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This is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of money take. I'm your host Isaac Saul and on today's episode we're going to be talking about Graham Platner and some of the controversy surrounding the Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine. Going to share some views from the left and the right and some views from Maine columnists and then I'm going to share my take. Before we jump in, a quick heads up that tomorrow we are publishing that response piece to what I wrote last week. The story titled yes, things are actually pretty bad right now. Tomorrow in another members Only edition, we running a response to that piece from associate editor Audrey Moorhead. She's gonna be making the case that Trump isn't the only one to blame that the current political climate is a direct result of the cultural and institutional dominance of the left. I think it's a really good piece. I've read a draft of it. We're still working on it and we're gonna publish that on the website and then she'll probably do a read down of it here on the podcast. So keep an ear out for that and it'll be worth your time, I hope. All right, with that, I'm going to send it over to John for today's main topic and I'll be back for my take.
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Thanks, Isaac, and welcome everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, President Donald Trump met with President Xi Jinping and the two reached an agreement to lower US Tariffs on Chinese imports in exchange for a promise from China to crack down on the trade of chemicals used to make fentanyl, ease exports of rare earth minerals, and buy US Soybeans. Shortly before the meeting, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing on an equal basis, alluding to other countries nuclear programs. Number two, the Federal Reserve voted to lower the benchmark federal Funds rate by 25 basis points to a range of 3.75 to 4%, the second rate cut in 2025. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the current outlook for employment and inflation appears similar to September, when the central bank voted to cut rates for the first time. Number three, more than 30 deaths have been attributed to Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic as rescue operations continue. The hurricane was downgraded to a Category 2 storm and is moving toward Bermuda as of Thursday morning. Number four, the Senate voted 5046 to advance a resolution to repeal tariffs on Canadian imports imposed by President Trump using emergency powers. Four Republicans joined all voting Democrats in support of the measure, which now moves to the House. And number five, a police raid targeting a drug gang in neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, resulted in at least 119 deaths. The raid sparked protests at the state's government headquarters. Okay. Two weeks ago on the show, I interviewed Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, the oysterman, an upstart candidate trying to win the Democratic nomination to challenge Susan Collins in November. And a lot has happened since that interview. I mean, just days after that interview, a number of Platner's old Reddit posts resurfaced, showing the candidate had made a number of offensive statements online, calling himself a communist, calling all police officers bastards, using anti gay slurs, suggesting black people don't tip, minimizing sexual assault and appearing to call for political violence. Platner has since apologized for all those posts, saying that the posts, which are.
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At least four years old, are not.
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Indicative of who he is today. And he has also openly talked about the impact of his time in the.
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Military and the PTSD he has suffered.
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And what he has battled through since that period of time. In recent weeks, Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, has faced controversy for some prior statements and actions uncovered by news outlets. Platner is running against Maine governor Janet Mills and several other candidates for the Democratic nomination. The winner is expected to face Senator Susan Collins in the general election. Platner launched his bid for Senate in August, running on a platform of campaign finance reform, Medicare for all and breaking up large corporations, among other progressive priorities. Before his entry into politics, he was deployed three times to Iraq with the Marine Corps and then served in Afghanistan with the Maryland Army National Guard, according to his campaign website. He struggled with undiagnosed PTSD and physical challenges from his service and moved back to Maine to seek treatment. He subsequently began work as an oyster farmer in his hometown. Platner has risen to national prominence for his explicit challenges to the Democratic Party's establishment, drawing comparisons to ascended progressive figures like New York City mayoral candidate Zoram Mamdani and Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Senator Bernie Sanders has also endorsed Platner. However, controversy has followed his newfound spotlight. On October 16, CNN published comments Platner made on Reddit years prior. In the most notable post, Platner calls himself a vegetable, growing psychedelics, taking socialist and a communist, says all police officers are bastards, and suggests white people are racist or stupid. Platner disavowed the posts, telling cnn, that was very much me f ing around on the Internet. I don't think that any of that is indicative of who I am today, really. On October 17, the Washington Post published additional deleted Reddit posts from 2013 in which Platner appeared to downplay concerns about sexual assault in the military. Platner apologized for the posts, which he said he made in a difficult time in his life after his fourth deployment. I don't want people to judge me off the dumbest thing I said on the Internet 12 years ago, he said. The Advocate also uncovered posts in which he used homophobic slurs and the term gay as an insult, which which Platner apologized for saying today. I find that stuff abhorrent. Separately, recent reporting revealed that Platner had a skull symbol tattooed on his chest that is associated with Nazi police. He says he got the tattoo during a night of drinking in 2007 while in Croatia on leave from the military. Claiming not to know the Symbols association, Platner covered up the tattoo after its existence was made public, though a former acquaintance claimed Platner had known about the Nazi association for years. The multiple revelations have disrupted Platner's campaign. His political director, Genevieve McDonald, resigned over the Reddit posts, and Kevin Brown, a longtime friend, stepped down as campaign manager just days after assuming the role. Brown said he recently found out his wife is pregnant and he would not be able to dedicate sufficient time to the race. Platner has also escalated his criticisms of the Democratic Party, telling attendees at a town hall event on Monday that the party is trying to destroy his life. Today we'll explore the controversy surrounding Platner with views from the right, left and main writers, and then Isaac's take.
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Alright, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right criticizes Platner's defenders, calling out a double standard. Some say Platner's candidacy is based on a fraudulent image. In the American Conservative, W. James Antle III wrote about Platner partisanship and problems. Maybe none of it is disqualifying anymore. Platner is a candidate with a regrettable tattoo is how one prominent progressive commentator put it. Censorious Hall Monitor liberalism that refuses to accept growth in people is bad for Democrats. Another opined Antle said a University of New Hampshire poll that was partially conducted after all the negative news broke shows Platner beating Janet Mills, the incumbent governor, and Chuck Schumer's choice for Senate in a Democratic primary by 34 points. It is impossible to imagine this kind of grace being extended to Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk, a young Donald Trump campaign worker, or really anyone a millimeter to the right of, well, Susan Collins, even in a limited what a shame that a promising person fell apart once carefully vetted sort of way. Certainly not in an unabashed we all make mistakes when we're young and this guy has interesting stuff to say about the war, the working class and wokeness manner, antle wrote. Whether Platner's Reddit history represents genuine bigotry or bizarre anti woke contrarian horseplay, it isn't healthy and it isn't bad coalition politics to say so, no matter how low level those involved might be. In the Daily Caller, Amber Duke criticized Platner's contrived working class act. Platner is described by left wing activists and podcaster Emma Viglund as authentically working class. Except Platner's dad was a lawyer with his own private practice who was reprimanded for professional misconduct, ran a local office and as a candidate supported painting crosswalks in LGBT pride colors and donated $50,000 to Democrats over the years. Duke said his own mother owns two restaurants and a gift shop, helped fund Platner's oyster business and is apparently his biggest customer. His grandfather was a renowned modernist architect who graduated from Cornell. His aunt runs the children's care facility at Yale New Haven Hospital. Platner went to private high school. Is this a working class phenom or the son of wealthy left wing activists who spent his life struggling with his identity before finally creating a false one? Duke asked. Platner's uncovered Reddit posts do even more to deny him credibility with real working class folks. He called all police bastards, described himself as a communist and an antifa super soldier, and says that white rural Americans are stupid and racist. Color me skeptical that Platner has the working class best interests at heart. All right, that is it for what the right is saying. Which brings us to what the left is saying. The left is mixed on the controversies, with some arguing Democrats should continue to pursue energizing candidates even if they're flawed. Others say Platner's appeal won't extend beyond the Democratic primary. In the New Republic, Alex Shepard said, graham Platner is a disaster. Democrats need more candidates like him. I don't think anyone could take a look at the state of the Democratic Party or relatedly the larger Democratic brand and conclude that the party's king making is going well, shepard wrote. Platner generated a ton of attention online by seeming like the kind of candidate Democrats need, an authentic person with a knack for communicating a populist message in a social media era. It turned out he was a dud. That is going to happen sometimes when backing inexperienced candidates, perhaps more often than when backing experienced ones. Democratic leaders and incumbents are on the whole so old and uninspiring that anyone with a little bit of charisma will generate the kind of hype that Platner did. He didn't work out and now the Democratic Party leaders can boast that they got this one right, but they got it right by doing the same thing they always do, the same thing. That has left the party powerless and in its weakest position in years, shepard said. The Democrats need excitement and youth. That requires taking some risks, which means elevating more candidates like Platner. So many of them that none of them carry the burdens of being the party's fresh faced future. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Chait wrote about what progressives keep getting wrong. Platner is toughing it out, as scandal plagued candidates almost always do. What's surprising is that his supporters appear completely unfazed by the bad news avalanche. Rather than abandon his candidacy or even back off slightly until they've seen the end of the damaging stories, they have accepted his apologies and backed him to the hilt, chaitz said. Indeed, progressives have treated the Platner revelations as a scandal, revealing more about the perfidy of his enemies than about him. The left's continued embrace of Platner has a certain logic. Progressives have a theory of political change for which he remains, despite his massive and ever expanding political baggage, the ideal prototype. That is, rather than abandon unpopular positions, Democrats should court votes by nominating more candidates who look like, talk like and ideally even are working class people, chait wrote. But the reason Democrats are underdogs in this race is that its incumbent, Susan Collins, has won election after election by cultivating a reputation as a moderate, which illustrates the value of ideological moderation. So far, Platner is making little effort to do this. Alright, that is it for what writers from the right and the left are saying. Which brings us to what main writers are saying. Some main writers say Platner's scandals are disqualifying. Others argue Platner should stay in the race and make his case to voters. In the Portland Press Herald, Stephen Collins said Platner should bow out. The trouble is, there's nothing special about Platner. I'm willing to believe he's a decent guy today, but I can't lose sight of the fact that he's never won an election, never earned a college degree, never achieved any distinction except as an enthusiastic organizer for socialist and other left wing causes, collins wrote. Platner's biggest achievement in life thus far is that he has persuaded a large number of Democrats that he ought to be their Senate candidate in Maine. I'm flummoxed at the notion that his ability to sway activists is extraordinary enough for them to overlook a growing number of shocking revelations. With Platner as their candidate, Democrats won't just lose big to Collins, they'll hand Trump's team the opportunity to smear other candidates with the charge that Democrats are cop haters who despise rural voters. Collins said Platner risks spoiling races around the country for candidates who really do possess the experience, education and eloquence to help stop the MAGA agenda. He should stick to oyster farming and let Janet Mills focus on what she's good at, winning elections. In CentralMaine.com, state Representative Vallie Geiger wrote, Graham Platner deserves grace. I worked at the Tagus VA for six years as a nurse and talked with hundreds of veterans. Unless you're a psychopath, if you've seen combat, you likely return to the US with physical and moral injuries, geiger said. My own nephew was a Marine. He returned from service whole in body but with moral injury. My nephew, like Graham Platner, sought mental health treatment at the VA and is healing with their support and the support of a loving family. Graham Platner is a success story. He returned lost and struggling, but found his way back. Platner is a reformer and reformers are angry. He understands that the true enemy of the American people is the oligarchy, the oilmen who keep us going to war and burning fossil fuels as the planet heats up, the weapons industry that profits from war and uses young idealistic men as cannon fodder and the politicians who serve them, geiger wrote. Platner's opponents intend to silence a man who would disrupt the status quo, fight for a better life for those who work for a living, who would demand that the obscene profits of the few are shared by all who made those profits possible. Alright, let's head over to Isaac for his take.
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Alright, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take so in a lot of ways, I actually understand why Democrats might have a hard time letting platner go. Democrats 2024 election postmortem has produced an obsession with reconnecting to young men and populist policies. Can the left find their Joe Rogan or their Charlie Kirk? How can the party message its progressive populist ideas without sounding like out of touch Ivy League professors? And then in walks Graham Platner out of the blue. The party is gifted, this tough looking, burly ex Marine who talks like the offspring of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Unlike Ocasio Cortez and maybe Zo Rahmandani, though, he didn't have the demographic baggage that might scare off a moderate or a conservative. He's a white, hairy ex military dude, a tough working class man. At 41 years old, he's even young, especially for a senator. But he's got the gift of a gravelly voice that feels battle worn and wizened. His Wikipedia page is speckled with biographical foresight, like protesting the Iraq War as a senior in high school. Yet when he deployed for a few tours in the Middle east, he did so in a combat role as one of the tough guys actually holding a gun and fighting. He says he thought he could do some good. Best of all, he's not an urbanite teeing up a run in an already deep blue city or state. He's from Maine, running in Maine and runs an oyster farming business in Maine. On paper, Democrats were in heaven. A farmer, a Marine, a progressive, all in a state where they could actually flip a Senate seat. Politics and biographical details aside, Platner reminds me a lot of politicians like Mamdani or Marjorie Taylor Greene or John Fetterman. They just feel genuinely authentic. You get the sense, regardless of their political views, they that they are being themselves at a moment when the Democratic leadership seems so disconnected from their base, when the party feels unmoored to any post that isn't Trump is bad. When Congress has become so geriatric it felt like the political gods decided to hand Democrats a gift from heaven. At least that's what it felt like. The truth, as we learn repeatedly, is that when a populist uprising boosts an otherwise unknown candidate into the national spotlight, we still have a lot to learn about them. Right now, Platner is weathering several controversies the Nazi tattoo, the downplaying of sexual assault in the military, and the anti gay slurs, among other controversial posts from his past. Those scandals are important, but it's equally important that his resume offers little to counter them. He serves as Harbor Master in Sullivan, Maine and sits on the Town Planning Board. Both positions are appointed. He's never won an election of any kind, and I don't think he's ever managed more than a handful of people at a time. Now he's a couple of steps away from the United States Senate. That populist working class authenticity? Well, it might not be so authentic. He comes from a line of well off very left academic types. He went to a pricey private school. The biggest customer for his business is his mom, a restaurant owner, and he has told news outlets that the business doesn't make much money, but it works out because he lives off disabled veteran benefits. At 41, nothing on his resume indicates he's been a successful enough leader to become one of the most 100 powerful elected officials in the country. And to be clear, I actually think Congress could use a few more normie people with normie resumes. But if those resumes are loaded with this kind of baggage, there are some problems. We aren't even close to the general election yet where Platner would run against a Republican who the GOP will be trying desperately to protect. And this is what we know. After a few months in the friendly part of the cycle, I imagine that a whole year of opposition research will only unearth more problems for Platner. As for my standards, well, I've tried to make them clear. I called for Democrat J. Jones to drop out, and I was happy to see some accountability for the young Republicans whose text messages were full of racism, rape jokes, and support for political violence. At the same time, I'm also for redemption and grace. To me, Platner's case rests on a kind of razor's edge. I can genuinely see the case for either letting Mainers decide or rallying around a call for him to drop out. I appreciated progressive pundit Emma Vigeland's take that Casting Platner out seems like the censorious Hall Monitor liberalism that refuses to accept growth in people. And I actually think she's right. But if Democrats want to support a forgiveness and grace campaign, they should be consistent when an up and coming Republican is in the spotlight. It's not hard to imagine how they'd treat an important Republican candidate with a Nazi tattoo. Just look back at how they approached Pete Hegseth's controversial ink. Personally, I found Platner's apology for his past Reddit posts believable, genuine, and compelling. In some ways, it made me like him even more. He admitted he was wrong, explained his state of mind in a non defensive way, and promised to try to do better. It was as sincere an apology as you could ask for. The Nazi tattoo scandal, for a lot of reasons, has felt different. Platner's story doesn't quite add up. He said he didn't know the symbol had been used by Nazis, but others say he definitely did. He got it in Croatia drunkenly, but never decided to do anything about it in the nearly 20 years before it became public knowledge. What are we supposed to make of this? In my mind, I wonder, are the odds better that Platner holds some Nazi views or that he liked the way some edgy body art looked? Despite what the meaning might be, I'd put my money on the latter, but it's not a bet I'm particularly eager to make for a potential U.S. senator. Democrats like Representative Jake Auchincloss from Massachusetts, whom we know quite well here at Tangle, have called on Platner to drop out. I think this is a perfectly reasonable moral line to draw in the sand. If nothing else, it might be wise politically. Despite Platner's early success in the polls, the general election could get ugly, especially if the GOP can dig up something even juicier. Even at 72, Senator Susan Collins, the Republican, will be a formidable opponent for whomever she faces, let alone someone with Platner's controversies and thin resume. At the same time, I think there's also a case for Platner staying in and letting the voters decide. Mainers have the information they need in order to make an informed decision. Platner is in a primary race against the current governor, Janet Mills, an experienced, well funded establishment pick with high name recognition. If he can win this primary race against a party supported candidate who is currently the governor, what does that say about the Democratic establishment's staying power and why would they resist? At the same time, should his ability to address and overcome the controversies then win in an open Democratic process supersede the will of other Democrats who want to see him walk away? My answer, given the transgressions here, is probably yes. But I don't blame folks like Auchincloss for staking out a different high ground. Both extending grace and holding high standards are worthy principles to stick to. And if I were leaving the Democratic Party, I'm not entirely sure what I would do. Foreign we'll be right back after this quick break.
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Thanks Isaac. Here's your under the Radar story for today folks. On Monday, Indiana Governor Mike Braun called a special legislative session to consider redrawing the state's congressional map, which would make it the fourth Republican controlled state to do so in the middle of the redistricting cycle after Texas, Missouri and North Carolina. Republicans currently control seven of nine districts in the state, but new maps could be drawn to give the party control of all nine. However, Republican lawmakers are divided on the move. The session will be held as several other states controlled by both Republicans and Democrats pursue or consider mid decade redistricting to boost the controlling party's representation in the U.S. house. NBC News has this story and there's a link in today's episode Description alright, next up is our numbers section. The number of days until Maine's Senate primary on June 9, 2026 is 222. Graham Platner is 41 years old, Senator Susan Collins is 72 years old and Governor Janet Mills is 77 years old. Collins margin of victory in Maine's 2020 Senate election was 8.6%. Mills margin of victory in Maine's 2022 gubernatorial election was 13.3%. Platner's campaign contributions to date total $3,248,670. According to a University of New Hampshire poll released on October 23, 58% of likely Maine primary voters say they will support Platner, and 24% say they will support Mills. And according to a SoCal Strategies poll conducted between October 21st and 25th, 36% of likely Maine primary voters say they will support Platner, while 41% say they will support Mills. And last but not least, our have a nice day story Sequoia Park Zoo is California's oldest zoo, but it's still experiencing some firsts. Earlier this month, an employee discovered a wild black bear interacting with the zoo's black bears through their enclosures fencing. The wild bear went nose to nose with its counterparts, making what zoo staff called introductions. The entire episode was friendly and the bear was eventually drawn out of the zoo and sent back into the wild. How exactly the bear managed to enter the zoo, which is surrounded by an eight foot tall fence topped with barbed wire, remains a mystery. The New York Times has this story and there's a link in today's episode description alright everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, Please go to retangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. As Isaac mentioned at the top, in this week's Friday edition, we're going to be running a response to Isaac's piece on the Trump administration and how things are actually pretty bad. Associate Editor Audrey Moorhead will be making the case that the current political climate is a direct result of of the cultural and institutional dominance of the left. A reminder that Friday editions are for members only, so if you haven't yet signed up, it's a great time to do so. Issac, Ari and Camille will be here for the suspension of the Rules podcast and I will return on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have an absolutely fantastic weekend, y'. All. Peace.
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Our Executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive producer is John Lawrence. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saw Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75 to learn more about tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@retangle.com.
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B
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson star and Die My Love, a ferocious portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Lawrence and Pattinson play a passionate couple who, after moving to an isolated house in the country, find their relationship unraveling following the birth of their first child. Vanity Fair hails Lawrence's performance as astonishing, and Time calls it the kind of performance you go to the movies for. From director Lynne Ramsey, Die My Love is Only in theaters November 7th. Rated R.