{"id":94850,"date":"2026-06-08T08:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/chris-hayes-interviews-platner-on-nyt-abuse-allegations-anything-alleging-physicality-is-simply-not-true\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T08:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:42:23","slug":"chris-hayes-interviews-platner-on-nyt-abuse-allegations-anything-alleging-physicality-is-simply-not-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/chris-hayes-interviews-platner-on-nyt-abuse-allegations-anything-alleging-physicality-is-simply-not-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hayes Interviews Platner On NYT Abuse Allegations: “Anything Alleging Physicality Is Simply Not True”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graham Platner, Maine Democratic Senate candidate, joins MS NOW host Chris Hayes to respond to new reporting from the New York Times that details allegations with several women describing parts of his behavior as “unsettling.”<\/a> <\/p>\n

CHRIS HAYES, HOST:\u00a0 Tonight we have some breaking news surrounding Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner.\u00a0 New York Times has exclusive reporting tonight on three women who previously dated Platner and called his behavior in those relationships unsettling, volatile, and toxic.\u00a0 Graham Platner will be joining me in just a moment to address the allegations reported in that story.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, the report comes as Democrats are more aware than ever about how the effort to hold Trump accountable will, of course, require flipping seats in the currently Republican majority Senate.\u00a0 And lots of political observers agree that one of their best shots at flipping a seat should be in Maine.\u00a0 It’s a state that Donald Trump actually lost three times.\u00a0 He lost it to Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden.\u00a0 It is represented by longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins, who has held that seat since 1997, even as the state has elected Democrats at other statewide offices and for president.\u00a0\u00a0 And Collins has long been an electoral powerhouse.\u00a0 But Democrats feel like this November is the time to finally unseat her, and she has been polling behind in head-to-head matchups for months now.\u00a0\u00a0 On Tuesday, voters will head to the polls in Maine for one of the most closely-watched primary contests in the country.\u00a0 And you might remember that late last year, a little-known oyster farmer named Graham Platner took the state by storm with a barnburner of an introductory political ad.\u00a0 That’s the one we’re playing on your screen there.\u00a0 It’s pretty memorable.\u00a0 You probably saw it.\u00a0\u00a0 And it’s also very clear that Platner is a very natural, high-level political talent.\u00a0 He’s been able to draw large crowds throughout the state, sometimes in small towns where half the town’s there.\u00a0 He has barnstormed basically nonstop doing event after event after event.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s also true that Platner is a political unknown.\u00a0 He’s a combat veteran who readily admits to have — having a very messy past.\u00a0 And with that past has come a slow, consistent drip of negative headlines that he has had to reckon with since entering the race.\u00a0\u00a0 So the first was a revelation that Platner had a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest.\u00a0 He says he got it while drinking with some buddies when he was overseas as a Marine, and that he did not know what the symbol meant at the time.\u00a0 He has since had that tattoo covered up.\u00a0\u00a0 Later came the revelation of stuff that Platner wrote on his Reddit account as a private citizen and some ugly stuff denigrating women, insulting rural voters.\u00a0 His campaign says the comments are representative of a lost man struggling with alcoholism and PTSD after leaving the military.\u00a0 They argue his story is one of redemption, and Platner relying on his community in Maine to lift him out of that dark place.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, Platner has addressed many of these issues with voters in Maine, and we should just be clear here, when some of these revelations came out, people expected the polling to veer away from him.\u00a0 But it didn’t.\u00a0 And in some cases, it got even stronger.\u00a0 Both the polling data and reporting from on the ground in Maine have indicated pretty strongly voters, these are Democratic primary voters, at least, right, were willing to forgive the tattoo and the stupid posts.\u00a0 They liked what they were getting from Graham Platner.\u00a0\u00a0 The narrative did change a bit last week, I think, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, had previously confided in a former campaign aide at the beginning of their campaign where they’re sort of going through vetting that she had caught her husband sending consensual, sexually explicit text messages to other women shortly after they married in 2023.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, that was before Platner was a public figure.\u00a0 The campaign aide subsequently told the story to the Journal.\u00a0 Republican critics, not surprisingly, pounced on the story, partly because they’d just nominated Ken Paxton in Texas and wanted to direct attention away from that.\u00a0 And some Democrats began to fret about widespread rumors that this wasn’t it, that other shoes would drop.\u00a0\u00a0 Well, this afternoon we have this story from The New York Times, right?\u00a0 New York Times published a story.\u00a0 They said a number of women who had previously been romantically linked to Platner.\u00a0 Per The Times, many of the women described a thoughtful, caring partner.\u00a0 Three of them, in fact, still friends with him.\u00a0 Three others described a more troubling situation.\u00a0\u00a0 The most troubling, I think, was one of the women who’s named Lyndsey Fifield.\u00a0 She met Platner 13 years ago, and she made specific allegations about Platner acting roughly or threateningly with her, including yanking her out of a cab, twisting her arm.\u00a0 She says she was hurt but not injured.\u00a0 She also says Platner never punched or hit her.\u00a0 And we’re going to address those allegations at length with Mr. Platner in a moment.\u00a0\u00a0 For his part, Platner’s campaign called Fifield, quote, a longtime GOP operative who’s dedicated her career to electing Republicans.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, The Times describes her as a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns.\u00a0 She has made statements supportive of Susan Collins.\u00a0 She’s linked to a conservative group that’s worked with Collins, though she says she has not been active with the group recently.\u00a0\u00a0 But Platner’s campaign does not deny he has shown poor judgment in the past, as we just sort of ran through, right?\u00a0 That has been part of the story of who this guy is and how he came to this moment.\u00a0 In a statement to The Times, he said that in the past he had, quote, ‘too often self-medicated with alcohol and was far from a perfect boyfriend during what he described as a very dark period of my life.\u00a0 I take responsibility for all of that and wish I had been better’, he said, ‘any characterization beyond that is false and, I believe, politically motivated.\u00a0 I’m not proud of who I was then, but I am proud of the work I’ve done since and the movement we are building in Maine’.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Graham Platner, Democratic Senate — candidate for Senate in Maine, joins me now.\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Platner, it’s good to have you on.\u00a0 Thank you so much for doing this.\u00a0\u00a0 GRAHAM PLATNER (D-ME), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE:\u00a0 Yeah, thanks, Chris.\u00a0 I really appreciate it.\u00a0 Thanks for having me on.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 I just want to say at the start that like, you know, we’ve had you on before and I think you and I are both people that in other contexts talk about income inequality and health care and all those issues which are extremely important and we devote a lot of time to on this program.\u00a0 We are — this is not, you know, the thing that we spend a lot of time chasing.\u00a0 But, you know, there’s some serious stuff there I want to go through with you.\u00a0 And I think voters have a right to know about it.\u00a0 And I want to with what Ms. Fifield says about being rough, is the term The Times wrote.\u00a0\u00a0 And I’m going to just read you the account so you have it.\u00a0 This is from The Times.\u00a0 Mr. Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid.\u00a0 In the interviews, she grappled with how to process her experiences.\u00a0 She was quick to note, ‘He never hit me, he never punched me’. She said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders, sometimes hard enough to leave marks, on one occasion yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning. ‘It hurt’, she said.\u00a0 But she added, ‘It didn’t cause any injury.\u00a0 It didn’t break my arm’.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did that happen?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, it did not.\u00a0 There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true.\u00a0 Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated.\u00a0\u00a0 In this piece, there’s a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol.\u00a0 And I’ve been very up front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service.\u00a0 And that’s what that combat — that’s what that kind of life looks like.\u00a0 And — and so there are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for and — and have been speaking about openly for months now.\u00a0 But those serious allegations are just not true.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 You did not grab her by the wrist, you did not put your hands on her shoulders, you did not push her into a room that you closed the door on?\u00a0 She’s — she’s lying about that… PLATNER:\u00a0 No. HAYES:\u00a0 … is what you’re saying?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 That is not true.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 You mentioned the tattoo, so I want to talk about that because I think this was troubling to a lot of people.\u00a0 And I think, again, your account of it assuaged some of that, that fear, clearly in Maine voters, as reflected, again, by reporting and polling.\u00a0 She says, same person, that you referred to the tattoo as my Totenkopf, which is the German word for this particular Nazi symbol.\u00a0 There is other reporting in Jewish Insider in October, in which an anonymous acquaintance says you used that same phrase.\u00a0\u00a0 Did you know what this tattoo was about before last October when you said you first became aware of it?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, I did not.\u00a0 And I also think it’s important to note that it’s very likely, and I think that she is that same source.\u00a0 She’s the person who’s been telling people this from the beginning.\u00a0 And it’s a — so I feel like, you know, we’re kind of rehashing the thing we’ve been through.\u00a0 I had that tattoo for 17 years.\u00a0 It’s a skull and crossbones.\u00a0 I got it with other Marines, who I served with in Iraq, in Croatia.\u00a0 And in the time that I had it, I got a security clearance with the State Department.\u00a0 I re-enlisted in the United States Army where I was screened for gang and hate tattoos, and I took my shirt off in front of my family, many of whom are Jewish.\u00a0\u00a0 We even released as a campaign a video, which you’re putting up on the screen right now, of me dancing at my brother’s wedding to his wife, who is Jewish, and her fully extended Jewish family.\u00a0 And I would not have taken my shirt off in that context if I had known.\u00a0 And so any statement saying that I did know is — is, again, totally false.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 I — I do want to follow up one place on this, and I don’t want to get too forensic, but, you know, The Times reported that they — they saw texts of hers, including a text in August, I believe, August 3rd of last year, this would be before October of last year, in which she basically said that you had a, quote,\u00a0 Nazi tattoo,\u00a0 and she joked about how she was going to go volunteer for Collins.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, again, this is a text that got sent so like we can place the time, right?\u00a0 This is in August.\u00a0 How does she know it’s a Nazi tattoo in August of last year and you don’t know it’s a Nazi tattoo in August of last year?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Well, she certainly didn’t send that text to me.\u00a0 So whoever she sent it to and was talking to, that’s — I — I can’t say why, but I will say that I certainly didn’t know.\u00a0 And — and the text messages she sending to friends who may have recognized it, that’s — they didn’t tell me that, so.\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 Can we talk — I want to talk about the piece that came out before this, which was about the — what your wife had alerted your internal campaign folks to.\u00a0 And — and just to sort of stipulate, to get out ahead, that like, I think some people view this as a real betrayal by your former campaign manager and that — that may be true.\u00a0 And I understand and I also watch the video that your wife put out, which I found incredibly compelling and moving, about what you’ve worked through.\u00a0 But just to be clear again on the details here, and there’s obviously two subtexts here, right?\u00a0 This is you facing Maine voters in a primary and also a general election that’s going to happen.\u00a0 We all know that, right?\u00a0 We’re all on the same page.\u00a0\u00a0 Were you sending sexually explicit messages to other women back in 2023-2024 as reported in the piece?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 So this is the first time in my life that Amy and I’s marriage has been the interest of people besides Amy and I.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 Yes. PLATNER:\u00a0 And it’s — it’s definitely a bit jarring, a bit strange.\u00a0 It’s also a marriage that is very strong and that I do believe we deserve some privacy in.\u00a0 I will just say this, I — at the beginning of our marriage, I made mistakes and Amy held me accountable for them.\u00a0 And we worked through them.\u00a0 And the work that we did made our marriage significantly stronger.\u00a0 And who we are today is an incredibly faithful and happy married couple.\u00a0\u00a0 Amy is my best friend.\u00a0 I love her more than anything else.\u00a0 And quite honestly, the hardest part about this whole campaign is I don’t get to spend as much time with her as I like to.\u00a0 And so it has been a — yeah, it’s been a hard experience to have — have gone through this together as a couple long before our lives were brought out into the public, and then to have it essentially outed by someone that we put our trust in, who then turned around and betrayed Amy’s trust and has now turned, frankly, our private parts of our marriage into a bit of a public political spectacle.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s — it’s hard.\u00a0 But it is — but it’s our marriage and it’s a good marriage.\u00a0 And we’re very happy in it and we’re very happy with each other.\u00a0 And I thank my lucky stars every single day that Amy is my wife and that she has given me a lot of — a lot of grace and a lot of love over the years.\u00a0 And I’m a lucky man for it.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 (inaudible) you don’t want to get into specifics, in details, and I can — I can respect part of that, but I do want to just make sure on the timeline, right?\u00a0 Because I think there’s — there’s two things going through people’s heads a little bit here, which is, you know, you have talked about self-medicating with alcohol and being pretty messed up when you got back from the service and trying to figure out what you’re doing and doing things maybe you don’t — you wouldn’t stand by now and saying things you wouldn’t stand by.\u00a0\u00a0 But this is 2023.\u00a0 And so there’s a — there’s a difference in the time.\u00a0 And I think the first question is like, when did this stop?\u00a0 If it stopped, if there was stuff that you’re not proud of that you worked out with your wife, you don’t want to talk about the details, when did it stop?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Oh, it — it stopped when it was happening.\u00a0 I mean, like, it was a — Amy and I — Amy and I — it happened soon after we got married.\u00a0 And we dealt with it very, very early in our relationship.\u00a0 And so that’s — that’s when it stopped.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 Are there texts of yours, pictures of yours floating around out there, which, again, maybe from a time capsule, but people I think are understandably a little nervous, maybe you’ll be the nominee, probably be the nominee for the Maine Senate on Tuesday, and then it’s October 10th, and here’s a text or picture of Graham Platner that is not the kind of thing that you want to see?\u00a0 Like, are you worried about that?\u00a0 Are there texts like that?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 I’m — I’m not worried about it.\u00a0 I mean, I — one, I went — as I’ve talked, I went through my life through a number of years struggling and not exactly acting under — with the best behavior.\u00a0 I’ve been very, very open about that.\u00a0 And if people would like to continue to drag things up from that time in my life, I’m sure that we are going to see at some point somebody attempt to do exactly that.\u00a0\u00a0 Just know that these are things that happened before I became a public figure, before I got into politics.\u00a0 And it’s a part of my life that I’m very happy to talk about and talk about the struggles within.\u00a0 And so I do think that as we move forward, you know, what we’ve built up here is really something quite spectacular.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s very new.\u00a0 And I think one of the reasons why it’s worked so well is because I have been very open with the people of Maine.\u00a0 I go all over the state.\u00a0 I’ve held over 80 town halls.\u00a0 And I ask or I answer questions from Mainers regardless of what the question is.\u00a0 I’ve made myself very accessible to people.\u00a0 And I want them to know about my struggles because I firmly believe that if you believe in a transformational politics, you’ve got to believe in the ability for people to transform.\u00a0\u00a0 And my journey is one of transformation.\u00a0 And I’m very happy to talk about that earlier part in my life.\u00a0 And I have no doubt that people will attempt to continue to revisit Reddit posts, continue to try to revisit parts of my past.\u00a0 But I think what’s really important to note here is that these are things that I talk about in my past, things that I’m not proud of, but it is a past that I had to go through to get where I am today.\u00a0 And I’m very proud of who I am today.\u00a0 And I’m very proud of the movement that we’ve built up here in Maine.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 Just to be clear, just about revisiting, right, I mean, I think channeling concerns, I think, of Democratic voters and — and Democratic officials, and a lot of people, right, that it’s not a question of revisiting, right?\u00a0 It’s new revelations.\u00a0 Like vis-a-vis, you know, texts or pictures.\u00a0 And I just — I know you want to give some privacy to your marriage, but I really do feel like I need to get these answers from you, which is like, the people you were texting with, whatever that was, in whatever context, they were adult women.\u00a0 You knew that.\u00a0 And it was consensual.\u00a0 Is that true?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 And you have that — you confirmed that.\u00a0 You knew their age.\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Oh, God, I mean, yeah, yes, of course.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 I want to play something for you that was a reaction of Senator Elissa Slotkin as this story came out.\u00a0 She was talking to MS NOW, and she had this to say.\u00a0 Again, I don’t even know if she had gotten a chance to read — read that story yet.\u00a0 So she may be reacting to essentially the headline, but here’s what she had to say.\u00a0\u00a0 (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D), MICHIGAN:\u00a0 I have not read the whole thing.\u00a0 I look forward to the day where I am not answering every single week a question about bad behavior by another dude.\u00a0 I just — I look forward to that day. (LAUGHTER)\u00a0 NICOLLE WALLACE, HOST, DEADLINE: WHITE HOUSE:\u00a0 You and me, both.\u00a0 SLOTKIN:\u00a0 On camera, live.\u00a0 I look forward to that.\u00a0 And I haven’t read like the piece, but what my team told me, like, look, first of all, I think about the women who are coming forward.\u00a0 Second of all, I think if — if there are allegations of violence, I got a real problem with that.\u00a0 And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, if there’s violence, that’s not OK.\u00a0 So I haven’t gotten into the details.\u00a0 I’m sure I’ll have to get, just like every week, the same briefing from my team on what happened and what — you know, and but frankly, I’m sick of it.\u00a0 We’ve got a lot of bigger issues to, you know, fry here.\u00a0\u00a0 (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES:\u00a0 What’s your response to that?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 My response is that I — I agree.\u00a0 If there was violence, that’s a huge issue.\u00a0 But those allegations are false.\u00a0 And I also agree with the senator that we do have much bigger things to fry here.\u00a0\u00a0 You know, we are talking about a moment in American history that is going to go down as quite unique.\u00a0 We are facing incredible challenges across our society.\u00a0 Here in the State of Maine, we’re facing the fact that our health care system is collapsing and people can’t afford homes, and the average Mainer is struggling just to pay their bills because the price of goods and services continues to go up.\u00a0 And that’s why we built this movement.\u00a0\u00a0 I — I will say that, you know, it is — I am — the people of Maine are the people that I’m trying to answer to here.\u00a0 The opinions of the pundit class, the opinions of, frankly, just even establishment politicians, that’s not my audience.\u00a0 That’s not who I’m trying to appeal to.\u00a0 And they can have their opinions and they’re entitled to them.\u00a0\u00a0 But to me, it’s the people of Maine who I’m going out to, listening to every single day, and trying to make sure that I can represent their values and their will in the United States Senate.\u00a0 And — and that’s why I go out and will continue to go out and face my future constituents day in and day out.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 Part of that, though, and people of Maine, right, is that like they’re going to react to new information, right?\u00a0 They’re going to — they’re going to keep forming an opinion and you’re going to run a very — again, if you are the nominee, as you know, it appears you are headed to be, a pretty brutal campaign against Susan Collins, who is — has been a real electoral colossus and has beaten back, you know, nominee after nominee and did beat Sarah Gideon by however many points after she was polling up 9.\u00a0\u00a0 And when people think to themselves, and I know this was the meeting that you had in Washington, right, where you stood in front of Democratic senators and said, you know, the worst rumors you’ve heard aren’t true, I think was the sentence that was reported, at this point I guess people have to take you at your word that that’s true and that there’s nothing else.\u00a0 Is that what you are saying?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Oh, of course.\u00a0 And even this new reporting, the — the new things are false.\u00a0 And the fact that I was, you know, a bad boyfriend a decade ago, that’s something I’ve talked about openly at length for quite some time in multiple places.\u00a0 So there is an element where, yeah, no, I mean, there — now I have no doubt, like I mentioned earlier, that this is a dirty campaign.\u00a0 I do expect the Republican Party to fight as dirty as possible.\u00a0 And I expect them to try to create things.\u00a0 I expect them to try to drag stuff up consistently, but there won’t be anything new.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s going to be a rehashing of essentially the same stuff.\u00a0 And I honestly think that’s why it’s just going to fall flat, because I’ve been incredibly open and accountable for everything throughout this campaign.\u00a0 When we’ve been faced with allegations of things, when people have brought up stuff from my past, I don’t run away from it.\u00a0 In fact, I lean into it and we have a deep conversation about it because I do think people need to see that it is possible to really change over time and become a better person.\u00a0\u00a0 And every single day I wake up trying to be a better version of myself than the day before.\u00a0 And that’s exactly what I’m going to continue to do.\u00a0 And I think that’s a — it’s a pretty core part of our message and a core part of the campaign itself.\u00a0 And whether it’s being accountable for my — my online behavior at an earlier part of my life, whether it’s realizing that a tattoo I had was harmful to some folks, I immediately got it covered up, whether it’s being accountable to my wife, which everybody has very publicly learned about, these are things that, like, accountability is important to me, and I’m going to continue being honest and accountable about things that are real.\u00a0 But I am going to push back against allegations that are just patently untrue.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 There was a — a statement from Janet Mills, who is the governor, who was running against you until she dropped out, and she said this after the story about the messaging or texting with — with women came out.\u00a0 She says, people have the impression that I withdrew or dropped out, but I simply suspended active campaigning.\u00a0 I am still on the ballot.\u00a0 How do you understand that comment?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 I mean, I — I’m not going to really speak to what the intent of the governor was there.\u00a0 I think a lot of people can probably draw their own conclusions.\u00a0 She is correct.\u00a0 She is still on the ballot.\u00a0 It is a statement of fact.\u00a0 I — I do believe that, you know, it’s — it’s a bit of opportunism, but I think, you know, that’s kind of anybody can sort of see that, so.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 At any point over the course of the past week, have you considered dropping out of the race?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, not once.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 You’re someone who I spoke to you very early in this campaign after that campaign ad came out.\u00a0 And you’re not a person who’s been in public life, you haven’t run for office.\u00a0 And I think that has been incredibly appealing to a lot of people.\u00a0 Sometimes say, why don’t we get other people like, you know, in public office, a broader pool?\u00a0 And then, you know, you run for public office and it’s a lot, right, is going to come out. PLATNER:\u00a0 Yeah. HAYES:\u00a0 And… PLATNER:\u00a0 It’s a lot. HAYES:\u00a0 And given — and I’ve got to say, you know, watching — watching your wife’s video, which again, I found very affecting, very compelling, and very moving, like, do you regret doing this?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, not in the slightest.\u00a0 It is — Amy and I knew when we got into this that we were going up against an entrenched political machine.\u00a0 We were going up against, frankly, a — the entire political apparatus.\u00a0 The message of our campaign is that we need to have a political revolution and change how we do politics in this country.\u00a0\u00a0 Part of that really has to be making politics accessible to people who have lived regular lives, not just to people who prepared for it.\u00a0 And we knew that because we had lived regular lives with all the challenges that come with that, and backgrounds that come with living a life, that we were going to see everything torn to pieces, and people were going to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb and try to find anything to attack us.\u00a0 And that is exactly what has happened.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not surprising.\u00a0 I mean, this is — and I hate to say it, but it’s also why most regular people don’t want to get involved in politics.\u00a0 I — we don’t doubt what we’ve done.\u00a0 We are very proud of what we’ve built.\u00a0 We believe deeply in our politics.\u00a0 But it’s hard.\u00a0 This is a hard experience.\u00a0 It’s been hard on my family.\u00a0 It’s been hard for both Amy and I.\u00a0 And it’s just hard in general to have to go through life having been a private citizen when nobody was paying attention to, to suddenly have the entire world really, really caring or digging through everything that you’ve ever done.\u00a0 It’s an unpleasant experience.\u00a0 And I — I get why people look at this and think, yeah, I don’t — I don’t want to do that.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ll say this though, we need to change it.\u00a0 It shouldn’t be like this.\u00a0 We need to have a politics where we’re talking about policy, where we’re talking about the future, where we’re talking about really the kind of political system we want to see.\u00a0 And the only way that we’re going to get that is by getting more regular people into it.\u00a0 And those of us who are going to really start off, we’re going to take a lot of lumps, but somebody has to.\u00a0\u00a0 And Amy and I knew early on that we were going to take lumps, and we just are — we’re dedicated to this.\u00a0 And it has never crossed our mind to drop out of this thing.\u00a0 I’m — I’m… HAYES:\u00a0 I want to… PLATNER:\u00a0 … fully committed… HAYES:\u00a0 I want to connect… PLATNER:\u00a0 … to this until the end.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 I want — I want to connect this to policy, though, because I do think I — you know, I agree and like I said at the top, right, like that’s a lot of what we spend our time on here.\u00a0 You know, truthfulness or candor or people feeling like they trust you is connected to policy, right?\u00a0 Because… PLATNER:\u00a0 Yeah. HAYES:\u00a0 … if they don’t feel like you trust you, if they feel like, well, if you’re in a bad situation, you’re going to say whatever gets you through the next interview the next week, then you could do that about policy.\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Right. HAYES:\u00a0 You could do that about what your core principle commitments are, right?\u00a0 So for like people that think, you know, I don’t — he says he didn’t know what the tattoo was, this person says he did.\u00a0 He says that he never put hands on this woman, she says he did.\u00a0 You know, people can just decide who they want to believe there.\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 But — but your candor, the fact that, like, whether people can trust you, you would agree is a legitimate issue for voters to consider.\u00a0 It’s not — that’s not some trivia.\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, no, not at all.\u00a0 I mean, that’s — and honestly, that’s why I’ve run the campaign that I’ve run.\u00a0 Like I’m sick and tired of a politics where politicians come across as these sort of focus group-tested, two-dimensional figures who just repeat talking points.\u00a0 It’s — it’s the reason I’ve been willing to go out and talk to everyone and talk about really private parts of my life very publicly, and to make sure that people can see that I am open and I am honest, even if it’s uncomfortable.\u00a0 I’ve been doing that the entire time and will continue to do so.\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, people can say things and if they’re not true, then I’m going to point out that they’re not true.\u00a0 And that is, of course, up to someone to believe who’s telling the truth in that.\u00a0 But I — I do hope that the kind of campaign that I’ve run and the way that I’ve been accessible to people, and frankly, the candor that I’ve just displayed the entire time, I really do hope that it engenders in Maine voters an understanding that I’m going down there to do what I say that I’m going to do, which is to represent the working people of Maine and to fight back against the political system that doesn’t care about them, and to fight back against an economic system that is rigged against them.\u00a0 And I think people understand that.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 Final question for you.\u00a0 Have you had any communication with the folks at the DSCC or Democratic operatives who have talked about dropping out, who have talked about other options?\u00a0 Have you received any communication today about that?\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, I have not.\u00a0 And — and I expect that we will not, primarily because what we’ve built up here, it’s robust.\u00a0 It’s very strong.\u00a0 I mean, even just the past couple days, the outpouring of support that Amy and I have seen has been deeply humbling.\u00a0 We have people dropping off food at our house.\u00a0 We have neighbors coming across with eggs.\u00a0 Everybody is incredibly concerned about our well-being because they feel like we’re being attacked in some way, and they want to help protect us.\u00a0 And it is that kind of feeling of community, that feeling of standing up for each other that I really think embodies this whole campaign.\u00a0 And that’s why we’re going to beat Susan Collins in November.\u00a0\u00a0 HAYES:\u00a0 All right.\u00a0 Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner, who will be on the ballot on Tuesday, in Maine.\u00a0 We will be covering that here.\u00a0 I really — I do appreciate you taking all that time today to do that interview.\u00a0\u00a0 PLATNER:\u00a0 No, of course, thanks, Chris.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

RealClearPolitics Videos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graham Platner, Maine Democratic Senate candidate, joins MS NOW host Chris Hayes to respond to new reporting from the New York Times that details allegations with several women describing parts of his behavior as “unsettling.” CHRIS HAYES, HOST:\u00a0 Tonight we have some breaking news surrounding Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner.\u00a0 New York Times has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2009,4596,8765,1194,2671,22531,15606,29455,29169,13524,2043],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}