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- [00:00]
Graham Platner
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Podcast Host
Ladies and gentlemen, Susan Collins is very concerned and she has very good reason to be very concerned because she has an opponent that is not beholden to corporations or to an incompetent man that lies about his weight and height. I want to welcome to ihip News senatorial candidate Graham Platner from the great state of Maine. Mr. Platner, how are you today?
- [00:31]
Graham Platner
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me on.
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Podcast Host
I was so excited to see that you were running against Susan Collins because as a woman that lives in a red state, who wanted other women that didn't live in Christian nationalist states to vote to protect the rights of women federally across the country, she has consistently been such a disappointment. I mean, just such a total disappointment. She didn't stand up to Kavanaugh. She didn't stand up for women. And I was so relieved to see somebody with a message like yours run against her.
- [01:07]
Graham Platner
Yeah, she has been this attempt to play the moderate charade that she's done for so long. I mean, at this point, I don't think anybody buys it. I don't think Republicans buy it, and I certainly don't think Democratic voters in Maine buy it. I. It is very clear that she only votes for things that she can claim are moderate when she knows the Republican Party has the votes to pass them or to pass what they want to get done. She never stands up when it counts. She never takes the risks when it counts. She merely wants to be able to message that she's a moderate without ever having to do anything real that's going to back it up. And obviously like her, her votes to confirm people like rfk, her votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. Back when she said that she, she very. That this was Roe v. Wade was settled law, and that's why she wasn't worried about it. And here we find ourselves. So she very much, I think, understands what's going on. She's just trying to play a messaging game.
- [02:18]
Podcast Host
And don't you think that's the problem with moderates in general is they're trying to. It's like a pick me politics. Like I want everybody to like me. And therefore you don't stand in any. Stand for anything. And at the core of our party right now, we have two moderates who have been consistent, as consistently disappointing as Senator Collins has. And over the weekend, we saw Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer go on national television and humiliate themselves and show zero courage. Number one, Hakeem Jeffries voted to honor Charlie Kirk. How a black man votes to honor an unrepentant racist is beyond me. And then you have Chuck Schumer embarrass himself on national television, basically saying he's going to continue to talk to Zoran Mamdani and he wants to continue to write strongly worded letters and sit down and demand a meeting with President Trump. And I just wanted to take my phone, Graham, and throw it at the tv. It makes me so mad. How do you feel as new blood in the Democratic Party? How do you feel when you see these beholden politicians that play pick me politics, act like this at this very historic moment in our country?
- [03:32]
Graham Platner
I don't think that you could find people more ideologically and emotionally incapable of rising to their moment in history than the leadership of the Democratic Party right now. In many ways, I used to get much angrier at them than I do now. It used to be a, I thought that they were like making these choices. I honestly think that just because of the kind of politics they grew up in, they can't help themselves. This is just all they know how to do, which is not an excuse, by the way. I mean, for me, that's a, that's the exact reason why they can't be in leadership right now. We, for instance, on the continuing resolution stuff last Friday, we know that we are engaging with an op with an, with, with an opponent that is not interested in coming to any serious compromise. That's how we have to be acting, too. We should be asking for all the money that was cut for Medicaid and Medicare to come back before we start talking about funding the government. Now, we know they're not going to do it, but that's why you have to ask for it and then message on it, pretending that we're supposed to still be in this world where we're going to find some common ground with the Republican Party on these things. It's, it's insane and it just makes us lose and continue losing. There still are mechanisms of power when you are not in the majority. We need to be using those mechanisms of power which are primarily around hold. Argue for everything that you want. Hold out until you get it. You're not going to get it. And at that point you get to message on the fact that Republicans would rather keep Medicaid and Medicare unfunded than open the government. But that's not what our leadership is doing and it's exactly what they need to be. And then on the, you know, I, I was told vote blue no matter who, for ages. And I did, even for people I did not think were the best candidates for the job. The fact that the same people that told us that now refuse to endorse Zoram Mandani, who is the primary winner in the party, is, I mean, it's. To say it's laughable is. It's something else. It's so ridiculous, it's so obvious what it is and it's result. I mean, I have no patience for it, which quite frankly is why I'm in this race now. I'm sick and tired of waiting for Democratic Party leadership to figure it out. We've got to go do it ourselves.
- [06:04]
Co-host
Now when I see a senator like Susan Collins, who, she comes out and she says all the things that I would assume her constituents want to hear, because when I hear it, I think, okay, well that sounds like, like she's leaning. She's going to put up some type of a protest. And then she doesn't. And she continues to vote for Trump and all of his horrible policies and then she doesn't show up to town halls. How are the cons constituents that you're talking to? Are they perceiving this turnabout whiplash with her? Are they angry about it? Or do they even know about it? Because the right wing media echo chamber.
- [06:44]
Graham Platner
Oh no, they know about it. I, amusingly enough, my Republican friends are as disgusted with Susan Collins as my Democratic friends. When I have many of both because I live in a small town in eastern Maine. The people just see her for what she is now. She's a establishment politician who is trying to play a game of finding a politics that is going to keep her getting elected. But over time that stops working. Because over time people just see you as, as not committed to anything. Everything is just a political decision. There is no commitment to a deeper project. There's no commitment to your constituents. There is just a commitment to maintaining power and the status quo. And I know a lot of Republican voters who, who dislike her immensely. They also just see someone who is willing to change their positions at the drop of a hat. And whether they agree with them or disagree with those positions, over time you just begin to see somebody who, it's very clear the project they're engaged in. And that's not a project of representing the people of Maine. That's a project of representing themselves and the power that they have amassed. And frankly, the people that have allowed them to stay in power, which are mostly their donors, that does not speak to the people of Maine. And People are beginning to notice. Actually, I don't even think they're beginning to notice. People have noticed. We all know what's going on now, both Republicans and Democrats, which for me is why there is a real opening in this race to unseat her. And I don't think we beat her in 2026. I honestly think we trounce her.
- [08:20]
Podcast Host
Love it. Love it. What about AIPAC money? What do you think about that? Democrats taking money from the AIPAC lobby, which is the same lobby that MAGA is completely beholden to. I think this is a cancer in our party, and I think we as voters need to sniff it out. And I think that's the problem with Joachim and that's the problem with Schumer is they're beholden to the same people that are beholden to Donald Trump and they're just the party of MAGA Lite.
- [08:51]
Graham Platner
Oh, I agree entirely. I refuse to take APAC money. I won't. When you, when you follow the money, you find that they support many, many hard right conservative candidates. It is no surprise to me that many of the people in our party who are incapable of standing up to this stuff are also taking money from the same people who fund MAGA Republicanism. So it is a. It cannot be. I am all for a big tent in the Democratic Party. I would love to see everything from people on the left to people who are moderates, even to people that hold some right positions as long as they're not, frankly, abhorrent. I. I'm okay with all. Yeah, as long as they're not fascists.
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Co-host
Right?
- [09:38]
Graham Platner
If you still think people should have health care. But I disagree with you on other stu. Still a place in our party for you. There is no place in our party for corporate interests that just want to rob working people. There is no place in our party for political interests who also want to fund and support right wing extremism. The idea that the Democratic Party is supposed to remain open to that I find to be absurd. But as long as we are taking APAC money, we are taking money from people who are trying to fund some of the most disgusting right wing candidates in this country.
- [10:18]
Podcast Host
It's. It's. It's unbelievable how compromised so many Democrats are by this money. And recently Representative Tom Suozzi said that he felt like Democratic socialists should leave the Democratic Party and start their own party. And I like what you just said. I think that we still remain the. The party of the people. And for those Democratic politicians that want to be beholden by MAGA Corp. MAGA funding corporations. You need to leave the party and just go join maga. You're the one who is in the wrong spot. Not us, not the people that fight for Medicare, not the people that want education, not the people that want free and fair elections. It is so I feel like right now I can't decide what we need to fight more. And I want to get your take on this. Like every morning when we do a podcast, I what's the number one thing we should do? Should we try to get Schumer and Jeffries out to get a real opposition party in place or do I just keep hammering at Trump and then I realize that's the thing, Democrats, you got to walk and chew gum. So I think we have to hammer at our leadership and we have to hammer at Trump and we have to be everywhere, all, whatever that saying is. Everywhere, all the time. All at once. All at once, you know, whatever we do.
- [11:40]
Graham Platner
But you know, honestly though, I truly think that the these are the same exact project. A Democratic Party that can build power and truly one, resist the rise of fascism, authoritarianism, but also in resisting that build power to build a better future. That is the same project as us trying to turn the party around. Right? Like I like these are very much. We do not get one without the other. We need to rebuild the party from the ground up. We need to look if there are people in our party who think that they have more in common with taking, they have more in common with corporations that fund Republicans than people who want health care for all and identify as DSA members. Go be a Republican. There's a party for you. It exists. It's right there. Just go. And that like the project that I think we truly need to undertake, we need to turn the Democratic Party back into the party of the people, back in the party of working people. A party of labor unions, a party of community organizations, a party that fights for big structural change like Social Security and Medicare. Those were our things. We built those. We need to go back to being the party that wants to build that kind of stuff. And to do that, we are going to have to lose the corporate owned establishment politicians who do not want to do it. That's fine, just go be a Republican. But I don't, I don't want to be in a party with them as my comrades and my friends. I want to be in a party with people who want to fight for working people and fight for big structural change. That's where I want to be. And if someone's taking money from the exact same entities that are funding MAGA Republicans. Those are the people I don't want to share the party with.
- [13:32]
Podcast Host
Last question, Pumps.
- [13:34]
Co-host
So when you start meeting with your constituents and doing all, all the things that you're doing, are you seeing working people in Maine that feel like that if they voted for Donald Trump the first time that they've realized now he is not doing what he said he was going to do? My economics are worse.
- [13:51]
Graham Platner
So, I mean, like in eastern Maine, our health care system is falling apart right now. And not in some, like, academic sense, but it's actually materially beginning to fail. We have hospitals that are going to be closing because of the Medicaid and Medicare cuts, and they were already holding on by a shoestring because, frankly, for profit health care in rural Maine does not work. The Trump tariffs have driven prices up for everybody across the board. I have friends of mine who voted for Donald Trump three times, who every single time I talk to them now tell me about how Trump is destroying the country because they're all builders and they have watched their costs go up 30, 40% and the people they buy materials from are telling them it's because of tariff uncertainty that the prices are this high. As material conditions deteriorate for working people, we as Democrats need to be armed with policies that can be cogently and easily explained as to why they're going to improve people's material lives. And we need to be relentless about those policies and relentless about messaging on that. And frankly, that alone, there are a lot of Republican voters in eastern Maine who I'm friends with, who I know would absolutely vote for me, as long as I stick to the idea of taxing the rich and using it to protect health care, using it to protect housing and bringing housing costs down, using it to expand Social Security. They all agree with these things. And many of the reasons that they've walked away from the Democratic Party is the Democratic Party stopped fighting for those things. But we need to again be the party that fights for that stuff. And I think if we do, working people in this country have the exact same material needs, regardless of who they voted for. And we need to be ready with open arms to bring a lot of people back who are going to realize that as working people, Donald Trump and right wing populism is do not have the answers for them. And we need to be there with the answers.
- [15:58]
Podcast Host
I'm all in. I want to vote for you today, right now. Tell our viewers and listeners how they can find you and donate to your campaign and I just want to tell our viewers and listeners I have donated as a resident of Oklahoma, I have donated to politicians and states that can make a difference, like Graham's race against Susan Collins because it can have the biggest impact nationwide. So even if you live in some red state somewhere, this means can help your state by not normalizing the erosion of civil liberties that Susan Collins always inconsistently votes for with her Supreme Court picks and all the, with all the MAGA stuff with Trump. So tell our viewers and listeners how.
- [16:41]
Graham Platner
They can find you so gram4senate.com on which by the way, you will find my very well fleshed out policy page because I hate vagueness in politics and refuse to partake in that myself. You'll also find links to our donations. We've raised two and a half million dollars in the past four weeks. I think at this point we have like an average of a $30 donation from 70,000 individual donors. Like I said, I'm not taking APAC money, I'm not taking super PAC money. We're not taking corporate dark PAC money. We're taking money from people who work and people who are willing to donate. We need the help to do it. We're not going to beat them with the money, we are going to beat them with people though. But we need the money to organize the people. So if you can donate, that's great. The other thing though, and this is big, is that I'm asking people to volunteer their time and their Energy. We've had 7,000 volunteers sign up. There are mechanisms for you to volunteer for us even if you don't live in the great state of Maine. You can phone bank for us, you can help us with data. Anybody that's got frankly spreadsheet skills, we could use them right now because 7,000 volunteers requires a lot of organization. So there are lots of ways for you to get involved even if you don't live in Maine. But I really urge everyone to try to pitch in what you can. We can, we can do this. We are going to use this race not just to beat Susan Collins, but in many ways to rebuild the Democratic Party into the party it needs to be.
- [18:17]
Podcast Host
And listener. Nothing will give these people a louder message than the Grand Platners and the Zora Momdani's of the world who are being fundraised against, attacked by these right wing soft Democratic donors against them that they can come and just kick ass at the ballot box. So send $5, donate some time, phone bank. She and I did it for the last presidential election. We phone banked. It's actually kind of fun.
- [18:45]
Co-host
It is kind of fun.
- [18:45]
Podcast Host
And so anyway, Graham, thank you so much. As your campaign goes on and on, please know we always want to have you on here. We 100% support you. We 100% support everything that you said. I want to make sure that your race is always on the national radar so that people outside of Maine can help you get elected. Thanks again so much.
- [19:08]
Graham Platner
Thank you. And I just want to say I'm a big fan. You guys are. You guys. Oh, yeah. No, you guys are fantastic. I. I'm a. I'm a huge fan. So it's a. It's a real pleasure to be on.
- [19:17]
Commercial Announcer
Oh, great.
- [19:18]
Podcast Host
Thank you so much, Graham. And I want to have you back on in a couple months.
- [19:22]
Graham Platner
Awesome. I'd love to. Thank you.
- [19:36]
Commercial Announcer
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