The Future of the Democratic Party

Are you now or have you ever been? The most urgent question of our times is this summer's must see theatrical event. This electrifying drama recounts the voices of a generation who faced a vengeful government and a nation on edge, using only their on the record statements as played by a rotating all star cast Their words will reach us when we need them most. Are you now or have you ever been Get tickets now. rom the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitrowff. This is the Daily On Tuesday, Mayers will vote in a primary for a high stakes Senate seat that Democrats think they can win back from Republicans for the first time in decades. They're pinning their hopes on progressive Democrat Graham Platner A charismatic oyster farmer and a combat veteran with a populist message But Platatterner faced a string of accusations surrounding his personal behavior including new reporting in the Times that broke last week Today, my colleagues Lisa Lair and Katie Glick Explain what this race means for Maine and for the prospects of the Democratic Party It's Tuesday, june ninth Hi Lisa. Hi Hi, Katie. Hi So We have you here because you two broke this story late last week. and I think it's fair to say that it generated a huge reaction I think that's fair to say. It's been quite the wild couple of days. I think this story has really divided voters and strategists and the chattering political class, not only in Maine, but just all over the country Just to lay it out This was a story about the experiences of past girlfriends of Graham Platner. allegations of heavy drinking, physical intimidation. These were not allegations of anything criminal, no allegations of domestic abuse some pretty rough stuff. and we're going to get deeper into that reporting Before we do that J explain for me the stakes of what we're talking about here, the stakes of this race. I think that in part, it reflects just how critical this race is. Maine is all but essential to the Democrats's path to retaking the Senate But even before there was any serious talk of who the Democratic nominee could or should be, Maine loomed so large in the minds of Democrats because they thought last time that Susan Collins was on the ballot, that she was finally going to lose inststead, she wins. And so going in to twenty twenty six people were extremely motivated to finally mount a campaign that could actually defeat Senator Collins. You know, and I also think this race it's a place where they have really tested this thesis, which many Democrats believe that the party needs new energy, new leadership, more authentic messengers, and they are testing that through this candidate, Graham Platner who is likely to be their Democratic nominee in this race. Okay, so a lot wriding on this, both in terms of the numbers, as you guys have said, and in terms of these broader ideas of what the Democratic Party's identity is Let's just talk about how we got here. Set up this contest for us So at the very beginning of this contest, there was really a widespread expectation that the Democratic nominee would be Janet Mills, who is the seventy eight year old two term governor of Maine. She was the candidate that was the pick of Chuck Schumer, who really is in charge of Democrats' ambitions for the Senate She had the political staff. She was just a well known Democratic leader in this state And then over last summer, some progressive operatives and activists decided that they were really unhappy with Mills as the pick. And so they went up to Maine and started looking for someone else who could challenge Janet Mills in the Democratic primary, and they found Graham Platner, who at the time was running a small oyster farm in Coastal Maine. He had moved back up in twenty sixteen after spending some time in Washington serving in the military. He had never run for any elected office But they decided that this was the guy who could challenge Janet Mills and should he win the nomination? eventually Susan Collins. And why pick him? I get He reads as home grown, you know, he's a little rough around the edges in a kind of every man way. But what about him specifically felt like the right choice for these progressives? How did they actually land on this guy They had seen a video that he had done as part of like an aquaculture association sort of related to the oysters. An aquaculture association. Yes, that's what. The oyter made. Yes made made. Got it. And you know, he had been involved with some very local political fights over aquaculture in the Bay where he has his oyster farm. And they saw that he could sort of speak compellingly. And what he had to say was essentially an economic populist message talking about taking on corruption, taking on billionaires, and that sort of caught their attention And there was also this idea of from the progressive Democratic side, of making this a test case for the party establishment. This was a place where they thought that they could sort of send a message about the kind of leaders they thought the party should have Okay. so these progressives find Platinner. they choose him. They see him as the foil for Janet Mills. And what happens? How does it go In Maine, there is a new Democrat trying to harvest a political career, so to speak He starts taking off. Let's talk about Platner, who's completely unknown and untested. He has just kind of exploded on the scene. He has a lot of natural political talent. My name is Graham Platner, and I am running for the United States Senate He's sitting for every interview. My guest today is a veteran, oyster farmer and Maine Senate candidate. Graham Platner. Graham great to see you. Thank you. O guest this Sunday is Graham Platner, who's running for Senate in Maine. Let's talk to Graham Platner hours and hours and hours of podcasting interviews relatable relelatable, right.. He's doing these town halls. Until the Democratic Party federal level is no longer beholden to the same corporate interests that the Republican Party is. We're going to find ourselves back in this position over and over and over And he begins to sort of build a following We are hanging on by a threreat And we either organize and build power in fight Or we lose And we can't lose So he also benefits from two major liabilities for Governor Mills. The first is that there is a real strain of anti establishment fervor running through at least some corners of the Dmocratic base right now. People are upset with Democratic leadership in Washington. And the other thing is her age. Platner is forty one, Mills is seventy eight Coming off of the experience of the twenty twenty four election, a lot of Democrats are demanding a new generation of leadership. And the thing that we would hear from voters over and over is that no matter how much they respected Governor Mills seventy eight is too old He takes off for all the reasons you're saying, Katie And then what happens? So the flip side of finding new outsider political candidates is sometimes they have not gone through the kind of vetting that veteran establishment politicians have done. And revelations about a trove of comments he made on Reddit, some of them quite inflammatory come out Revelations that he had a tattoo on his chest, though it's widely recognized as a Nazi symbol come out and it sends his campaign into what looks like a freefall. You know he has staffers leaving the campaign There's talk of NDAs being required for the people who stay, and a lot of people assume that these controversies are going to doom ' them Lisa, can you say more about both of these things? both the tattoo and these Reddit comments, what are we actually talking about here? So the tattoo was a skull and crossbones that Graham Platner had done on his chest back in two thousand seven when he was in the Marines. And it turned out that this was not just any skull and crossbones, that this was in fact a Nazi symbol, a totem com Uhu He actually revealed it himself. hisis campaign had gotten word that the tattoo was going to be put out there by the media. So he went on Pod Save America, a liberal podcast. And basically what he says is I got this tattoo when I was in the Marines. I didn't know what it was until this campaign and what he calls DC insiders and opposition researchers brought it to my campaign's attention. and I regret having it. and he eventually he gets it covered up And the phrase he use is, I'm not a secret Nazi. He says he's lived his life like what he says a normal person, he's taken his shirt off at the beach and at the gym, and no one in his life ever told him that he had a Nazi tattoo and The Reddit posts. So the Reddit posts are a trove of about two thousand posts, comments really that he made on Reddit. fromr about two thousand nine to twenty twenty one when he says he stopped posting. It's clear that he deleted some of the posts before he entered the campaign. but as with all things on the internet, deleted things can often come back and be reound. And they're just a trove of commentary. Some of his comments are quite controversial. It made a few comments about women's sort of pooing women who get raped and sort of questioning why they are getting so drunk that they end up raped. He used slurs about gay people, about mentally disabled people. And how does Platner explain these messages He has said that many of the most inflammatory comments he wrote at a very dark time in his life Platner is a combat veteran who' served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he says that they do not reflect the man he is today and urges maners not to judge him for as he paraphrasing herear the worst thing he said on the internet on a particularly bad day fourteen years ago Part of his response is to say, look, I served this country, I came out deeply damaged. That's what you're seeing in these posts, and I regret them How did that land I think Democratic strategists immediately see this as a major liability, not only for his candidacy in the primary, but also in the general, given that Republicans have already said they're going to spend tens of millions of dollars on ads no matter who is the nominee. So the Mills campaign sees an opportunity in all of this, and they start running ads featuring women partarticularly featuring his comments about rape. to try to swing main voters towards their side and build her support But you know, it doesn't really matter if Democrats in Washington and Mills Tges see this as a liability. What matters, of course, is what Maine voters think. Right. So we went up to Maine to hear about that And there were really a range of reactions. Some people are really worried about his comments about women and the tattoo. And they're worried that something else could maybe come out about him that could be damaging I think perhaps one of the most striking moments we observed was a woman who stood up at a town hall and asked point blank What else do voters need to know about you I hear your heart saying you've changed You're a different person now But they're going to try to find whatever they can And specifically, is there an account of a woman who's going to come out and say you mistreated her? Is there anything thing in from your past that they can dig up on a woman that Maybe. No didnidn't mean no at the time No. His response was equally striking. I've never had some kind of like weird relationships with people. I have a lot of ex girlfriends. they're all still my friends He promised the audience that there was nothing else that would come out. But it was also really clear that his message was hitting something really deep that these Democratic primary voters wanted Graham Platner has given me hope He is Good old boy He is A regular person? He is relatable. I think the authenticity of him hisis ability to speak to everyday issues that are facing mors. There are a lot of people who said that he was speaking for them for working class voters. The affordability crisis, he definitely spoke to that and was something that I personally am struggling with. There were a lot of people who believed he was a new kind of messenger for a broken political system. marginalized communities, working class communities. I mean, we' definitely been left out of the conversations of politics for quite some time that he could create sort of a new kind of politics. For me, a big part of it is like the apologeticness just own it up to things that he's done. you know, there's another group of people who feel a lot of empathy for his explanation that He made these mistakes at a very dark period of his life.'ve homemade dumb decisions and dumb things that we wish we hadn't done and trying to move forward from those kinds of things, that's really relatable for me So I think it becomes clear that this is a movement and he has built something here in Maine It sounds like there were some doubts about Platner in the minds of some voters, but ultimately, the enthusiasm for him, the enthusiasm for his politics outweighs those misgivings. That's exactly right And a really perfect illustration of this is the fact that the day after we talk to all of these voters at a town hall in Maine, same town hall where Platner is facing some of these really pointed questions, Governor Janet Mills ends up dropping out of the race after spending months trailing Platner in the polls struggling to gain traction and really running a very low key campaign. She says it's because she runs out of money And when you run out of money as a candidate, that's a pretty good sign that you have not effectively connected with the voters Meantime, Platner is continuing to do well in the polls. He's continuing to rake in the fundraising And with Mill's shock decision to drop out He effectively immediately becomes the presumptive Democratic nominee and the general election is off to the racists. So like happens in any sort of Marquis Senate race along with the front runder status comes the scrutiny. And this is when more allegations start to surface. This is when the rumors that were already surrounding him go into hyperdrive. So the first big story that breaks, and it breaks by us in the New York Times and also in the Wall Street Journal, is that he had been exchanging explicit messages with multiple women as recently as may twenty twenty five, off course, his campaign launches in august twenty twenty five And it is his wife who confirms the story to the national media. And the story is basically that you know within the first two weeks after he announced his campaign, she went to a campaign staffer and flagged these messages. has a potential political liability. She says that they are working through it, that they're in marriage counseling. They post a four minute long tearful video message from her where she sort of explains the impact this coming out in the public has on their lives. but it also sets off this frenzy around what else there is in terms of Graham Platner's interactions with women And this brings us, I assume, to last Thursday, when your story broke Yes, on Thursday, we published a story that has been months in the making, that is rooted in more than two dozen interviews. And it's really based on allegations from three different women who dated Platner They describe reckless and unsettling behavior, They describe heavy drinking infidelity And in at least one case, there is the description of physical intimidation When you say physical intimidation, what do you actually mean by that Well, a woman who now lives in Virginia, Lindseay Fyfield, dated Platner from about twenty thirteen to twenty fifteen. And she described several instances of what she said was physical intimidation. There was one where she said Graham Platner yanked her out of a taxi by her wrist. She said that he would kind of grab her by the shoulders hard enough to leave marks kind of move her around from place to place. And she said once when they had both been drinking and were having a fight over infidelity, he pinned her arm behind her back and sort of pushed her into a room and held the door closed. And she says it hurt, you know, but it didn't break her arm But it hurt But it is important to note that Lindsey F Fields said that Platiner never hit her. he never punched her, that this was physical But it didn't cross that line Beyond the issues of physical intimidation that Lindseay Fefield was alleging, there were other concerns that she raised. She said that the way that Platner could talk about violence would leave her uneasy at times She says he left an AR fifteen lying around his apartment on Capitol Hill she also recalled that he would say pretty disturbing things. For example, she told us that he would say the following, quote If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape them. She said that he added that it would not be quote in a sexual way, not in a gay way. but that he would, quote rape them to show them that I'm dominant, she said And she also added that he knew the tattoo was a Nazi symbol And he would joke about it being a Nazi symbol and called it affectionately Min Totenkomf. Wow And this is notable because Platner, as you told us, has said throughout the campaign and recently to our colleague, Lulouu Garcia Navarro, that he didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo. Exactly. And what Lindseay says is not only did he know, but he and other members of his unit and the Marine selected the tattoo because they were, as she says, quote, like a death unit, they were killers. And they saw a parallel between what they were doing and the Nazi SS unit And how did you evaluate these claims. I mean, she's telling you these really explosive things. How do you corroborate them? So we looked at text over the years between Miss Fivefield and Mr. Platner. We looked at G chat conversations at Facebook messages, between Lindseay and a number of her friends, both during and after the relationship We saw some of her diary entries after the relationship had ended, and we talked to two of her friends who told us that indeed the pair had had an emotionally volatile relationship. At the same time, and we're clear about this in the story, those friends could not offer corroboration from the time regarding the physical altercations, the most controversial comments that Lindseay described And she told us that she didn't expect them to be able to offer that real time corroboration from that time because she said she didn't tell anyone at the time saying that she was embarrassed. But to be clear, we spoke with three women who dated Platner on and off over a period of years as recently as twenty twenty one They said spending time with him could be exhilarating, but they also recounted patterns of heavy drinking, of womanizing. One of the women, for instance, told us about an incident in twenty twenty one in which Platner was very drunk. She told him not to come over. He did anyway And she describes his behavior that night as reckless and unsettling and says she goes on to cut off contact with him So the other element that we had to contend with in this story is that Lindsey Fifield is a conservative. And she is someone who has a long history of working in Republican politics. She worked for the Heritage Foundation, which is, of course, a consonservative think tank. She worked for Independent Women, which is a Cervative women's organization. And she worked briefly on Niki Haley's primary campaign These were not things that she hid from us. She was very open about her political views and her political background and said that they had no influence on the allegations that she was making against Platner. But you as part of our corroboration process and certainly on behalf of Times Readers, we had to look into those claims and really investigate whether she did have any ties to the Collins campaign. And in the end, we could not find any evidence that she did. And since the story ran Susan Collins herself came out and said she had never met Lindsey Ffield or even heard her name. Of course Be she doesn't have a connection to Susan Collins's campaign, doesn't mean that she doesn't have an agenda, right? How did you think about that Well, I think that was an important question in the reporting. And so we dealt with it in a number of ways. We asked her directly about it, and she said very clearly that she would have brought the allegations even against a Republican And the other thing we did is we felt it was really, really important to be transparent with Tes' readers about what we knew and what we did not know about her political background Platner campaign react when you brought them this reporting before you publish, when you're letting them know This is what our reporting has revealed. So we went to the campaign with the allegations and ran them through the story a number of times And they chose to respond in a few different ways. First, they chose to specifically deny two things One, that Graham Platner knew what his tattoo symbolized and knew that it was a Nazi symbol at any point in time, but specifically when he got it. Second, being any allegation of any kind of physical intimidation And beyond those two specific denials, they offer two blanket statements One was from Graham Platner himself Where he talked about being a less than perfect boyfriend and said he took responsibility for that behavior. but anything beyond that was categorically false They also offered a second statement that came from the campaign where they really attempted to undercut Lindseay Fifield's allegations by pointing out her conservative background and really painting her as a Republican political operative And they also connected us to five people, including three former girlfriends, who could testify to Platner's character And so we called all those people And they described a far more positive interaction with him and far more positive characterization of his sort of intimate relationships fell after a pretty intensive editing and standards process here at the Times, we were ready to publish after all those months of reporting And so we published. And then All hellroke loose I'll be right back Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. That's why Lifeelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the Lifelock app, save up to thirty percent your first year Visit lifeifeelock d. com slash daily. Terms apply You might not think about oil and natural gas, but it's a big part of your daily routine. From the soap you use to your toothpaste Even your bedsheets. More than six thousand everyday products are made using oil and natural gas Companies like Energy Trfer work behind the scenes, safely transporting these resources across the country through a network of underground pipelines Learn more at itakesennergy. com leisa Talk us through the hell breaking loose. So almost immediately, it was absolute mayhem on all the places that political gadfies, commentators, strategists gather online Social media, Facebook, all those kinds of places. And look, you have to remember, everyone across the country is invested in this race because both sides want to win control the Senate. But they also see at least among Democrats as this really big struggle over what the path forward is for this party that is so deeply in the wilderness right now So people really went crazy across the political spectrum. And on the right and on the left, they had a lot of views about this story People on the right said the story downplayed real allegations that we had intentionally chosen not to report things that we had that were more serious than the various allegations included in our story. And what was particularly interesting about that was the people making those claims included Lindsey Fefeld herself, who said there were much more serious things out there than we had reported. So the critics on the right and this source, Lindseay Fifield, are saying you didn't go far enough you intentionally protected pllatner Yes, they're saying that this story, which revealed really serious allegations about Graham Platner's conduct in the past was actually a gift to his campaign because it function to bury more serious allegations that they believe are out there And look, that's just categorically false. The Times is not in the business of holding back for any candidate or agenda We published everything credible that we had And what about Democrats? Like what was the tenor of their response For more moderate Democratic officials, this is exactly what they have been worrying about. I look forward to the day where I am not answering every single week a question about bad behavior by another dude. I just You saw Senator Alyss Lawin from Michigan expressing exasperation about being asked about yet another Platinner controversy. Being a dirt bag is not authentic You know, being a dirt bag is Being a dirt bag U saw Senator John Fedterman of Pennsylvania go much further in condemning this. And more broadly, there's this fear that what should be an eminently winnable seat this year in a year that is looking to be quite challenging for Republicans is in fact going to end up backfiring for the Democrats And on the progressive left, there was a very different reaction. They rallied behind Graham Platinner. So I think when you look at politics in general There are no saints in the United States Senate. People can argue about this aspect of Graham. or another, but to my mind right now We need allies in the United States Senate who have the guts to take on the big money Senator Bernie Sanders restated his support for Platner and said he was still standing by him. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that Graham Platinner is the next senator from the state of Maine A number of sort of progressives, strategists and professionals, activists online really attempted to downplay the allegations And Platner himself kind of takes the same tact in an interview with Chris Hayes on MS Now, where he denies the physical allegations and really pushes this idea that Lindseay Feiffeld is a right wing operative. And those kinds of claims about her political background being the driver of her desire to make these allegations are really echoed across the whole ecosystem of the progressive left Got it. So some worry, it sounds like, from moderate Democratic officials who see this as a flashing red warning sign and progressives, on the other hand, saying, this doesn't matter. This is not going to be a problem in a way kind of more of the same Talk about voters and how they reacted to this. Well, our colleague, Daily producer, Caitlin O'Keeff, spent the weekend calling main voters and ask them what they were making of all this Do you know who you're going to vote for on Tuesday primary Day Aolutely supporting Graham Platinner. I'm going to vote for Grandam Platner. I just can't bring myself to support So there's a couple different groups of people. At the end of the day, you kind of just have to figure out if you believe in someone's character or not, and I haven't believed in anyone's character other than Graham Platner for a very long time Some of them are just all in on Graham Platinar. I am not marrying the man I am not dating, Dand I am not expecting him to be flawless. They think he's flawed, but who isn't flawed I don't see any evidence supports the fact that he's an abusive person or did anything ridiculously out of line And some of those people also question whether to believe Lindseay Fy Field because of her conservative background. Since the primary accuser has worked for the Heritage Foundation. I mean, seriously On the other hand, there's a set of people who are really against Graham Planner. I don't think he has the demeanor that we need in a U. S. Senator I think he's a clown. They were wary of him before and this has just confirmed their concerns Just because that woman happens to work for the Republicans, the one who is a sheic accuser doesn't mean she's not telling the truth He clearly dated her. And I thought we were supposed to listen to women And they're saying, aren't we supposed to believe women? If we as progressive women are saying believe women except for the ones that we're on the opposite political spectrum of Long and gross And some of these people were lifelong Democrats, are lifelong Democrats, and now they're really thinking about whether to support cons in the general election Like I never thought that I would be fact checking Susan Collins's record to see if there's anything redeemable in it. And here I am being like, U, like how bad is she? Like It like makes me gross even thinking about potentially. I'm not a fan of Susan Collins by any stretch But I know that she won't embarrass the state And I'm really afraid that he will. And lastly, there's just a group of people who don't know what to do. They're really torn. I want to vote for someone who I can fully stand behind in an ideal world, that would be the candidate that we have But if it's not Platiner, then Who is it pitching forward to that general election scenario It does seem entirely possible that despite all of these accusations, Platinner could still win, right It seems clear, obviously that this drip, drip, drip of revelations has had an impact on his campaign, but we don't know if this is actually disqualifying in the eyes of voters yet No, and we're a long way to go from the general election. I know for people who haveve been following this race closely, it feels like we've been in it for a long time, but there's still many months to go before a general election. And this is, of course, a year that by all indications, and granted, it's still fairly early is likely to favor Democrats. So it's definitely possible, Graham Platner is the next senator from Maine Okay about what lessons Democrats would take from either outcome here, from voters in a general election rejecting Platinner in part because of his flawed past or of him winning Does this race seem like a referendum on whether this kind of political scandal matters to Democratic voters in an era when Republicans seem to have abandoned morality tests for some of their most high profile candidates I might look at it slightly differently. The twenty twenty eight presidential election will start the moment the midterm elections are over. And people are already using this race and other key races around the country to advance their theories of what it's going to take to win in twenty eight. And I think No matter what happens, the result in Maine is going to fuel arguments about who the next presidential candidate should be. So if Flattenner wins You are going to see a lot of the more progressive Democrats who have rallied to him, who have embraced his candidacy say this is the path forward. We need more candidates who are speaking out boldly on Medicare for all, on confronting the oligarchy, on taking a much harder line toward Israel, for example, and you know arguing that finding candidates may be from outside the traditional system, that that's the way to connect with disaffected voters in particular working class voters. If he loses, the recriminations are going be Extraordinary. more moderate Democrats will say this is exactly why you don't nominate someone who in their view is too far left, someone has far too much personal baggage we need to go with someone who has been far more vetted and experienced. So no matter the outcome, this race and its outcome is going to be a microcosm of the democratic fights to come over the real future of the party, which I think will not be decided until twenty eight. You're saying Democrats may very well take the result in mean as a verdict not just on Platinner, but on what they should do in twenty twenty eight in the national election. Right Basically what you're saying is that this Fattenner Collins race and what Democrats ultimately draw from it it's reflective of something that we as a country have been grappling with this rethinking of what we want from our political leaders President Trump represented this huge shift for the Republican Party, someone who's an outsider who'd never been elected to anything, who can easily connect with regular people because he reflects raw anger. that voters have And now the Democrats are grappling with something very similar. It's a different flavor of that That is at its core, the dilemma. What do we actually need our politicians, our leaders, our representatives to be for us I think that's right. I think the country is going through a period of rethinking what kind of experience they want their political leaders to have and also what kind of things that were traditionally seen as political baggage they're willing to accept. And we're at a moment where the country and voters on both sides are reevaluating how they view both experience and baggage And I think this main race is testing in a really big, really high profile way how much Democratic primary voters are willing to prioritize someone that they feel authentically represents them, over things they may not like about the person or even questions of their personal character. Well, Lisa Kadady Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thanks for having us We'll be right back