Trump, Platner, and the Mistake America Keeps Making

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: The Bulwark
Episode: Trump, Platner, and the Mistake America Keeps Making
Date: July 9, 2026
Host: Mona Charen
Guest: Will Saletan

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Overview

In this episode of The Bulwark, Mona Charen and Will Saletan critically dissect the Graham Platner scandal—a once-promising Senate candidate who dropped out after new revelations of sexual assault. The hosts examine what this episode reveals about character in public office, the recurring failures of both parties in vetting and supporting candidates, and how voters and parties justify compromise for perceived “electability.” They also reflect on parallels with other political scandals, including the Tara Reade allegation against Joe Biden, and discuss how partial revelations about personal conduct should be approached.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Platner Scandal: Shock but Not Surprise

• Initial Reactions: Will Saletan admits he was not previously in the "Platner must go" camp, largely because early revelations seemed ambiguous and not fully disqualifying.
  • Quote (Will, 02:09): "I was not in the camp previously of saying that Graham Platner should get out of the race. And the reason was on the Nazi tattoo thing. I'm like, is the guy a Nazi? No, he's not a Nazi. He has this stupid tattoo."
• Both hosts discuss the escalation: partial stories gave way to more severe revelations. Saletan confesses his error in assuming the New York Times story was the whole truth.
  • Quote (Will, 02:49): "To my colleagues and friends who said, with a guy like this, there will always be more. You will find out more. You were right and I was wrong."

2. Character Issues: Where Do We Draw the Line?

• Mona Charen draws a clear line: recurring personal misconduct is always a red flag for public trust, contrasting her skepticism of the Tara Reade allegation with Platner's pattern.
  • Quote (Mona, 04:31): "People who behave that way don't just do it once. They just don't. If somebody is that kind of a person to do something like that, there are other stories. It's always the case."
• Saletan admits to compartmentalizing personal flaws and policy aptitude but concedes the Platner case supports Charen’s argument that character is holistic.
  • Quote (Will, 09:37): "Mona, you are more conservative than I am about character... But by and large, if someone is bad in their personal life, they're probably going to be bad in a number of other ways..."

3. Lessons from the Tara Reade Allegation

• Mona revisits the Biden/Tara Reade story, noting a key difference: a lone, hard-to-believe claim (amid a public, highly trafficked setting) followed by no further reports and subsequent credibility issues with the accuser.
  • Quote (Mona, 04:31): "The fact that she was the only woman who had ever accused Biden, occasionally he put his hands on people's shoulders, that's really not what we're talking about. And so I was very skeptical of her."

4. The Challenge of Partial Disclosures

• Saletan points out the difficulty of acting on incomplete information, especially when survivors do not fully disclose their experiences in initial stories; the risk is that predators can exploit those gaps.
  • Quote (Will, 13:09): "Please, please. When you have information about someone who is... the survivor of a sexual assault, please tell the whole story. Don't hold back."
• Both hosts acknowledge the dilemma this places on survivors and the press, but stress the need to err on the side of caution when worrisome patterns emerge.

5. The Tattoo & Authenticity Debate

• Charen is deeply critical of the explanation given for Platner's Nazi-linked tattoo and critiques the Democratic party's willingness to embrace "an obvious phony" for supposed working-class appeal.
  • Quote (Mona, 06:45): "You don't sacrifice ethics. You don't sacrifice matters of character when you're choosing a candidate, because then you're no better than the Republicans who do this all the time, cheerfully, gleefully even."
• She further notes that Platner's actual appeal was to college-educated whites, not the working class.

6. Social Media and Public Character

• The hosts explore how social media now makes private bad character visible and amplifies risk in public office pledges.
  • Quote (Mona, 10:43): "He was public about it. He was on Reddit saying really vile and disgusting things that a mature, self-controlled human being with a good heart doesn't do."

7. Policy Hypocrisy: Platner’s Progressive Claims vs. Personal Behavior

• Saletan highlights the hypocrisy of Platner campaigning on reproductive rights while engaging in “stealthing”—removing a condom during consensual sex, thus removing a woman's choice.
  • Quote (Will, 14:41): "He was going to codify abortion rights. This is a guy who, in his personal life, took away freedom of choice from the people he was having sex with by removing the condom without even telling them."
  • Quote (Mona, 14:08): "That made me really angry. Just like the rape story, honestly, because that's kind of a rape too, you know..."

8. The Bigger Picture: Compromising for “Electability”

• Charen is frustrated by party leaders and pundits accepting ethical shortcuts for perceived political gain, warning it makes Democrats “no better” than Republicans who "gleefully" overlook character scandals.
  • Quote (Mona, 07:17): "Being so willing to say, well, the Republicans are all immoral and look what Trump gets away with. So that means we should do the same thing."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On character and vetting:
  • Mona Charen (07:58): "You don't sacrifice ethics... when you're choosing a candidate, because then you're no better than the Republicans."
  • Will Saletan (09:37): "By and large, if someone is bad in their personal life, they're probably going to be bad in a number of other ways..."
• On policy hypocrisy:
  • Will Saletan (14:41): "He was going to codify abortion rights... This is a guy who, in his personal life, took away freedom of choice by removing the condom without telling them."
• On survivor disclosure and media responsibility:
  • Will Saletan (13:09): "Please... when you are the survivor of a sexual assault, please tell the whole story. Don't hold back."
• On social media’s role:
  • Mona Charen (10:43): "He was on Reddit saying really vile and disgusting things that a mature, self controlled human being with a good heart doesn't do."

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Platner Timeline and Early Reactions: 00:48 – 03:59
• Character and the Tara Reade Analogy: 03:59 – 06:45
• Tattoo, Authenticity, and Party Blindness: 06:45 – 09:37
• Holistic View of Character in Public Life: 09:37 – 10:43
• Social Media & Private/Public Lines Blur: 10:43 – 11:09
• Slow Drip of Allegations & Policy Hypocrisy: 11:09 – 15:15

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Takeaways

• The Platner case is a cautionary tale about wishful thinking and moral compromise in politics.
• Persistent patterns, not one-offs, should guide judgments on character.
• Both personal and public behavior matter deeply; situational "compartmentalizing" is dangerous.
• Press, voters, and parties must be more vigilant and demand accountability.
• "Winning" cannot come at the cost of core values, or parties risk becoming what they criticize.

Transcript

[A]

A little heads up. We just recorded the entire podcast and it's great stuff. You're not going to want to miss it. But I just want to say that we have now learned that Graham Platner has dropped out of the race for Senate. That was a big topic of conversation, but it doesn't change anything about our conversation because we get into the meaning of it all. So hope you enjoy. Welcome to the Mona Charon Show. So glad you could join me today. I am thrilled to be joined by my friend and colleague Will Salatin to discuss whatever we feel like discussing.

[B]

That's the spirit. Mona.

[A]

Will, it is really good to see you. So normally I see you irl, where we have desks next to each other in the Bulwark offices, but today we're both working remotely and I want to talk. Well, there are a few things on my mind, but let's begin. So maybe by the time people see this, the news will have changed about Graham Platner, but I think it's worth dwelling on for a little while because this is a really important story about American politics right now, and I think it has broader implications. So let's dig in. Tell me how surprised you were when the story broke that he had actually committed a sexual assault on somebody.

[B]

Well, I mean, it's not an either or thing. It's been building up to that. Right. There have been sort of degrees of non consensuality some of these stories, and I'm having to rethink some of my priors about how news gets out about these things. So here's. I was not just, all right, let's put cards on the table.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was not in the camp previously of saying that Graham Platner should get out of the race. And the reason was on the Nazi tattoo thing. I'm like, is the guy a Nazi? No, he's not a Nazi. He has this stupid tattoo. He. He's lying about that. How the tattoo. It was. A lot of people get dumb tattoos, not disqualifying on the sexual stuff. I was like many other people waiting for the New York Times story that we all knew was gonna drop. And when the New York Times story came out, there were three women in it. And I was looking for that sort of episode that would be clearly over the line where I would say, this guy has to get out. And the story to me was disappointing in that it did not really deliver that. Now, Sam, since then, we've had revelations from one of the women who was in the story saying, I told the reporters a Bunch of stuff that wasn't published. Mona, I looked at that New York Times story and thought to myself, a, it's not quite disqualifying, and B, if there was more about him, the New York Times reporters would have got, found it and published it. Clearly, I was wrong about the second thing. I was just wrong that there was more. And to my colleagues and friends who said, with a guy like this, there will always be more. You will find out more. You were right and I was wrong. So I have to rethink all of my assumptions about what partial revelations about someone of suspect character tell us. And now I'm at the point, like many other people, of saying I didn't think more was going to drop. More has dropped. There will be more about this guy. Good riddance to him. And next time, let's actually vet people for character. What about you?

[A]

So that's a great answer. There are some things I want to follow up on, but first, let's start with your third point about character, because I want to cast our minds back to the story that erupted when Joe Biden was he either president or running for president, and this woman said that he had sexually assaulted her. Do you remember this story? She wound up moving to Moscow. I can't remember her name now.

[B]

Tara Reid.

[A]

Okay, so the Tara Reid story came out and there was a lot of talk on the right about how, oh, I thought you said you have to believe all women and you're, you're dismissing her story and blah, blah, blah. And the fact is, I remember thinking at the time, not sure if I said it. I probably did because I talk a lot. But. But I said, when somebody commits that kind of a gross sexual offense, like grabbing and mauling somebody in a hall, in a corridor in the Capitol. First of all, I didn't believe it would happen in a corridor in a capit. Sorry. I mean, have you been to the Capitol? There are people all over the place. There's just no way that made sense. But in any event, the other point, though, is characterological people who behave that way don't just do it once. They just don't. If somebody is that kind of a person to do something like that. There are other stories. It's always the case. And so the fact that she was the only woman who had ever accused Biden, occasionally he put his hands on people's shoulders, that's really not what we're talking about. And so I was very skeptical of her. And sure enough, she turned out to be a person with, let's Say, some serious mental health issues, and she wound up decamping to Russia, of all places. Who knows if she was even. She probably was a plant from the Russian Secret Service. I mean, the fsb to try to discredit Biden. Who knows? But anyway, she wound up in mosque. Okay, the point is that character outs. And when that. So in light of that, let's look back at both the tattoo story and the Times story. So for me, the Times story was plenty. Okay. Yeah, there was nothing in there about him raping anybody, but there were stories about a man who was trying to become a United States senator, twisting a girlfriend's arm behind her back, grabbing her shoulders hard enough to leave marks, locking her in a room, not letting her out until she calmed down, and other sort of hints about unacceptable conduct, about drunkenness, etc. And even though those aren't rape, those are very, very disturbing behaviors that, you know, anybody who takes violence against women seriously, and violence against anybody, frankly, seriously should have. Should have been red flags. So I felt the time story was enough. Regarding the tattoo, his story just didn't add up. He said, oh, I didn't know what it was. Well, first of all, lots of contemporaneous people before he became a Senate candidate said he referred to it as my Totenkampf. He said he was drunk and young when he got it. Well, maybe he was. In which case you wake up the next morning and you look in the mirror and you go, holy, what have I done? Okay? And then you go get it covered up. No, he had it for 18 years. And so. And by the way, the idea that he didn't know what it was when he himself says that he's a bit of a military history buff, Sorry again, he's lying. He's lying. And I just found the Democratic Party's enchantment with this obvious phony because he wears Carhartt and claims to be a man of the people. And, you know, they were saying, well, this is how we're going to appeal to the working class. I'm sorry. You know, you don't, first of all, you don't sacrifice ethics. You don't sacrifice matters of character when you're choosing a candidate, because then you're no better than the Republicans who do this all the time, cheerfully, gleefully even. And second, he's a phony. He wasn't even appealing to the working class. His support came, such as it was, and it wasn't that great. But the support he was getting, according to the polling, was from college educated white people. So Collins was way ahead on the non college cohort in her state. I just find this whole thing really just dismaying about the reaction of so many people thinking, oh, you know, this is how we're gonna, we're gonna win back the working class. And being so willing to say, well, the Republicans are all immoral and look what Trump gets away with. So that means we should do the same thing.

[B]

Okay, let me respond to some of your points. The first thing I want to say is, Mona, you are more conservative than I am about character, which is to say, and we've just illustrated by what you were saying about the tattoos. I'm more of a compartmentalizer. I'm willing to say, oh, he lied about the tattoo. That doesn't necessarily mean he would be a bad legislator. Politics is full of people who are bad spouses, but they're good in public office. Life is complicated, yada, yada, yada. This episode makes your case, it helps to make your case. And for those who are not aware, Mona is a longtime articulator of the idea that character runs through a person and tell me if I'm misrepresenting you and that it is, I guess, theoretically possible to compartmentalize. But by and large, if someone is bad in their personal life, they're probably going to be bad in a number of other ways and those are going to be relevant to public service. Is that a fair characterization?

[A]

Yes. But can I just, can I just say one thing? It isn't just that he was personally very, very worried, you know, very inappropriate with girlfriends and the tattoo. It was that he was public about it. He was on Reddit saying really vile and disgusting things that a mature, self controlled human being with a good heart doesn't do.

[B]

That is a very interesting point. Let's just bracket that. Social media is a new area. It's a new realm of life which is sort of personal but sort of public. And in which now it is possible to see someone's bad character manifested publicly and in which it is possible to do damage even when you may not think you're doing damage in terms of what you say about other people. If you used to be gossip, you would say that to one person, two person, a group of people in a bar, now it's on the Internet. So let's just bracket that for a moment. But I think the Platner case should weigh on the side of the Mona Charan worldview that pay attention when someone shows bad character. Beware and be looking for other things that are signs that they might be the wrong person to put in public office. Is that a fair characterization? Okay, let me, let me distinguish on a couple of points in terms of what came out about Platner. This is a slow moving story in which not only are we learning. Have we learned new things about him, we're learning some of them from the same people who previously spoke. So people. So the woman who spoke to Politico and told the story about him coming over to her apartment, Bidden and I, I think that's now being disputed. Exactly. But clearly she told him not to come over. He came over. So he's entered her. Her place of dwelling against her will. And then whatever, you know, whatever you think of the sort of shades of non consensuality in a otherwise consensual relationship when someone enters your domicile against your will. Now we're in what we would conventionally understand as a situation of sexual assault or rape. She had previously spoken to the Times and I believe this account that she gave is not. She is something in addition to what she had said to the Times. Please, please. When you have information about someone who is. I understand that it is very difficult when you are the survivor of a sexual assault. Please tell the whole story. Don't hold back. Because in this case, it made it possible for Platner and his people to say that there wasn't any more. And it created the impression that there wasn't any more.

[A]

They told members of the Senate there wasn't any more.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, they really went all out, you know, saying this is, you know, there. There's nothing there. Which is just right.

[B]

And in addition to that, I was reading the story the other day. Of the three women who were in the time story, one has told this story now about the sexual assault. Another one has told a new story about that he was remove. What they were. He was wearing a condom. She had no birth control. He took off the condom. It's like apparently multiple times during sex that he thought this was fun and sneaky. Just a tip to the men out there. It's not fun. You're like, you're in. You're endangering this woman. Graham Platner.

[A]

I can't. That made me really angry. Just like the rape story, honestly, because that's kind of a rape too, you know, when you. It's the woman who gets pregnant, it's the woman who would. I mean, God. And then for him to joke about it and say, you know, yeah, that was sneaky of me. Fuck you. I'm sorry. But, I mean, that is just outrageous behavior. Does not surprise me in light of everything else we know about the guy. But it's outrageous and. Sorry, go on.

[B]

Yeah. No, the only point I wanted to add to what you just said is one of the reasons that one of the policy things that Graham Platner, this brave progressive, was going to do if he got into office was he was going to codify abortion rights. This is a guy who, in his personal life, took away freedom of choice from the people he was having sex with by removing the condom without even telling them. And she said to him, I am not on the. I'm not on birth control.

[A]

And.

[B]

And he took that choice away from her. So it, I think it just underscores the point we were saying before a person in their personal life can show you that they are not serious about their claimed public policy principles. And so, look, he's a dirtbag. I think that's eminently clear at this point. But there is this. There has been this. Let me go to your point about the failure of Democrats to stand up to this and to.