← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:31]
B
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- [01:01]
A
Hey everybody, it is Tim Miller with the Bulwark here with my colleague, the publisher of this year Bulwark, Sarah Longwell. We have some breaking news out of the main Senate race. Sarah, you know they just can't have it. Let us have a Monday.
- [01:17]
B
No, we've just had a three day weekend. It's time. This was supposed to be a slow day. I didn't have anything on the afternoon, but here we are. Big news about Platner. Disturbing news about Platner. Yeah, why don't we run through it for people who haven't seen.
- [01:31]
A
Sure, we'll, I'll start here just kind of letting people get into the live. I'll run through the story is from Politico. I'll just read you a couple of the parts. Here is the allegation. A woman who dated Maine U.S. senate candidate Graham Platner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections. An allegation Platner denies. The woman, a 41 year old Maine resident named Jenny Racicot, had detailed the alleged incident to Politico in three interviews over the past two weeks. Politico also spoke with a man Reese got dated and confided in the years after the alleged incident. They reviewed some documents, including emails. We'll go through that. Some of the details of the allegations. Racat said she had an on and off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine. The relationship was more than two years long before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021. So under five years ago, he was deeply intoxicated and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop, she said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual. I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me, she said. I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, this is no longer my choice. Raisakat was one of the women that women that New York Times had talked to, we should say, but at that time she gave kind of a more generic assessment. This is separate from the woman who had made the more notable allegations in the New York Times story, who's a Republican political operative. That's not the case for Raisakot. She said this. One of the reasons I didn't come forward sooner was the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics but not supporting him as a person. I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person. She provides some corroborating evidence, including this Facebook message exchange. A friend, I guess, is asking her for advice about whether to fix up Platner with a third person. Raisakot says to them, he can be charming and funny. He's a decently intelligent person. He's not all bad, but ended up in a bad situation with him. And I will just very politely call him consensually careless at times. She goes on when drunk and says he lies. Also, there are some of the more explicit details of, of the story here, including where he's got saying that I don't, I don't know how to say this in front of Sarah. He finished inside of her and that she was worried about that. And then after she realized she was not pregnant, she messaged him on Instagram, you know, saying that, you know, reading of the riot act and saying that she was having contact with him. She since deleted those Instagram messages because she was trying to block it all out. So that is the allegation very serious. Of course, Platner put out a kind of strange 2 minute long video where he talked about, you know, all like his campaign and I guess we'll talk about all that, but I just kind of want to play the key part of that video. Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward. So anyway, a lot there. I just thought that was pretty noteworthy thing to say. We're taking time to reflect on the best path forward. We don't have a lot of time. July 13th is the last day for him to drop out of the race. Um, but he. He maintains denial of the reporting, but not really a very forceful pushback. That's, you know, type of thing. If you're planning on staying in the race, I would think that. That your response might be different. But Sarah was wondering what your kind of initial reactions to it are.
- [05:29]
B
All right, so first of all, the reporting here is quite excellent because they have a lot of details. And I think for some people right now who are saying whose instinct is to defend Platner, they're going to say why? I need to see more evidence. And actually, if you read the reporting carefully, the evidence is pretty strong. Right. Like, they have her. She's one of the women who's in the New York Times story. But she's very clear in the piece. They're very good at sort of laying out why in the piece. She was somewhat more circumspect. And it also, you know, having looked at the New York Times piece when it came out, Lindsay Fifield gotten a big fight with the New York Times. She is the Republican operative who says she was coaxed into telling the story in the New York Times and ultimately was angry because she felt like her story became central. And I think it became central because ultimately she had the most, like, the biggest accusation in there, which was some sort of, you know, forcing her into a room and holding her arm behind her back. And so that was as close to sort of like. And that was an assault allegation that sort of got got framed as him trying to restrain her in some way, whatever. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't a knockout blow. This woman was also in that piece, but wasn't. Didn't come forward with a rape accusation. And let's be clear, Tim saying he's uncomfortable saying it in front of me. I'll just be really clear. Like, this is a rape accusation. What is in this piece?
- [06:52]
A
Yeah, no, the word rape wasn't my problem. It was just talking about ejaculating, which made me uncomfortable in a moment there for a second.
- [07:00]
B
Okay, well, I don't know what. I don't know what to do about that. It's. It's okay. What's worth.
- [07:05]
A
I wasn't blaming you. I'm just saying that, you know, saying ejaculation, I'm just. I'm building up to it. Anyway, I'm sorry. It's serious matter. It's okay.
- [07:14]
B
And so. And one of the things that I had a couple of the nuance. So the nuance of the Reporting was strong, and I had a couple initial reactions. One is, the text message that you showed, though, is frustrating to me because right at the bottom of it, the friend asks, so she says, forces himself on people question mark. There's a response there, and I want to know what that response says. I, I just. Not in there. But the other thing to me that was notable was this idea that they had been sort of seeing each other casually. He shows up hammered, walks into her house, and like, the idea that he's denying it. This is what happens when one person's sober and the other person's hammered, right? Like if, if, if she is sober and he is sort of overwhelming her or doesn't remember it the same way, but he was really drunk and she was at home sober. Like, we, this is her. We take her word for it. This isn't two people who were hammered. And, and so I just, I feel like at some point, and it was always like this, I was willing to open, be open to the idea that an apology for the past Reddit behavior for the past terrible things that he said, an apology and saying he was wrong and he had changed was okay. I could accept that. That was always the problem, though, with the new allegations when they started to come, the ones that were more recent, because it started to lay the predicate that he hadn't changed. And this coming out, this isn't from 20. Even if it was rape is rape. There's no, like, hey, we get to, you know, you later. It's okay, right?
- [09:00]
A
Station. Yeah, yeah.
- [09:04]
B
But this was, this was not that long ago. And it was recent enough that this woman has the receipts and people that she talked to. And so I just think there's no reason not to believe this account. And what we know of his character does not exonerate him from behavior like this. And he's right, though. It is a distraction. And I think that video, when you say it's a weird video to me, it's like, okay, that's a trial balloon. And he's waiting to see if people pop it, right? He's waiting to see if the reaction is, no, you've got to stick this out or you've got to get out. And I think, and, and I'm just gonna. This is the last thing I'll say, but we did a focus group of Maine women right before the New York Times story came out, and we asked them, okay, what. And they were all sticking with Platner. They were all like, we're, we're with them, but we were like, okay, what would be. If there was something that made you walk away, what would it be? They all said a sexual assault allegation. And you know, I just said, they said, there's no way I would be able to vote for him if he, if something came out that it was substantiated that he had sexually assaulted somebody. Because then in my mind, he should be in jail, he shouldn't be in Congress or in the Senate earning a paycheck off of taxpayers. Then Sharon says, I agree with Jen. She just said exactly how I feel. I'm looking at the long game. I want Collins out. He, if he. It'd have to be pretty bad. It'd have to be pretty bad. And then the moderator said, do you have any idea what that would be? And Sharon said, baby, sexual assault. And Danielle said, probably sexual assault or going back to what someone else said, that if it was the case, like, this is people talking. So we would hope that our justice system was taking care of that, then we wouldn't be in the situation where they'd be able to run. But, you know, I mean, look at the rest of our government, like, who knows? So there's that. And then Kim said, I would think, like, if he was really, you know, accused of sexual assault and that was a true thing, like that would take him off the option to vote.
- [10:59]
A
Yeah, well, that's good to know. I guess that main Democratic voters aren't going to approve of somebody that commits sexual assault or rape. Look, my view on this is, and this is why I think that the video is weird. And I think it goes back to like a fundamental first principle on all this stuff, which is like, why does the main Senate race matter? Like, why do we, why does anybody care about this? Why do we care about this when voters care about this? Like, everybody comes to these things with their own motivations. And like, I've been very upfront. I think most of us at the Bulwark have, like, I just, I think it's critical that the Democrats take control of the Senate next year. And I would be willing to swallow people that have very different ideologies for me on a wide variety of issues. Same if they're willing to, if they are going to take the Senate. A Senate race is different than a governor's race or a mayor's race or a presidential race that you're one vote out of 100. And it's, and it's extremely important that who knows what's happening with 82 year old Trump in 2028. Like, like the top priority needs to be making sure that if the Democrats control both houses of Congress, they can check him, they can prevent him from putting, you know, who the hell knows? He floated Ted Cruz today on the Supreme Court or Eileen Cannon. They can stop Eileen Cannon from getting on the Supreme Court. They can investigate his corruption. Like, we could go down the whole list, right? Like, the Senate has huge oversight and advising consent powers and like Susan Collins has not been a moderate disruptor. We've talked about this a lot. And so for that reason, it's, it's critical that the Democrats are smart about who they nominate and Democratic voters are smart about who they nominate, that they're responsible. And you know, my view on Platner from the start was always like, it's, it would be interesting to try kind of a dsa, lefty, populist, working class guy. I wish it was in a state that was less important to the Democrat Senate majority because it was a risk. Like, every time this has come up, that's what I, that it was a risk. And this is why it's a risk. If he then stays in this race past July 13th and even more stuff comes out and you hand the Democrats the Senate seat in the race that should be the easiest to take this year. I think this is the most important thing and why I'm frustrated with his quote where he's like, I'm going to take a few days to decide. It's like, no, if you didn't rape this girl, woman, if you didn't rate this woman, then you should be fully, you know, all, all in on campaigning for yourself and depending, defending your honor and doing so respectfully, obviously to the accuser. But like, you should be fully in on making sure that you're pulling out all the stops to demonstrate to people that you are trustworthy and they can rely on you and they should be behind you and you should win the Senate race to do the whole, like, oh, well, I don't know, you know, we'll see how things go over the next couple days. I that tell that is somebody to me that like, either thinks that there's more stuff coming out or doesn't have faith in himself that he can finish this race. And to me, that is the top sign that you have to move on. You know, and like, obviously, I mean, if the facts of this are true, that's the number one reason they have to move on. But I just mean from a political standpoint, it's like you, the Democrats cannot take it, cannot have a nominee in the state that they, they most need to win number one, the state that comma, one that should be the easiest to win and put it behind somebody who seems unwilling to even fully defend himself. Like in the face of these accusations and, and who seems to make me think that more stuff is coming out. I don't know, like, so, so to me, like that just says, okay, it's time to, time to move on. What's up everybody? It's Bretzky. And America is turning 250. And I can't think of a better way to celebrate that than playing on an American owned social casino. Spinquest.com with all of your favorite games, live craps, bubble craps, live blackjack, there's no better place to play for free and win real cash prizes. Spinquest.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, and I think that there's, look, there's, there's two, there's two parts of this to talk about. There's the moral part of it and there's the political part of it. Now I think a credible accusation of rape, I think that's the ball game personally. But the political side of it is like, this is he, it is now because like you said, there's no statute of limitation on rape. Like, there's going to be questions of whether she's going to bring charges. Like, think about this for a second for people who are sitting there right now thinking, oh, he should stay in and brazen through this. Republicans have so many, you know, credibly accused rapists, not the least of which is the sitting President of the United states who has 28 sexual assault allegations against him and has been adjudicated of rape.
- [15:57]
A
Like, yeah, but I love, I love the people in the comments or whatever on Twitter. Some people reply to the, like, talk about Trump. What about Trump's rapes? I'm like, I have Trump's, we talk about Trump shit all the time. Trump opposed Trump three times. Like it's crazy that he's in there. Yeah, it's worse. It's worse. The accusations against him are worse.
- [16:14]
B
Okay, so, and the scale of them are worse. And he shouldn't have been elected president. And basically that's the whole reason the bulwark exists, is to oppose Donald Trump because we think he is morally and ethically unfit in every, every way to be a part of this country or to be running this country. And that's, we've been doing that for eight years. And so nobody can hold a candle to us in terms of saying that Donald Trump should be gone and that a big part of the reasons were allegations like the sexual assault allegations. He should have been gone from the moment that the, the, the Inside Edition, whatever tape came out on the bus.
- [16:49]
A
Well, he admitted to sexually assaulting women. He bragged.
- [16:52]
B
He admitted it. Okay? So he's gone. He should be gone. And I just, I also want to say this, that I'm with Tim. Like, I was, I was really trying to get there on Platner because it was important and also because it, for me, it was not a question of ideology. Like, sometimes people in the chat or wherever are like, well, Sarah's a Republican, guys. All of us were Republicans at the Bulwark, every single one of us, except for the new people, right? But everybody who founded it, right? Bill, Tim, jbl, Mona, that's what we were all doing, okay? And we all walked out on Trump because he was of bad character. He was a horrible person. And we want to do everything we can to stop him. The main Senate seat is deeply critical. So do you know why it's important right now is that there is still time. There's still time. You know, the, the, the, let's see. Platner would have to formally withdraw by 5pm on July 13. Then a vacancy in the nomination is created that has to be filled by July 27th. Now, look, it's bad. It's bad that we are in this situation, just like it was bad when we were in this situation with Biden. But that, that is like, that is the problem with the people who don't make good decisions about who the candidates should be. It has nothing to do with progressives versus centrists. It has to do with, do you have a qualified, competent candidate who can beat the other person effectively? And right now, the answer on Graham Platner is no. On the political question, I agree with that.
- [18:26]
A
And this is one thing, again, just to just talk about the progressive factionalist fight about this for a second, because that does drive a lot of all this. I mean, we can just be honest. Like, a lot of people's fakes about Platner are downstream from their takes on ideology. Right? And it's like a lot of the people who are very big Platner supporters have been defending him. If these same accusations had been out against Josh Shapiro, they would be the first ones to say that he should be thrown overboard and vice versa for the most. Obviously, there are people of goodwill out there, but, like, a lot of this is Is is downstream of that, I think that the progressive side has like, some decent arguments and critiques of the Democratic establishment and how they ran campaigns from 2016 to 2024 and like nominating candidates who put working class interests first and who are more clearly anti the stupid wars that we've gotten into. I think is probably smart and swing states. Right. Like, you can sell me on that. So to me, like, I'm not. This is not wrapped up in that for me. And that's, you know, depending on the details, that might not. I might not agree with every position that is underneath those two kind of tent poles, but, like, I'm open to that. The problem with Platner always at the start was again, just the risk. Look, when I wrote, I pulled this up. I wrote a triad about the reason for Democrats needed outside candidates about a month or two ago@thebork.com and I talked about Platner as an example and also Seth Moulton in Massachusetts and some others. And, you know, I wrote in the thing, like, to be frank, I'm still a little concerned about what might come out about his past before November. Like, even in the case for him that there are some political upsides to being more of an anti establishment, to be more of an outsider to caring about the working class. Like, I saw all those upsides and simultaneously recognize these risks. And like, now they've come home to roost. And if they're not true, if it's bs, then, like, he's got to be like, this has to be all hands on deck. Like, you got to be out there. You have to have your other ex girlfriends out there on TV today. You've got to have people advocating for you. You've got to be releasing these text you have with this woman. You know what I mean? Like, you got to be doing, you got to be doing crisis communications. Like, if someone was to falsely accuse me of rape and try to kill my podcast, like, let me tell you, you know, I would not be out there being like, you know, I'm going to take a couple days to think about this. Like, that's crazy. Like, that's not how you respond to this thing. And so, like, I just, like, the stakes are too high to like, say, hey, let's let that. Let's kick the can until after July 13th when the time is up and like, see if anything else comes out. Like, literally the fate of the Senate rests in the balance here. And so unfortunately, we're kind of relying on Graham Platner and the people around him. The people that pushed him in this campaign to do the honorable thing here so that we can win and it's, you know, we can get into who that might, Who a replacement might be. But to me, I'm like, I don't have strong factional interests in that question.
- [21:35]
B
Yeah. And. And look, somebody said this in the chat. So I guess it's true that Hassan Piker is also calling him to get out. Look, everybody's going to call for him to get out, I think because the accusation and the reporting is quite credible.
- [21:48]
A
Yeah. Here's Hasan Piker, for whatever it's worth. People don't know how son Piker, like, really, DSA left, has been pushing, campaigning for a lot of these candidates.
- [21:56]
B
He and I agree on very little.
- [21:58]
A
I was not going to go there. Hassan Tiker. That is curtains. That is the trifecta, okay? This is the trifecta of a reliable allegation. It's. Holy shit. I believe this allegation. I believe this allegation. And she said he goes on to say he should. He should drop out.
- [22:14]
B
So, look, me and Hassan Piker on the same side, who to thunk it. I listen, I just. And I think this says something good about the Democratic Party. They don't want to endorse somebody who's credibly accused of sexual assault. It says something really, really bad about the Republican Party. It's why we all left, that they don't care about this type of thing. That character doesn't matter at all. And I think that, look, Graham Platner can sell, could have sold me a redemption story if it was true that he was redeemed. And I don't mean in a religious way. I mean in a. In a way of like, he was a really. Had a. You know, he was in a really rough place for a long time, but he changed. He got married. He, you know, he was trying to live a decent life. And listen, and I don't even care about people's, like, overall frailties or like, you know, like, if there was texting and he and his wife worked it out. Okay, whatever. Those are not things to. I'm not going to clutch my pearls over that. A rape accusation. And I see some people in the chat saying things like innocent until proven guilty. This isn't a legal adjudication. This is a question of a. Like, is this person okay to be in the actual Senate? But. But also, it's a political question of can a person win with this much baggage? And the answer is no. Susan Collins was going to be Hard to beat under the best of circumstances. And the other thing we know as this race has gone on to Tim's point about learning. Right. I think both Tim and I were pretty open to the idea that, like, okay, what is the, the way that you attract more young men to the Democratic Party is it's very important to figure that out. Yeah. Is this, is this kind of a rougher populist, you know, is that going to be attractive? No. Who is Graham Platner's base still? It is college educated suburbanites. That is who it is. Like, it's not the working class voters. And, you know, I do think a lot of those women who were supporting Graham Platner, they're going to have a tough time with this accusation. That's why I read the focus groups and you guys can, or people can say, oh, who cares about what four main women said? I think that's relatively representative of Maine women who are like, yeah, if he did sexual assault, that would be it for me.
- [24:29]
A
Yeah. Question is, what are we going to do? I see some of that in the chat. Let's talk about that. On the flip side, we do have to do one ad, so I'll throw to that and then we'll talk about what the options are going forward. Hey, summer is in full swing and so it's easy to put off your doctor's appointments. It's one of those things that you just avoid doing. And if you're anything like me, it's really easy to keep putting off making that doctor's appointment again and again and again and again. You think, I'll get to it next week. And then suddenly you look up and it's August. That's why today's sponsor is actually one I think people can use. It's zocdoc. I hate the whole process of finding a new doctor. Calling around, waiting for someone to answer, trying to figure out what's actually in network. Zocdoc takes a lot of that hassle away. Zocdoc lets you search and compare local and in network doctors. Zocdoc's website has tons of reviews from real patients and detailed doctor profiles to help you choose the right one. Plus, ZocDoc is free to use, and God knows I love things that are free to use. Your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with Zocdoc. Head to zocdoc.com bulwarktakes to get started and check that appointment off your to do list. Don't wait till August. That's zocdoc.com bulwarktakes all right, we are back. So I want to talk about a couple of subtexts. I do want to talk about the path forward, but first I just want to go through a little bit some of my concerns about that if Platner is to stay in the race again, I just, we'll see. Like, I, I've seen, I've seen some feedback from people who are like, this is convenient timing. This is actually pretty inconvenient timing for everybody involved. But the Republicans for sure wanted this, wanted no more stories till after July 13. And because Platinum, a pretty short window to do something, he could drop out. And the rules, as Sarah mentioned beforehand, I just will remind people of that, is that if he dropped out by the 5pm on the 13th, so a week from now, the party would have till 5pm on July 27 to select a replacement and get that person on the ballot. One of the concerns I'd have on that is that like, here we are again with these pro democracy movements that we're part of, going around what people think of when they think of democracy, actual voting results. That's right. And doing some other process. And in both cases, I'm particularly in the Biden case. I was for it, though. I was for a quick primary, too. I think that anyway, we can redo that another time. But I think that it undermines trust to have like party elites doing this. And I think that the one thing I said about Graham at the time that I'll continue to say is that his message was resonating with people in Maine. People of Maine were excited about him. They wanted him, they voted for him. They, they didn't want Janet Mills, the incumbent government governor, again. And so now to like say to those people, okay, hey, no, sorry, here you go, like, we're going to give you somebody else. I, I do think it's problematic and complicated. Yeah, I mean, I'm so for it, but like, but it's just, I just think it should be grappled with.
- [27:59]
B
Yeah, no, it's not. I mean, this was, look, I, I understood why people liked Graham Platner. He was never for me. Once he was the nominee, I was sort of interested, I was always interested in the experiment. I'm very interested in experimenting with lots of different kinds of candidates in different kinds of places because I want to win. I want Democrats to hold the Senate, to win the Senate and to win the House. I want Donald Trump's corrupt agenda blocked Okay. I would do just about anything to see Donald Trump out of political power or in a contested political power situation. That is my ideal scenario. Graham Platner is in an incredibly weak position to do that now. And I think that is a moral matter. When somebody's credibly accused of rape, that's game over. That's me. That's me. That's one of violence and rape. Those are my red lines. And I don't care that Donald Trump got away with it. I think that's bad and been bad for the country. So what do we do now? The main thing is you still have a little bit of time. And I think that, Tim, I don't know if you thought this or maybe you even said this to me offline, that the reason that Graham Platner is not out out. It's either like. Like I said, I think it's a bit of a trial balloon, but he could also be trying to negotiate who his successor is and say, like, you do.
- [29:28]
A
I do. I mean, I don't know. I have no inside intel, but that's. That seems like the likely element that could be happening. So to this point, I mean, not everybody watching this chat on YouTube is going to be familiar with all the characters of Maine politics. I'll just, like, throw this out there. There is discussion of Platinum trying to influence this. We should say beer. The guy that owns the main beer company, Dan Cleveland, he was going to get in this race originally got screwed over by Chuck Schumer, who called him and basically said, don't launch this campaign. We'll go after you. Janet Mills is going to be the endorsed candidate. So that would be one option. Nirav Shah was a Maine governor candidate. He's a director of the Maine cdc. During COVID some discussion of him, Mills herself getting back in. I think that'd be a disaster. We can talk about that. Shelley Pingree, the House rep. She's a ripe young age of 71. It'd be kind of Mills Jr. Troy Jackson is president of the Maine State Senate and a logger. He also was in the governor's race. Actor Patrick Dempsey is getting some bus. We'll talk about him in a second. Grey's Anatomy.
- [30:33]
B
Dreamy.
- [30:35]
A
None of those people. Maybe Jackson would be the closest facsimile to Platner. I guess he's a logger. He identifies as a progressive president of the state Senate. I'm not going to pretend to know everything about his background. But then how do you do it? Do you have a convention? Is it just the party committee. It becomes a little P.R. you know, it's a sticky wicket.
- [31:02]
B
Yeah. This is not an easy thing to solve. You know, even just thinking out loud and I'm gonna. I wish I had secret pod rules where we could say things and not be committed to them.
- [31:14]
A
Sorry, we're live.
- [31:16]
B
This is what happens.
- [31:16]
A
And people who want to dunk on you are watching. So we are not in secret pod rules. You just gotta roll. True.
- [31:22]
B
Look, I've got a couple ideas. One is Heather Cox Richardson.
- [31:26]
A
All right.
- [31:26]
B
Popular, popular Maynard historian. Guest, frequent guest on my podcast. I think she would be excellent. Like I do think probably now look, she is somebody who is known to us and to a national audience. I guess the question is who is known to Mainers. That's also a bit of a maybe a Hail Mary also looks I don't know what citizen you know what it takes to become a main resident but there are a lot of people other places that I think would make Adam Kinzinger, he's in Texas. He's got a little prop plane. We should just fly him over, have
- [32:00]
A
him run there a bush from Kenny Bunkport. Oh we're not trying to think if there was any good ones allegations on that. Yeah. Anyway we. We'll see how that shakes out. I don't. It's gonna be a tough. There are two kind of simultaneously things happen that are so frustrating about this. Like on the one hand, like, yeah, it's going to be a tough race. Susan Collins has demonstrated herself to be resilient political creature. True.
- [32:25]
B
Yes.
- [32:25]
A
Also true. Again, I said this before. I want to repeat it because it's very important of the states that the Democrats need to win the Senate seat in to take the Senate to pick up a seat. Maine is the only one that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won.
- [32:41]
B
All one. All one is a blue state.
- [32:44]
A
So you don't really need creative ideas for what that was. The whole was one of the fundamental issues I had with the Platner premise. And if you. If you just love that him that's fine. Like the idea that we but if it was a political strategy it was like, oh, we need to try something different. The establishment's been trying this and it hasn't worked. It's like well, in Maine the Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton campaigns worked. They won. So you really just needed voter to like get those voters to vote for you. So like Susan Collins is tough. Yes. But also you really just need somebody that can hold the coalition together and get them to turn out in the midterm. Like, that's the task.
- [33:21]
B
Yeah. I think people felt burned by Sarah Gideon, who they thought was like, kind of generic Dem fodder, and then Susan Collins crushed.
- [33:29]
A
Yeah. It's a lot of difference, though, Presidential year. Like, you're thinking about Biden being in there. Like, this is a midterm where Democrats have done better for a lot of reasons. You would think one of these people should be able to win. And again, if you look at some of these other states, look at North Carolina. No drama in North Carolina. I forget which pod I said this on the other week ago. It's like, it's like, I'm Roy Cooper. I believe in the Golden Rule and that criminals should be in jail. Vote for me. And it's like you're winning by 20% in a state that Trump. Trump won. Okay, so this isn't as hard as some people want to make it seem. And, you know, getting, getting a replacement could, could potentially solve. Solve that problem, though I think it will continue to drive a rift within the Dem coalition that's. That's going to make 2028 kind of unbearable. But that's for another day.
- [34:22]
B
Well, you know, look, this is for the, the folks who recruited Platner. This is going to be a big L if he drops out, and it's going to really.
- [34:33]
A
Look, it'd be a bigger L if he stayed in and lost.
- [34:36]
B
And lost. That's true. Yeah, that's true. And. And maybe there's people who want to roll the dice on this. But let me hypothetically.
- [34:44]
A
Yeah.
- [34:44]
B
Who do you think has a better chance of defeating Susan Collins? A beleaguered Graham Platner with a rape accusation. And, guys, this is still. We are still in the window where he could drop out. Like, the Republicans haven't even really started dropping the rappo yet. Like, the idea that there is more.
- [35:02]
A
Not only have they not start, like, it would make no sense for them to start, and they've this, like, I listen to the MAGA podcast. They all say, they kind of have been saying gleefully, we've got stuff on them, but we're not going to put it out until after July 13th. So.
- [35:18]
B
That's right. This is, this is not. What you are watching right now is not Republicans operating against Graham Platner. Maybe it is people who are like, let's try to get him out before this thing goes. But, like, this woman's not a Democratic operative. She's somebody who shares his politics. She was just upset after watching everybody dismiss the accusations Because Lindsey Fifield was a Republican operative and she really wrestled with whether or not to say something because she agrees with his politics, but ultimately felt like people should know the truth about him. And also I think didn't want to say that she was raped, which is a totally normal thing not to want to do. Yeah,
- [35:58]
A
I want to say, yeah, I want to give the other side of the coin, of the little tough medicine that everybody has to take. We ought to take, I take it, but particularly the biggest platinum supporters have to take it. And this one, from the Biden comparison I talked about, you know, one of the negatives about the democracy element of this, which is, I think something that we're still going to have to grapple with. Another just lesson from the Biden situation that we had in this case also is like, it's actually good, smart politics to do housekeeping on your own side's weaknesses. And like, and what you hear all the time. I'm just gonna pre butt what you hear all the time from, from the left on this and from liberals and from people who watch the show, people who I talk to in real life are like, why do we have to practice housekeeping? They don't. Donald Trump got away with it. He ran three times. My response to that is twofold. One, yeah, Donald Trump got away with it, but life isn't fair. And Donald Trump is a uniquely talented con man and not everybody else is. Number two, yeah, Donald Trump got away with it, but do we want to be like Donald Trump? I don't. And number three, and most importantly, a lot of other Republicans didn't get away with it.
- [37:11]
B
Hey, everybody, Lady Luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com get yourself a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited.
- [37:39]
A
Visit spinquest.com for more details. And like, people like pretend like this didn't happen. But like Roy Moore, the Republicans lost a seat in Alabama because they nominated and a Febo file. Okay? They lost an Alabama Senate seat over it. My girl Kerry Lake. How many times did they lose in Arizona where if they would have just nominated a regular Jeff Flake. Jeff Flake would be governor Herschel Walker.
- [38:03]
B
Herschel Walker, Georgia.
- [38:05]
A
The Republicans have. So it has worked for Trump himself. But, like, for the Republicans, their inability to do any internal housekeeping has cost them a lot of races. And so, like, it is. It, it is good politics. And it's just good for your soul to, like, assess what is happening on your own team and be able to say, hey, that person isn't up running for president again. Might be a good person, but he's too old. He just doesn't have it anymore. Or, hey, that person might have some really good things to say about corporate capture in the Democratic Party and the stupid wars we've been in. And I agree with those things, but, like, he doesn't seem that reliable. And there's a lot of red flags here. And maybe we should, should trust our instincts on the red flags. Right? Like, that's the right thing to do. And I think the Democrats in both cases would probably have ended up being in better situations if that, if those reckonings had happened earlier along in the process.
- [39:04]
B
That's right. Early oppo on people. People, this is just, this is actually basic due diligence in campaign work is to run oppo on your own people to see what's out there. And I don't understand. I guess they thought he could kind of power through the Reddit posts and other things. But, guys, I can't. The, the. I don't want to repeat rumors, and so I won't. I will only say this, this story as it was sort of coming to fruition in the world. Lots of people knew this story was coming, but we didn't know exactly what, which allegation. And as we all talked about which allegation it might be, lots of other things are coming up. Like, I don't think this is the last story on him. So the question is, is. And now you're. We are. It's a really bad choice. It is a damaged candidate who is likely to get further damaged as they go because he's got all kinds of skeletons in his closet and it's really bad stuff. It's not tax stuff. Okay? It's. It's rape. And then the other option is to basically be like, okay, well, now we've got to install somebody new because it's so late in the game. And so look, this is, this is who there's the people to blame right now are Graham Platner, the people who recruited him without vetting him properly. And also, I mean, I still think I'm going to give a little to Chuck Schumer, who had years to field somebody who could be a new fresh candidate, and the best they could come up with was Janet Mills. But we're not in this position because of. Because we're saying that Graham Platner should drop out. If people want to get mad at. This is the same thing with Biden, where people want to get mad at the people saying, why don't you stand by him? Why don't you? And you know what? It's because it's my soul. That's why.
- [41:00]
A
Yeah. Not my job. Also. Also not my job.
- [41:03]
B
That's right.
- [41:04]
A
Like, okay, Sarah's paid by apac.
- [41:08]
B
Like these comments. First of all, no, I'm not paid by Bulwark subscribers.
- [41:16]
A
But also we're paid by you. Thank you for watching. I'd add to this. And I saved this one for. I have some other chats. I've been trying to put them on screen. I don't. My little tech's not working, but back here. So I'm just gonna read them. It's a mixed bag, as always. We appreciate everybody watching. I like this one. The Bulwark is quaking regarding democratic socialism. They want everything to go back to 2016, where they can be secretly racist, secretly elitist. It's like, I literally just go on down and just like, scroll down your little YouTube page to, like, four videos ago, and I was like, talking about how surprisingly good Zoran's been and how good his speech was on the 4th of July. It's like, I'm not. I truly, again, do I agree with some of the most extreme views being put out by some of the DSA candidates? Like, of course not. And, like, am I more interested in the free market than the DSA candidates are? Like, of course I am. But, like, I also want to win. I just, I just, I truly want to, like, reiterate to you to this. Like, I hate Donald Trump more than you hate anything in your life. Except for maybe for one of those commenters, maybe Jews. But for me, I hate Donald Trump. He is a extreme threat to our country. The right wing authoritarianism is a massive risk. If you told me, hey, Tim, here's a magic wand and you can. It only gives you two options to make the country a Nordic socialist state or a Donald Trump autocracy. I would make us a Nordic socialist state in two seconds, that's totally fine with me. So, like, I'm not scared. But, like, the DSA people need to take accountability, and it does suck. This is a little real talk for, I think the DSA and the populist left crowd, which is like, it's easy to like, throw spitballs at the Democratic establishment and say, you guys have kept losing a lot. And that is. And it's true. They have. And we should change things. We should do things differently. It's hard to run the races. It's hard to run the races. And like, they need to show they can win in swing states. And, and I think that there are things that the establishment candidates could learn from the populist candidates. And I think that the vice versa is true because, like, this is right now, what we're dealing with in Maine is a disaster. And, and, and the Democrats and the country would have been. Would be much better off if there was like an inoffensive resist lib running.
- [43:35]
B
Since we're fighting with the comments. Let's keep doing it. So, like somebody just said, you know, they use the F word. They said, screw your soul. The country's at stake. I agree that the country is at stake. I agree that democracy's at stake. Which is why now a rapist, an accused rapist, who, by the way, not the first piece of baggage this guy's been carrying around. Lots of other stuff going on. It's. In fact, there's multiple women now who've accused him of very toxic behavior. I'm sorry, guys. Yes, the country's at stake. That's why we needed better candidates. And it has nothing to do with Israel. You know what? Just to tag on to Tim's point, if you get Nordic socialism than our previous Republicans, Republican hearts would just be like, fine, whatever the extent to which we have been willing to not just compromise, but sort of forego a lot of bespoke policy preferences to align with Democrats to win and defeat Donald Trump. I don't like. That's what we do. That's what we've done. And so no one's funded by aipac. And you know what? Candidates who are super critical of Israel, I think that's where the Democratic base is right now. And they might be more critical than I might be, although I've been more critical than I ever have been in my life. There's a lot of bad stuff going on. So, like, this is nothing to do with apac. It has to do with who can defeat Susan Collins and how are we going to get there. And Graham Platner now has too much baggage. And that is not. We are not giving him that baggage by talking about it. We're just acknowledging the obvious. Just like we acknowledge the obvious that Joe Biden was too old to run for a second term.
- [45:07]
A
I'm Pretty concerned. I have a lot of concerns about how much money AIPAC is spending. Democratic primaries, actually, I don't. I don't think it's pretty helpful. Very helpful. Have been critical of it, but this is not there. Speaking of that, here's some other people who have weighed in on this. Ruben Gallego, who's. Who has the same consultants as Graham Platner. I think it's just worth note. Noteworthy. The allegations against Graham Platner are troubling and deeply serious. I'm rescinding my endorsement. We have Ro Khanna also kind of representing the populist left, kind of anti APAC crowd. I've been very good at the Sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations, very serious. Incredible. Grand planners should drop out from the race. I'm withdrawing my endorsement. So that's it.
- [45:50]
B
He's gone. He's done.
- [45:51]
A
Frankly. Frankly. Ro Khanna and Rubin, like, you're going farther than I would have expected. Again, it's so funny. Like people are to take this moment for like the. And they'll be infighting on the Internet about the Democratic Party. But like, once again, this is like the Democratic Party across factions being responsible. Like, Rokhan is not digging in right now because he's in part of his factional fight. Just like again, just like when Andrew Cuomo like had these accusations, a lot of the centrist Democrats threw him overboard, you know. Correctly. Correctly. Right. Correctly. It was the right thing to do. So I just, there's no, there's really no surviving it for Platner. So. And at this point, I guess the question is how to move forward with. With a candidate that comes out of, you know, a state party convention, which is not ideal, but, you know, hopefully. I think the best thing would be that that candidate can kind of channel some of the messaging from Platner in order to, you know, hopefully make his biggest supporters, like, feel like they have a stake in the campaign. I think that's going to be a big challenge. But, you know, but doing so in a way that kind of speaks to the median main voter and that frankly just gets the. Again, just gets the coalition out.
- [47:13]
B
I swear to God, winning Maine wouldn't like if somebody would run and say, hello, I'm Joe and I'm literally a generic Democrat. I will be a generic Democrat for you. I will go in there and I will vote with Democrats and I will support Democrats and I will stand in the way of absolutely everything Donald Trump is doing. A candidate could probably win.
- [47:36]
A
Yep, a lot of push Again, I mentioned him, but it seems like Troy Jackson is a popular person being mentioned among Platner supporters right now. Again, he's a state senator, was a logger, described himself as progressive, so we'll see how that goes. I wanted. I have one end, two fun end things I want to do. I'm just paging through the comments here. Sorry, guys. I wanted to put these on screen, but I don't get that working right now.
- [48:06]
B
I thought you were a professional streamer.
- [48:07]
A
Now I know. Yes. This person says y' all were circle the wagons as Republicans. No, I was. Not that. I actually left being the Republican because I did not want to circle the wagons. Literally the opposite.
- [48:19]
B
Definite opposite.
- [48:20]
A
Okay, but thank you. But thank you for your $2. Troy Jackson pulls well against Collins. Jay Dizzle. There you go. Troy Jackson again. Some people who. Here's Trav. Some people who. Oh, there you got it on screen. Some people who wouldn't vote for Harris because of Israel were willing to stump for Platinum despite a Nazi tattoo and the media game for Algo Love. Yeah, that's not a nice thing to say about some of the Platner people. Careful of this analysis. Platner is not a DSA candidate. This is. I just want to take this really quick because I got a pile on. On this from some readers or some. About where I used DSA shorthand the other day. I'm like, using DSA as an umbrella term for populist left. Every. Like, we got to just everybody. I understand. Like, all the terms are changing. Like, liberal used to mean far left, and now the progressives use liberal as a pejorative because liberal means centrist.
- [49:15]
B
Yeah, I kind of like being a liberal.
- [49:17]
A
I'm a liberal now. Hey, it's awesome. So I'm a liberal, but. So just FYI, if I'm talking about dsa, maybe I'll just start saying populist left, but I kind of just mean broadly, you know, the. The folks in that. Because. Because the big Platner supporters are also the same as a lot of the big and. And literally the same as far as the consultants are concerned. He is Zoran's consultant, Morris Cats. I had on my podcast a couple months ago. Character is everything. We appreciated that. Let's see here. Oh, I liked this one. This is worth your 9.99 big lasagna. There is only one option to replace Platner, an intellectual policy wonk with progressive bona fides and roots in Maine. It's Matthew Ecclesiast. I don't think that's the path. I don't think that's. We have.
- [50:06]
B
I don't think that's gonna play.
- [50:07]
A
We have some HCR stuff anyway. Okay.
- [50:12]
B
I think hcr. I think HCR and Kinzinger are two good options, guys.
- [50:15]
A
Okay. Kinzer goes in Houston, so I don't think Kinzinger. Somebody. Somebody's unhappy with the rest of you in the chat, and they're saying that they are not liking the what about ism. It's serious and should be treated as serious. I agree with that and I appreciate you, Pat. Oh, it's Pat. It's our guy Pat. Pat Kanky. He's got a good YouTube channel. You should go check him out, too. He's pastor over in Minnesota. We need more liberal pastors out there fighting a good fight. Okay, my final take. Are you ready for this?
- [50:48]
B
Yeah. Hit me.
- [50:50]
A
Gotta hand it to the people of Blue Sky. Oh, wait, no. I have two final takes. Here's number one. They're both fun. Gotta hand it to the people of Blue Sky. The blue sky resists. Libs never liked Platinum. They were always Janet Mills people. They're in the minority. And it's just time and again the median MSNBC miss now viewer with their basic takes, which is that Donald Trump is bad and Donald Trump is as the Orange man is bad and that we should support women candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack and Kamala Harris and Janet Mills. They keep getting right. They keep being right. They keep being correct.
- [51:32]
B
Guys, come back to Twitter. We need you.
- [51:34]
A
We're getting. Yeah. So shout out to the blue. There's a lot of Blue sky people sometimes get. Get, you know, made fun of a little bit. And. And with that, you know, maybe they shouldn't be. Shout out to the people of Blue Sky. Lastly, I just wanted to give you the poll. Patrick Dempsey McDreamy apparently is. Lives in Maine and has some kind of health care nonprofit in Maine. So shout out to him Doing the real work. He has a favorability rating of 43% favorable, 9% unfavorable. You can be for HCR. McDreamy for Senate is my official endorsement. So there you go, Patrick Dempsey,
- [52:20]
B
just like you were conscripted back into Hollywood to star in a little show called Grey's Anatomy. Even though they killed you off at some point, you can have a second life as senator of Maine and Save America.
- [52:32]
A
Senator McDream. All right. We love everybody. Well, no, not everybody, but the vast, vast majority of the commenters. Even those who have spirited disagreement with us and impugn our motives we agree. We appreciate all of you for being here, for communing with us. And me and Sarah are gonna be back doing this all again tomorrow on the next level. So we'll get.
- [52:52]
B
We'll see if our opinions have changed.
- [52:54]
A
I don't think they're gonna. We'll see, everybody. Thanks for hanging out.
- [52:58]
B
Bye, guys. Hey, everybody. Lady luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long, I'm gonna be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com which is an amazing American owned social casino. It obviously features over 1000 slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest. Com, get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited.
- [53:27]
A
Visit spinquest.com for more details.