, oh, this doesn’t work again. We have to realize again, oh, this doesn’t work. And then that maybe puts it to bed for a while.” —Getty (12:57)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:47–04:06 — Graham Platner’s Allegations and Departure from Race
• 04:06–07:24 — Character Standards & Political Parties’ Reactions
• 07:24–09:05 — Media Coverage & Historical Precedents
• 09:05–11:13 — Rise of Socialists in Democratic Primaries & Implications for 2026
• 11:13–12:47 — Socialists’ True Agenda within the Democratic Party
• 12:47–End — Closing Thoughts & Hope for Political “Course Correction”

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Overall Tone & Style:
The hosts’ banter remains pointed, direct, and at times sardonic—emphasizing displeasure at perceived party hypocrisy and institutional decay, yet retaining a self-aware, conversational undercurrent.

Recommended For:
Listeners interested in political strategy, party dynamics, candidate accountability, and the shifting culture of American electoral politics.

Transcript

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[Armstrong]

And now he,

[Getty]

Armstrong and Yeti.

[Armstrong]

Because many of you know over the past couple days I have faced some

[Getty]

very serious allegations and I just want

[Armstrong]

to make it clear this is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real.

[Guest / Analyst (Tony Kennedy)]

If you're going to fight these kind of allegations and say I didn't do this, all of these are false. The first place you should be running to is to sue those responsible for the claims for defamation. But of course, one of the things that Graham Platner is trying to avoid here likely is a series of discovery investigations into his communications, mainly on Kick messenger, the application known for being a haven for adults and minors to communicate anonymously. And we know that of course, as mocked by Democrats Senator Fetterman in Pennsylvania, he's known for having that profile picture of him wearing a tow where he used that platform to cheat on his wife back in 2023.

[Getty]

I thought that was an interesting analysis there from this guy, Tony Kennedy, who was on News Nation today about Graham Platner, the Democrat up in Maine who it was just a matter of time before he had to get out of the race, right? With all the different things that kept coming, starting way back when with the Nazi tattoo, going through the very solid rape allegation from just a couple of days ago. But he might not want, he might not wanted to stay in and sue and have discovery and more information come out and all that sort of thing. You may well discuss that and other things with Jason Rance, who joins us on the Armstrong and Getty Show. Jason Rance was our boss for a while in Seattle and was a taskmaster man. He was difficult to work for. He had to scrubbing toilets and all kinds of things. But anyway, you probably see Jason Rants on CNN Fox on a regular basis and he also hosts a Show on Seattle Red 7:70am how are you, Jason?

[Armstrong]

I'm doing well. The toilet scrubbing, I will say, builds character.

[Getty]

That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to.

[Armstrong]

Exactly.

[Getty]

Teach us some.

[Armstrong]

It was for your own good.

[Getty]

Exactly, Exactly. My dad used to say that about everything. Builds character every time I complain about anything. And he was probably right. I don't know where you want to go with the Platner thing. I thought that was an interesting angle because some of my favorite pundits thought he might stay in the race, and then what were the Democrats going to do to face him out? But he might not have wanted more shoes to drop on this thing. Yeah.

[Armstrong]

I mean, so I think he's a degenerate. I'm disgusted that it got this far. But looking at this objectively, there are some legitimate reasons why you don't just jump in and sue. And what that expert said is one of them. The other issue is it's also really expensive and embarrassing. And even if you did nothing wrong, it could still be embarrassing. And then all of that becomes public. And if your intent was to stay in the race, you most definitely don't want to go through that because it just keeps the story front and center. So, I mean, in theory, we'll see what he does in the coming weeks. Is it possible that he ends up pursuing some sort of legal action if he truly didn't do this and he doesn't want to just sort of let this lay? It's possible, but I think it's less likely, mostly because, again, I think that expert is mostly correct. And it's also possible, like pretty much most of the country probably thinks at this point, he is, in fact guilty, and he doesn't want to bring that up.

[Getty]

Right. I think he's probably going to disappear from national consciousness in 48 hours and never be heard from again. Except for when people bring up stories about not vetting candidates well enough.

[Armstrong]

Well, you know, the one thing about his video last night, he is a sociopath. He seems like a narcissist. And I don't know if he'll just disappear for the long term, short term, for sure. I don't think we're going to hear of him in the next several months. He'll probably sit out. If he's wise, he'll probably sit out this race. Hopefully he does not endorse whomever the main Democrats decide to go with, because that would be the kiss of death. But I do think he's going to try to come back because what you heard in that video was just this reluctance to take any responsibility at all for any of the reason why he's in this mess. Not even just this most recent rape story, but anything in the past, he's always said that was behind me. I had a rough life and that's why that was there. But I'm a good person now and I'm part of this movement. He still seems to want to lead that movement. And I do think he's got a base of people who are willing to go with him. They were willing to overlook a Nazi tattoo. They were willing to overlook every other allegation against him that was credible. Even if one of the alleged victims happens to be a conservative operative. So I do think he still probably has a base. And that's the sad and scary part about the Democratic Party and what it's become, is that they're willing to accept that.

[Getty]

Yeah, I don't know if I'm willing to put it only on the Democratic Party. I think we have a problem nationwide. The Democrats are definitely seem to be worse at it, of not caring about character anymore with candidates at all, just as a nation. I don't know what happened there. You know, you're younger than me, but I'm. I remember back in the day, God, in any sniff of ethical impropriety, of all kinds of different things, and you were done, your candidacy was over and you were out of the race. And we seem to be willing to overlook anything now as long as they're on our team.

[Armstrong]

I. So I don't know if I completely agree with that anymore in retrospect. There are obviously some cases and I think the people who didn't want to be, you know, drag through news cycles because of how embarrassing, whatever it was that they were accused of doing was just too much. But I mean, Bill Clinton was able to survive horrible scandals before becoming president and of course scandals while he was president. You had rumors of course, going around with jfk. It's true that both sides engage in this kind of behavior. I just think that social media has changed the culture enough where we are willing to accept to a degree these character flaws. Because most people say we all have individual character flaws. They can maybe relate to them. They can say, look, I'm willing to push aside up until a point because I believe in the vision that they have or ideologically we're aligned. All of us do that all the time. I mean, even just at the lowest level where we choose to date someone who maybe has a character flaw that we don't like, but we like everything else around them. I just think people justified in that way. And I'm generally okay if you Set your own bar. I might disagree with the bar that you set as to what character flaws you're willing to accept, but I mean, we all do that every single day. And I don't know if politics is going to be able to escape that. The reality is if everyone is flawed, we're going to get flawed candidates. We just have to pick the one with the, the least amount of flaws.

[Getty]

Obviously the mainstream media would have not been as accepting of a Republican with a Nazi tattoo on their chest their entire adult life.

[Armstrong]

Yeah, and that's the other thing. I mean, people over the course of the last couple days, all of a sudden doing about face. Oh, this is, this is just too much. I can't believe it. Fooled us, he fooled us into thinking we always knew he was a fraud.

[Getty]

Right.

[Armstrong]

This was not an oyster, man, whatever the hell that even is. Like no one talked about that ever. It's, it's, it was a scam from the beginning. Everyone could, with two functioning brain cells, could have known how this was going to end. And I do believe that a lot of this was spurred by the latest polling, sienna College New York Times poll showing him down like 21 points. I think it was with working class voters in Maine, the exact demographic he was supposed to crush it with. And they panicked and they realized that they only had about a week to figure this out. And I do think that they put on this pressure campaign doesn't mean that the underlying claims are false or contrived in any way, but I do think there was a little bit of a panic from the Democrats at the last moment.

[Getty]

I hate any of the comparisons again from the mainstream media. And then the left wackadoos between Platner and Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, completely different story. That guy didn't have, have a whiff of anything bad in his history at all. And then this whack job woman comes along who couldn't substantiate anything and no friends had ever heard anything. This is the opposite with the, everything about this guy everybody ever dated. And you know, the woman sounds incredibly believable. She told her boy or her next boyfriend at the time, she told her therapist at the time. So they're, they're apples and oranges 100%.

[Armstrong]

And you know, in any real like scenario, real world scenario, if they try to pull something like that again, you would expect that they would feel at least great shame in doing so. Maybe not even do it because of how much they've backed this guy Graham Platner. But I. The funny thing is I think they'll do it again. They would do it again. They have no shame. They'll do it again and they probably won't even get called out for it.

[Getty]

So how concerned are you with this whole. There.

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The.

[Getty]

A couple more socialists doing well in primaries. You had the one in Colorado the other day. You got this guy up in Michigan who's. Who's challenging a mainstream Democrat. Are. Is this for real?

[Armstrong]

Yeah, I mean, they're really organized. The socialists win when there's low turnout elections. And these are low turnout elections. Every single one of them has been low turnout. Now it has been low turnout if you look at just the Democrats. But these are also deeply blue cities and counties in which they're winning. They're not picking up seats from conservatives. They're picking up seats from more, quote, unquote, mainstream Democrats. And I believe that the House is almost certainly going to go to the Democrats. History tells us that's going to happen. And in a world in which the Republicans are in the minority, I suppose politically I'm not all that upset that a bunch of socialists might end up getting elected because that will ensure that the Democrats don't actually do anything unless they're totally willing to throw their entire principles and, you know, political beliefs out the window, which I don't think most of them will on some of the big issues. So I think they'll be more mired in just a lot of chaos and disruption and they won't be able to get anything done. So in a scenario which the Democrats are in charge, I'm okay. If they can't get anything done. That's not a guarantee. So there's a little bit of risk to that. And I do think that the more of these lunatics who win, the larger the spotlight is on some of these other races that are maybe on the verge of going to the left. And Republicans will be able to pull some of those out. Certainly I think this helps us on the Senate side. And as long as we keep the Senate, I am certainly more comfortable. We just can't lose both.

[Getty]

Right. Which is why this main race was so important. David French in the New York Times. I don't know if he wrote this in the New York Times or just tweeted it out, but I thought it was interesting that mainstream Democrats need to catch on to the fact that these Socialists hate them more than they hate the Republican Party.

[Armstrong]

Yeah, but it's the Grand Platner effect, right? They're saying we're willing to compromise for power and they just, just are blinded, I guess, by that, that power grab, desire. But I mean, he's. He's right. Or whoever wrote that article is, is right. These are not Democrats. I've been saying this for a long time in Seattle because you have people like former Seattle City Councilwoman Chamois Sawan, who ran as a Democrat. All she's doing and all any of these people are doing, Claire Valdez Chevalier, they are using the infrastructure of the Democratic Party. They're getting access to their, their lists, their voter data, and the money that's coming in also from the establishment Democrats to take over the party. Their interest is to destroy it. They've told us this about institutions very loudly since the BLM movement.

[Getty]

Right.

[Armstrong]

What was the language that they were using? We need to dismantle and rebuild. That is their end goal. They want to dismantle our institutions. And that also includes the Democratic Party. Right. And so the Democrats are so silly for embracing this, but they're doing it because they think they're going to be able to get the power. And then suddenly all these socialists are going to turn around and say, oh, okay, yeah, well, we're grateful that you allowed us into your party. We will now do whatever you wish. That's not going to happen. That's not who these people are.

[Getty]

He's the host of the Jason Rantz show, which is handy because that's his name on Seattle Red 7:70am Weekdays from noon to 4. Jason, always appreciate your time. You're a smart guy.

[Armstrong]

Thank you so much.

[Getty]

Yeah, he's good. And he lives in Seattle, where they got the socialist mayor, which I'm hoping to a certain extent, the socialists that do get power, like the mayor in Seattle, like the mayor in New York, they do their thing for a while and people realize, oh, this doesn't work again. We have to realize again, oh, this doesn't work. And then that maybe that puts it to bed for a while.

[Guest / Analyst (Tony Kennedy)]

Armstrong and Getty.

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