Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the war in Iran seems to be back on, at least for the moment. Taking a break from berating and alienating our NATO allies, and fantasizing about Greenland, Donald Trump suggested that the peace “deal” is “over” as the two countries unleashed a new wave of strikes on Tuesday. "They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people," Trump said of the mullahs he was praising just days ago. "As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them." Oil prices surged and we’re just learning that the Pentagon is running out of money.
Programming note: I’ll be discussing all this with General Mark Hertling on our podcast, which will be out later today.
Happy Wednesday.
Lessons from the Platner Fiasco
As we wait for Graham Platner to drop out of the Maine Senate race (TBD whether it be timely, gracious, or bitter)1 it seems worthwhile to take a moment to sift through the wreckage. You undoubtedly know the arc of the narrative so far: Frustrated with the sclerotic “establishment” and their desire for a beer-track, working class “fighter,” Democrats embraced Platner’s image before they got to know the man himself.
That deafening roar you hear now is the collective mea culpas of the punditocracy and political class fiercely back-pedaling from their rationalizations and defenses of the candidate who now faces credible allegations of sexual abuse and rape.
So, an autopsy of this clusterfuq seems in order, don’t you think?
How did Democrats find themselves embracing such a flawed candidate? Why were so many red flags missed or ignored? And how did a party that often declared we should “believe the women,” decide to ignore so many of them?
How did this go so terribly wrong? Let us count the ways.
The “consultants” who recruited Platner without vetting him. (See: “The ‘Mad Scientist’ Behind Graham Platner’s Scandal-Plagued Rise” - WSJ / And for your daily dose of cringe: “The Strategist Behind Platner’s Rise Explains His Vetting Process.”
“The firm, which was paid $6,250, according to federal disclosures, followed up days later with additional limited vetting. They didn’t do a candidate interview or questionnaire.
The pols and voters who chased bright shiny objects and candidates from “central casting.” It’s probably not a coincidence that some of the folks who got a tingle up their legs over John Fetterman were also jiggy about Platner.
The progressive activists who were more focused on beating fellow Democrats than they were in defeating Republicans in the general election.
A fetish for faux-authenticity over character and the rationalizations for supporting the “lesser evil.”
Tone deafness about the “working class.” As Jonathan Chait writes in The Atlantic: “In reality, Platner was the Democratic-candidate equivalent of the grinning empty suit who gets the job after a handshake because the boss likes the cut of his jib. He looked like the authentic working-class hero so many progressives wanted, so he had to be one…. But maybe looking and sounding like a working-class dude who hates big corporations is not adequate qualification for high office—or even proof that you can be taken at your word.”
But, in the end, all of this pales next to ignoring the women.
In the era of “Me Too,” the Epstein Files, and a president who was found liable for sexual abuse, the warnings and testimonies of one woman after another were brushed aside — until they simply could not be ignored any longer. I’m not suggesting that every allegation should automatically be believed, but in Platner’s case, the alarms were flashing bright red long before the implosion.
**
There was the tattoo, but also the social media posts (including Platner’s downplaying of rape), and the sexting with women other than his wife. In early June, the NYT published a lengthy account of women who had dated Platner and described “Unsettling’ Behavior”. But the paper may have pulled its punches. One of the women quoted, Lyndsey Fifield, is accusing the Gray Lady of failing to verify her accounts of Platner’s physical violence:
Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, Ms. Fifield grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note that he “never hit me, he never punched me.”
But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.
During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was “calm.” Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning.
“It hurt,” she said. But she added: “It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.”
Some Democrats were quick to dismiss Fifield because of her involvement in conservative politics. And Fifield herself now says she understands why many of them did not take her allegations seriously because The Times said it could not corroborate her charges — even though she had given them multiple contacts. “They called the two who I clarified would not know about the abuse but would be able to affirm our relationship timeline, events, etc.,” she wrote yesterday. “They simply did not call the other three.”
Fifield was not the only woman to come forward. Jenny Racicot, who was quoted in the Times’ article, now says that Platner raped her. (Former Sente aide Adam Jentleson comments: “Raciot was named in the NYT story on June 4, which means people around Platner knew about her accusations but initially suppressed them. We probably deserve to know who in Platner’s circle, including endorsers, knew he was credibly accused of rape but stood by him for a month.)
Others also tried to sound the alarm. Platner’s Democratic opponent, Governor Janet Mills ran television ads raising flags.
The ad features comments Mr. Platner made over a decade ago on Reddit about rape and depicts several women appearing to react to those posts on an iPad as a gravelly voice that bears some resemblance to Mr. Platner’s reads fragments of them aloud.
In one post from 2013, Mr. Platner wrote that people worried about rape should not get so drunk — he used a phrase with an expletive to describe the level of intoxication — that “they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.” In another, Mr. Platner wrote that to avoid what he characterized as a compromising situation, they should “act like an adult.”
In the ad, four women respond to the comments, calling them “disqualifying” and “disgusting.” “This guy gives off a vibe,” one woman says.
Reacting to Platner’s dismissive posts on rape, Jessica Mackler, the head of Emily’s List, which supports women running for office, said on X that “blaming victims of sexual assault remains disgusting, unacceptable, and disqualifying” and that the Platner “candidacy is the fastest way to hand Susan Collins another Senate term.”
Journalist Magdi Jacobs also repeatedly called out Platner’s shaky relationship with the truth.
And then there was Platner’s former campaign manager, Genevieve McDonald, who wrote a scathing op-ed in the Wapo: “I know firsthand why Graham Platner shouldn’t be a U.S. senator; I quit the campaign last fall, disturbed by what I’d learned about the Maine Democratic Senate primary candidate.”
He exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore. Despite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet. Then more emerged — the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends’ serious accusations of physical mistreatment.
I was one of the Platner campaign’s first gaslighting casualties. In September, he told me that he had a tattoo that could be problematic but assured me that it was just a military thing. I believed him. Then, I began receiving calls from Washington warning me he was not who he seemed: “Have you read his oppo file?” I had not. I trusted that his out-of-state consulting team had thoroughly vetted him.
On June 10, Platner won the Maine Democratic primary with more than 70 percent of the vote. Ed Kilgore asks, why did Platner get away with so much for so long?
As Racicot’s own reluctance to tell her full story showed, victims of sexual assault justifiably fear what will happen to their lives if they hold powerful men accountable for their misconduct and crimes. Look what happened to Lyndsey Fifield, whose account of Platner’s violence toward her as reported by the Times made her a target of widespread smears claiming partisan motivation.
You can blame the vetters and the true believers, the cynical partisans and the credulous ideologues, for letting Graham Platner get so far down the road to Washington. But ultimately he knew his demons better than anyone else, and a man with his evident commitment to country and civic engagement should have given this race a hard pass.
Exit take from the NYT’s Michelle Goldberg who has some regrets:
If there’s a lesson here, it might be about the importance of listening hard to the people telling you what you don’t want to hear. Many Democrats, disgusted by their party’s failure to contain Donald Trump, want representatives as furious as they are, and they no longer trust their leaders to tell them who is electable. That opens space up for outsider candidates who wouldn’t have had a chance a few years ago. It also makes it easier for unfit characters to escape proper vetting.
BONUS: Democratic Representative Richie Torres:
Speaking of character
Texas GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton is back in the news.
[The] Texas attorney general is on vacation with his mistress, gallivanting around Europe without fear of being seen... and risking the wrath of President Donald Trump.
The Daily Mail has obtained footage of Paxton, 63, and his paramour, Christian influencer Tracy Duhon, 58, sightseeing in London this week.
As we previously reported, the pair jetted off to Iceland for a romantic getaway last weekend.
London, it seems, was their next stop. As Americans celebrated the country’s 250th birthday, MAGA firebrand Paxton was in England walking side-by-side with Duhon near the London Eye.
The Daily Mail first exposed the affair between Paxton and Duhon in September, revealing that Paxton and the mom of seven became romantically involved in May 2024 after meeting at the Kentucky Derby when they were both still married.
BONUS: “Ken Paxton vowed to crack down on “illegal voting.” He may have violated Texas election law.”
Wednesday dogs
Eli contemplates the sunset.
“The executive director of the Maine Democratic Party says that Platner's team has "repeatedly" reached out to them to try to dictate the process by which his replacement his chosen.
"We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner's team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like."
This is why whenever I have no idea who to vote for, I just vote for the woman with a 'd' next to her name. Statistically speaking the chances are far less likely she's going to have sexually abused someone
Do I blame myself for accepting Platner, do I blame the vetters, other overly enthusiastic D's, Platner himself? I don't know. But man, after a fabulous, fun, almost like old times 4th weekend, made all the better by the green reflecting pool, the state fair dud, the bad DC weather that messed with T's plans, it's a very rough landing now.
In lieu of blaming, I'm pledging to myself to never again get caught up in a candidate who sweeps in out of nowhere with no history of steady accomplishments. I should've known better.