7/8/26: Trump Says Iran Ceasefire Over, Bibi Rages Over Turkey, Platner Fallout Continues

Ryan and Saagar discuss Trump says Iran ceasefire over, Bibi rages over F-35s to Turkey, Maine Dems reject Platner influencing replacement, Platner story left key details out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Wednesday. Have an amazing
show for everybody today, Bro Show people live for the
pounds back. Actually, no, it's thank you for having me
it is.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
When's the after all?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
People getting a lot of BRO shows this week. That's
how the schedule goes. Schedule goes. We're gonna do our
best here, so we're gonna kick off Donald Trump some
major comments abroad in Ankora, basically saying the Memorandum of
understanding is over, as well as this East fire. This
follows retaliatory strikes between Iran and the United States. Iran
then firing back at US basis probably the biggest exchange

(01:07):
of fire since the ceasefire began. I don't even know
who the date is at this point about yeah, it
doesn't matter. Along with probably the biggest news is the
revocation of American or sorry, the reimposition of American sanctions
on Iranian oil, almost certainly to invite a major Iranian
response and perhaps a resumption of the war. Oil markets

(01:28):
popping a little bit, but still delusional as has been
the case.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Turkey. We're going to talk about that.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Ryan and Emily covered a little bit of this on Monday,
but BB Netanya who all over American cable news to
tell us why Turkey is actually our greatest enemy and
Iran's over now it's all about Turkey. Trump making some
comments there Bb putting his full thumb on the scale
to prevent the sale of F thirty five's, and BB
actually saying some of the quiet part out loud. So

(01:55):
this will be a major tussle between the US and Israel.
Wonder who I would put my money in terms of
winning that fight. We are going to talk about Graham
Platner situation in Maine. There is a basically I mean,
I would describe it as a full blown coup attempt
now currently happening in Maine.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
You can evaluate for yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
But the executive director of the main Democratic party out
this morning, Ryan's saying that Graham Platner should have absolutely
no say whatsoever in who replaces him. Full scale civil
war between the establishment and Graham Plattner in perhaps who
will replace him. It does appear all signs currently point
to him dropping out, but we're not entirely sure yet.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
We are going to talk about me too again.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I know that this is a bit difficult to bros
on The bro Show who are litigating this, but actually
a lot of this is going to be reporting. Ryan
has some exclusive reporting that he can show everybody for
some of the text messages that led up to this
exchange between Graham Plattner and his current accuser, which Politico
had but did not release, which in and of itself,

(02:56):
in my opinion, is immediate journalism. It is not how
to doournalism whatsoever. This is in addition to some new
interviews from CNN and others of people who are accusing
Grand Platner of improper behavior, and a lot of this
is reminding us of the eight year ago kind of
litigation through me too, and honestly, a lot of the

(03:16):
journalistic standards here. And you do not have to in
any way saying grand Platner is innocent or grand Platner
did not act very terribly, but to say unequivocally the
way the media is handling the story is genuinely irresponsible.
So we're going to go through that, and then Ryan,
you've got Kai new Kirk who's going to join you.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Sager stumbled into a Wednesday show here, what are all
of these socialists doing?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
One run these DSA communists. But this guy, I'm going
to make an exception for this dude because he's currently
running for office in Arizona and is what is he
a filed official complaint with the Arizona Attorney General alleging
foreign interference by the State of Israel via a massive
spending bomb against him. So any American who's under attack

(03:59):
by the ISRAE lobby America first to support them. And
then you have Ryan A candidate David Morales Essa is.

Speaker 5 (04:07):
Trying to take over provident evidence. And as people say,
as goes providence goes.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
As goes, Providence goes, Yet so goes Providence.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Great city though, don't get me wrong, great city. I
got married in Roeland.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I'll always love it. Okay, before we get to any
of that, thank you to everybody who's been subscribing to
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Speaker 5 (04:53):
So, I promised to put a link into yesterday's newsletter
and I forgot. I'm going to try to stop doing that.
I'm really going to try better.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
If I say I'm gonna put a Lincoln, I'm gonna
put a Lincoln. Also one fun thing today, drop in
Sight News turns two. Wow, is our second anniversary. I
remember like it was yesterday.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
I really was.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
I don't know if it's been super long.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
And I feel whenever we hit our five year annivers
like five years, it's happened yesterday. I guess a lot
has happened too.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
So there we go.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
All right, let's go ahead and start with Iran. As
Ryan said, some crazy stuff happening there. Trump basically saying
the ceasefire is over in Ankra. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 7 (05:27):
I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them.
There's scum. You know what scum is. There's scum, there's
sick people. They're led by sick people, and they're vicious,
violent people, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd
use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. I'll
speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They're good people,

(05:48):
Steve Woodcuff, Jared Kusher, but they have to come back
to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a
waste of time dealing with them. They're liars.

Speaker 8 (05:57):
We make a deal, and then if I make a
deal with him, we have a deal, and who goes out?
He talks, We make a deal. Everyone's agreed. No nuclear weapon,
we make a deal, they go outside, talk to the press.
They say, we never even talked about it. There's something
wrong with them. They're cuckoo. As far as I'm concerned,
you'se over.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
As far as I'm concerned, it's over, he says now
multiple times. So let's go and put the next one.
Take a listen, where he talks specifically about the strikes
on Iran, describing them as twenty to one in terms
of what the US received.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 7 (06:30):
We have attacked Tuary powerfully last night, the very dangerous
people from Iran. They're sick. There's something wrong with him.
We say, go and do your funeral stuff. And instead
of that, they start shooting rockets at chips yesterday. And

(06:52):
so we hit him very hard last night, very hard.
I would say twenty to one, twenty times tougher, and
every time we hit. And of course they're dirty players,
so they go after everyone, probably including me. I've been
number one on their list for years. And there are
a bunch of scum. You want to know that, this scum,

(07:14):
and so we don't like them. I don't like them,
and they're evil people. And it's the denuclearization of Iran,
and we're gonna de nuke it. We're not gonna let
them because they're crazy and they can't have a nuclear weapon,
and they go around killing people. They've killed thousands and
thousands of our soldiers, They've killed hundreds of thousands of

(07:37):
innocent people.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Evil people were going to denuke it. This is all
I mean. Look, let's put a one up here just
to show you even the shift and language from the
United States. The US Central Command Forces have begun launching
a series of powerful strikes against Iran. No, this time,
they don't even say powerful self defense strikes like they
usually do, which in and of itself is a meaningless
phrase to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial

(08:01):
shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway. The
US strikes are in response to Iranian attacks on three
commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of horm Moves.
So what this basically comes down to is a complete
disagreement on what it actually means to have the memorandum
manamorandum of understanding and the phrase specifically that says free

(08:22):
passage to the Strait of horm Moves.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
The Iranian understanding.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Of the of the phrase free passage is yes, you
can go through for free through with coordination with Iranian authorities.
The American version of that is, we can go through
however we want, including through routes set up by the
United States military and the government of Oman. Iran is
desperately and is basically willing to blow up the entire

(08:46):
ceasefire over. Basically, they are threatening to blow up an
entire cease fire over the idea of control over the
Strait of Horror moves because it is their ultimate leverage
that they were able to exert in this war. The
economic news basically as Robert Pape has described it here
on our show, and why I think that's very important
is just that there is a total mismatch between what

(09:08):
the US wants and what Iran wants. Iran wants not
only security for itself for all time, but also to
increase its overall regional power. So that's why the ceasefire
in and of itself, they don't particularly care about taking
some more of these smaller strikes, which on Kasham Island
or around the Strait of Hormuz. The United States needs
an immediate drop in oil prices remember Brent crude still

(09:29):
around seventy six dollars per barrel. The national price of
gasoline is still some three seventy, still a full dollar
above where it was before the war even began. So
you could see is Trump while he can say all
of these things, he can't fully resume the war either.
So we're in this very difficult status quo where oil
is going to remain high, and in the interim you

(09:50):
have chaos. You know, really in the straight RNE, you've
got shipping slowing down. You had a Katari LNG tanker
which got hit, which is a huge, huge deal because
Katar was one of their major much more explosive. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
much more flammable.

Speaker 5 (10:04):
And we can look at a bullet five of the
MoU reads the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements
using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial
vessels with no charge for sixty days only from the
Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versas.
The Straight of Hormuz. The traffic of commercial vehicles will

(10:25):
immediately start. So Iran is clearly reading that they will
make the arrangements using their best efforts for the safe
passage in coordination and in coordination with oman Now, what
the US has been doing is they've been trying to
tell all of these ships go through the Southern passage
that is on the Omani side, and do not coordinate

(10:47):
with Iran. Iran isn't asking for money, but they want
basically give me your license plate, license and registration. And
the US does not want to institutionalize the process of
these international ships working with Iran to go through because
that is then effectively seeding the idea that they control it.

(11:08):
But if that was something that if you ask me,
that the US wanted, maybe they should have negotiated for
that better exactly in the talks, like that's where you
work that out. So Iran is saying, hey, we didn't
get their license and registration. We're hitting them. Now. Trump
has a huge problem here. Even twenty to one strikes

(11:30):
are not going to persuade Iran that their position should
change on this question. Yes, Trump has already demonstrated that
he does not have the military capacity to bend Iran's
will on the strait of her moves like we all
watched it happen, And so that leaves either massive escalation

(11:51):
and occupation of Iran and complete decapitation of not just
the regime, but like complete regime change, and you install
the show or whatever like you.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Need the SHOT's Philson who lives here in Maryland.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
Yes, yeah, so that there's that, or there's the negotiations.
This back and forth where they fire on ships and
we fire on them does not change the status quo,
right They still like right now, if you're a ship,
no matter how many times the US has just bombed
run over the last twenty four hours, you still better

(12:24):
coordinate with Iran to or you're gonna get hit.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Let's put a four up here on the screen. This
is about transits through the Strait of horn Moves. You
can actually see what they look like in terms of
how they have gone down, halted, transit anchored instead of
entering the strait.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Remember I mean, whenever.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
We say, oh is the straight open, it's really up
to Iran, and it's up to the insurance company and
then the company itself. The company says we're not going through,
and insurance says, nope, don't do it.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Well, then we're not going to.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
You can actually literally see the circle there where a
ship is refusing to go through the Strait, So we
are not even close to resuming normal traffic through the straight.
This was already a problem. We've had multiple strikes now
by Iran in the Strait. We had what was it,
a renewal of said ceasefire. Nobody's saying that that can't
happen tomorrow. But this type of language from Trump combined.

(13:14):
I think you guys covered when I was gone, the
comments from the Vice President Jade Vance, where he was like, look,
the ceasefire gives us an opportunity to rearm. Who can
restock our oil? I'm like, uh, well, you know, if
I'm Iran and I'm listening to that, I'm like, well,
maybe I should start shooting, and now I should never
stop shooting.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
Actually, I'm not going to let you sneak past I think.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
And also remember, you know, Iran has internal politics too.
Take a look at the funeral where it was some
millions of people, and guess what. There is a huge
faction of the Iranian government who opposed the ceasefire from
day one, huge faction of the IRGC who said you
are making a catastrophic mistake. They're going to rearm and
they're going to bomb us and According to Tret de Parsi,

(13:55):
the internal belief inside of Iran is that Israel in
the United States will resume the war within six months,
exactly like they did the last time. And so this
is all setting the stage potentially for a major conflagration
or confrontation. This will not happen tomorrow, necessarily, it could
happen months from now, but on again, off again, we're
probably not going to have time to cover the situation

(14:15):
in Ukraine. Perfect example, the critical nexus of the battle
in Ukraine is now where you have a development of
the drone threat. You have Moscow and Ukraine locked in
the contest, ballistic missiles they're flying over the top, and
Ukraine having the ability to strike deep inside of Russia
to Russian oil refineries. That's where the strategic calculus leaps
to another level. And it's very unfortunate because we have

(14:36):
effectively entered forever war territory here. In terms of the logic,
it's easier to just mow the lawn with Iran. It's
easier for Iran to just constantly, you know, sit there
and be like, look, we're not getting you know, completely
pounded by bombs. We can lob a few bombs and
straits of horn moves and continue to negotiate over time.
That instability in the global market and order is exactly

(14:58):
what is diminishing US power will keep having a magnet
for the US, and it's leading to crazy situations like
Asia Pacific abandoning the United States. The European NATO summit,
half of it with the European leaders is about how
can we stop being dependent on America? Like, we can't
be dependent on these people the entire world seeing a
pushback and America not even having the ability even if

(15:20):
they wanted to arm Ukraine today we can't. We don't
have anything we use.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
It to do at all.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
And to add to your point about Iran's internal calculations,
yesterday there were two million plus mourners in Najaf, Iraq
for the Iatola so and the morning in Karbila is
expected to be even bigger than that. So what Iran
is seeing is millions of people not just pouring out

(15:49):
into the streets of Iran, but also also Iraq. So
they're seeing themselves. They're seeing themselves you know, solidify and
develop as a significant regional power. And so yeah, twenty
to one air strikes from President Trump aren't aren't going
to do it. We can put up a five. The
geopolitical implications of this Katari ship getting hit are are

(16:14):
significant as well. You know, Cutter had reached some kind
of agreement with Iran, and what Iran is showing here
is that we may we may have an agreement, but
if you're not respecting the rules that we're setting up
to get ships through the straight up our moves, your
even your LNG tanker is going to get hit, which

(16:35):
everyone here is playing with fire like, could be absolutely
you know, could catastrophic attack, you know, for everybody on board,
anybody nearby, and also ecologically for the entire for the
entire region. So far that they've been almost lucky that
this is all that's happened so far. Put up a
six from drop site. Up to five ships now may

(17:01):
have been hit just over the past the key days.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
There is that southern Omani route, which is as far
away from Bran as possibility where you can really say far,
because it's.

Speaker 5 (17:11):
Like obviously closing up.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, it's really not that far. That's the entire problem
with the geography.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
Drones and hand grenade for.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Exactly right, and speedboats if that's something you want to
do too. And so we're just locked in this situation.
How will it, you know, resolve? Who knows again? And
that's why it's always important to say. Trump says it's over,
you can't take that to the bank. Trump says that
it's back on. You can't take that to the bank either.
There's all of these, but I will.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
Say, as far as I'm concerned, it's back there.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
There are signals that are so in the same way
that the JD ascension and Geneva, the Lake Concerned summit
was it was a positive sign. But you can't take
back these comments about Israel or any of that.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
You can't.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
These are all good. Well, now we're seeing signs in
the opposite direction. So one of the worst signs I
saw Pete Hegseth was on his way it Israel.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
This it just got canceled. Well, bit of a problem.
Why does it do it get canceled? You could read
it two ways.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
One is there Matt at bebe over his comments on Turkey,
which we're about to talk about. One is we're about
to go back to war, so he needs to be
at the Pentagon. So both of these are you know,
I mean, one would be a positive, one would be
a negative. You also have Secretary Rubio who's traveling with
the president, not the Vice president who's here in Washington. Well,
well you've got the vice president away from the president.
You've got the hawkish Secretary of State with the president

(18:24):
along with Secretary of Defense, two of the people who
opposed the ceasefire initially and always thought that it was
going to be a total failure. So all of these
tea leaves that we're reading around who are around Trump
and what they're urging him to do, et cetera. All
of this currently points in the direction of at least
a collapse of the memorandum understanding, which just leads to
even more instability, which means stock markets are going to

(18:47):
go down, oil prices will go slightly up, but no
way a return to normal, which is what everybody wanted
in the first place. Nobody wants this war except for Trump.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
And we're down that ninety million barrels are in our
strategic reserve, that is, and we released I think six
million last week, so we're still going down. Ninety million
is nothing like you can see the bottom of that.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Look, yeah, the strategic patrol and reserve and much more. Okay,
let's get to the Turkey situation. Turning now to the
situation with BB and Turkey, I mean they are full on.
So BB is furious right now. Let's put B one
up here. You guys can see it. Trump arrived in
Ankara to great fanfare. President Erdowan even met him on

(19:30):
the tarmac, which is such a huge deal. Apparently never
does that. And this show of ally ship between these
two long standing nations is throwing Israeli politics into complete chaos,
so much so that BB Netanyahoo has now taken to
Fox News and CNN, not his own press, to beg

(19:52):
the United States not to resume the sale of F
thirty five planes to Turkey, which of course is a
NATO ally and more important to you United States in
every way than Israel. But here he is saying it
will jeopardize not US security, but Israeli security, and that's
why we shouldn't do it.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 9 (20:11):
President Trump is in Turkey right now. He said this
morning he will consider selling F thirty five fighter jets
to Turkey, which is a reversal of a band he
put in place. You said yesterday that would quote upset
the power balance in the Middle East. Have you made
that clear to President Trump.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yes, I have actually spoke to him several times about it.
And I think that everybody understands that notwithstanding the personal
friendship that President Trump has with Erdigan, it doesn't make
Turkey a friendly or a friendly state to the United States.
To the countrary, it's a regime that's infected with the

(20:54):
Muslim brotherhood, which hates the United States. He harbors Hamas,
the Hamas terras, he supports them, he finances them. He's
thrown his opponents in jail, all of them. He throws
more journalists in jail than anyone can understand. So he's
not exactly a model ally of the United States. But
even worse than that, he threatens Greece, a NATO ally.

(21:15):
He occupies half of Cyprus, another NATO country. And the
most important thing, and I put it right on the table,
he threatens to destroy my country, the one and only
Jewish state is Number two says that we have no
place among the nations, and you know what that means.
And his number three, the Interior Minister, says that he's
looking forward to be the governor of Jerusalem.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
Hello, you know, we're a sovereign country.

Speaker 9 (21:40):
He is considering giving the country these planes F thirty fives.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Well, as I said, it would destroy the power balance
in the Middle East because because Turkey I think has
aggressive aspirations, I mean say that they want to restore
the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire not only included Turkey,
it included many other countries, included uh Syria, and included

(22:10):
pieces of Jordan, included all of present day Israel, included
some Gulf countries. So this is this is not a
force for peace and stability.

Speaker 5 (22:19):
And if you give.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Uh uh you know, this kind of radical regime that
admittedly smiles to America when it is necessary, smiles to
the President of the United States when is necessary. When
you've give them that power, you're going to see aggression
in its way. I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
There's so much going on there, Ryan that you flag
number one, he's so concerned about journalists. Wow, Yes, the
person who murdered a bunch of journalists, he's very concerned
about journalists. Second, Turkey is occupying.

Speaker 5 (22:46):
Anti occupation, anti in the occupation.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, you might as well be a Ryan Ryan.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
Grant journalists, but the occupation A final.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Little quiet part out loud is this would threaten is
really air superiority in the region. That's what it's all about.
That's the whole thing.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
That's the opposite of a balance.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
It's the imbalance. The imbalance is balance to the Israelis.
The Israeli right to them is the right to not
only have their country, to have whatever is you would
define as Palestine is. To have half of Lebanon is,
to have half of Syria is. To bomb Qatar at
will is, to bomb Iran at will is to why
would what was nobody.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
But nobody has it?

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Why the Israeli demand was Iran cannot have a ballistic
missile which is capable of hitting Israel, not anything on
nuclear weapons is a ballistic missile cave of Why? Because
they need no balance? Whatso the package so they can
take over whatever they want. These Iranians are like, look,
we'll ship the nuclear weapons or nuclear material out of
the country. Nope, not good enough. Why Because they don't
have they can't have the ability to threaten Tel Aviv

(23:50):
or Jerusalem or any of these Haipha, any of the
other cities in Israel. That's what it's actually all about.
This entire thing. And so when he says this about Turkey,
which we all know they've been saying it out loud,
now for what for the entire war? Basically they're like
Turkey is next. From Neftally Bennett now to the Prime Minister.
This is purely about breaking up the US and NATO.

(24:11):
And I'm no defender of NATO, but if we're gonna
break up NATO should be on our terms, not on
Israeli terms. Okay, it should be a lot more about
why should we defend North Macedonia or whatever, you know
montanegro as opposed to Well, Israel wants to bomb.

Speaker 4 (24:26):
Turkey and that's a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
And the irony, of course, is that by launching this war,
Trump has made himself much more reliant on Turkey and
much more reliant on the Gulf countries because he needs
them because we no longer have any weapons to actually
restore some sort of regional balance. But he's still the
superpower person on top of that, so he both has
to curt court Airdowan and court Babe. He has this

(24:53):
rogue actor over here and then this NATO ally over
here with a population which hates Israel with a fiery
passion and really hate them, you know, right back. And
I just think it demonstrates exactly the sheer instability of
our alliance here with Israel. And also, I mean, are
we going what can we even say about CNN just
in inviting this propaganda commercial on for why he shouldn't

(25:15):
be able to buy F thirty five. She didn't even
she didn't even challenge. But why do you deserve Israeli
air superiority in the region? Did you even think Taska? Nothing,
It's it's crazy.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
Yeah, nothing, And so then watching and last point, so
we'll get to put up b six Nenya, who said
he jails his political opponents. Indeed, the mayor of Istanbul
is the largest opposition figure, is in jail with like
Trump trumped up charges. But meanwhile, of course Netnya, who

(25:46):
has thousands of his political opponents in administrative detention uh
in in torture chambers in Israel. But so it'll be
it's interesting to see how Trump navigated this. Well. Listen
closely to how Trump talks about the F thirty five's
and his relationship with Turkey versus a certain other ally

(26:08):
that he doesn't name, but it is quite clear who
he's referring to it be four.

Speaker 7 (26:16):
Well, it's a decision we're going to make. We have
a very good relationship. I would think that many people,
I can tell you many people, including the people sitting
right here, thinks, you know, why wouldn't we do that.
We have a better relationship with Turkey, and Turkey has
been in many ways much more loyal than other countries

(26:37):
that we think would be loyal. So well, something certainly
we would consider. It's a great plane, it's the best
currently the best plane by far, and it's certainly something
we will consider.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
Yeah, now, that's probably a double swipe at Europe, in
European countries who he's always dogging for not being loyal
enough and not defending him when he went to war
with Iran. But given the context of net Yahoo's twenty
four to seven in a public cable campaign against Trump
doling out the f thirty five to Turkey to have

(27:13):
him say no, these guys are loyal unlike some other
people who not gonna mention, it's pretty difficult not to
believe that he's also including nn Yahoo in that who
he feels, or he at least has been saying publicly
he feels like has been an obstacle to his agenda

(27:34):
in the Middle East, right.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
But at the same time, like, how can we see
the collapse of the seasfire and not bet on net
on Yaho exactly way, you know, we didn't even this,
We didn't even put this in a show.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
Shame on.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Guess what Israel also did today bomb Lebanon, Bomb Lebanon, right,
which the Iranians are like, hello, hello, well paragraph one
seaspire on all fronts. Yeah, it's totally nuts. And so
you look at this, you see these Raelis who.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Are bombing Lebanon.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
You have this attack basically on the Trump administration, full
blown from bb net Yahoo on American cable news. And
what does the President say. Nothing. I mean, every once
in a while he'll give an interview and he's like, oh,
bb I'm the boss, and that's great, Okay, it's nice
to say. But Bbe's not stupid. He knows exactly how
to reach Trump through US cable news. He's fully activated

(28:21):
all of his allies. And the other thing is now
that Trump says that the ceasefire is over, the Neo
Khon tunguebath is about to come back full in force.
Oh mister President, the greatest and the strongest president. You
didn't make any mistake here with the ceasefire. Don't worry
about it. And at this, you know you basically have
like fifth columnists here in the United States who are

(28:43):
agents of the Israeli government. Like let's put B ten
up here, Mark Levin, look at this, I mean, this
is basically propaganda on behalf of the Israeli government's position.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Breaking news.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Airediwan was prepared to join forces with Iran against Israel.
The President has mentioned several times he talked Airedwan on
entering the war on the side of the Iranian regime,
meaning he talked Airdron out of going to war with
the US and Israel. I really think this needs to
be explained in detail and fully pursued. If a NATO
country was going to join the enemy in our war
against Iran, we need to know all about it. The
President is rightfully condemning the support of NATO countries, But

(29:16):
in the case of Turkey, it was prepared to fight us. Question, Mark,
can you imagine air Dowan using our military equipment against US? Now,
this thug will have our F thirty fives. By the way,
Israel as F thirty fives and we're praising the hell
out of this guy, like as our best friend. We
need to know a lot more about this.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
I mean what they do is, you know, Bbie puts.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Out the talking point, then the entire neo con industrial
complex comes up behind him.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
It's a pressure campaign.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
And as you know, Bruno Massias, he's a commentator. I
deeply respect he called this years ago. I remember him
saying it. He said, the death of NATO will have
nothing to do with Ukraine, it will have nothing to
do with Russia. It will be an Israeli war of
aggression on you. And I mean he could not have
been more right. I really the most prescient predictions I
have ever seen.

Speaker 5 (30:02):
And on the Lebanon strikes, people know there was a
drone strike on a vehicle down in telling Lebanon. It
hit a school principal, her mother, a foreign domestic worker,
you know, like an O pair or something, and then
a Syrian citizen. And that we're all driving this car
which had been trying to return to its check check
on their home down and down the southern Lebanon where

(30:24):
Israel has destroyed most most of the homes.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
So, and then finally do you want to talk about
this Egypt thing. I wanted to give you that opportunity here.
Oh that was something that was so horrible. Yes, we
can put this next element up. Just benigh, guys.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
One of the most sadistic and insane things I feel
like I've ever seen. So this So the Egyptian Relief
Committee was organizing. They put out a bunch of TVs
so that people could watch in Gaza the Egypt Argentina game,
which trying to give peace a little bit of life,

(31:01):
a little bit of joy. In as bleak a scenario
as you could possibly imagine. An hour before the match,
Israel kills the committee's PR guy. Yeah, like, just let
them watch the game. Also, Israel would have been happy
because Egypt was completely robbed in that game. I mean,

(31:26):
credit to Argentina an incredible, incredible comeback, but Egypt had
this and one of the greatest goals in World Cup
history called off by some stupid VAAR call, and then
Argentina does the exact same thing, goes coast to coast.
It's also trips an Egyptian player in the box, and
they don't get a call for that. So Israel could

(31:48):
have just been satisfied with the Palestinians who were rooting
for Egypt being disappointed in how that unfolded. Instead, they
have to kill the pr guy who's setting up the
big screen TVs.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
So just.

Speaker 5 (32:02):
Depraved, like there's no there's no word for it. I agree.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
And that's why they deserve regional air superiority, right, that's.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
The balance of power they're talking about. That's what they're
doing with.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Their America deserves and should backstop in the region. Smart smart, Okay,
let's get to Platner.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner has still not resigned the nomination,
but Maine Democratic Party Executive director Devin Murphy Anderson last
night posted a video urging that he do so and
telling him in his campaign that he will have no
say in who is chosen to replace him or how

(32:40):
that candidate will be picked. Let's roll a little bit
of Murphy Anderson here.

Speaker 10 (32:44):
Hi, everyone, I wanted to provide you all an update
on the US Senate race here in Maine. As you know,
the main Democratic Party has been working around the clock
to develop a process to replace our US Senate nominee
that is open, inclusive, transparent, and fair. The integrity of
this process is just as important as the outcome, and

(33:05):
we are committed to ensuring that Democrats across our state
can have confidence in both. Unfortunately, Graham Platner's team has
repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put
their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like.
We have repeatedly reiterated too Grand Platner's team that they
have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for

(33:27):
the US Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like.
We have also reiterated that grand Platner must drop out
of this race so that Democrats in Maine can focus
ondefeating Susan Collins this November. We look forward to making
this process public as soon as grand Platner formally withdraws
from this race.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
And so the Platinner campaign responded to this, and we
can add this in post. Campaign official told sahoukpor quote,
the platter campaign has reached out to the party to
try and understand what this process would look like. At
no point as the campaign, trying to quote put its
finger on the scale. Over one hundred and fifty thousand
Maners voted for this movement, and over fifteen thousand manors

(34:08):
volunteered their time and energy to it. While Graham wouldn't
want to be a part of the process, he would
want to make sure the voters and volunteers make this decision,
not the political establishment. Unquote.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Can I say what it is?

Speaker 1 (34:24):
This is a coup?

Speaker 5 (34:25):
Well that from the executive director to say, we're not
even going to answer their phone calls. They did win
the nomination.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
He won, he won more votes. Look, can we just
say I'm not some Platiner fan.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
I literally second vouch.

Speaker 5 (34:40):
God's not like It's.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
Not that I hate Platner.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
I've always thought he's like a Brooklyn cosplaying leftist as
some sort of working clat I think his background bears
all of that out. Okay, and so I'll save that
I telligce so for later. But to me, this is
a principle matter, like this man won more votes in
the Democratic primary than anyone in Maine history, and the
main Democratic who is that lady? By the way, I
don't remember anybody voting for her across the state.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
Does she run for anything? Maybe?

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Look, maybe I'm wrong, maybe she got voted it Like
I'm not familiar with exactly with the by laws of
the main Democratic Party. I know that one person got
more votes than anyone in the history of a main
Democratic party. And to say that he should have no
say whatsoever in how the next person if he were
to replace, to step down to replace him is totally insane.

(35:27):
Insane because his volunteers, his people, his campaign are ultimately
the ones who beat a sitting governor for the you know,
in the democratic nomination.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
You don't forced her out of the race, they beat
the DSCC.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
And then to say that he's going to step down,
which he doesn't have to do, that he should have
no say in the process is I mean, it is
as anti democratic as it possibly could be, because Ryan,
you and I both know they're going to try various
different ways to make this seam open super delegates or
televised debates like no, nothing beats voting and they can't

(36:02):
vote again, So it is by definition going to be
an anti democratic process.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
They could do at least a caucus level situation. And
what Platter seems to be saying here is I'm not
trying to force you to take who I want you
to take. Now, if an establishment candidate was getting pushed
out of the race. By the way, they would appoint
an establishment replacement. There would be no controversy about it,
no question about it. It would be done in twelve hours.

(36:31):
But an establishment candidate is not getting pushed out of
the race Platner is. Platter is not even saying he
is insisting on Troy Jackson or Senna Bellows. What he
is saying is that he wants to make sure that
there is an inclusive process that as many Democrats who
participated in the primary process are able to participate in,

(36:53):
and that could be a convention in Portland that has
many conventions in every county where there's a Democratic like
this is this is easily something that can that can
be put together. Yeah, And so he's just asking, and
this is within the power of the main Democratic Party
to put together. It would be a kind of a
shotgun thing. Probably be hard to pull off an entire primary,

(37:15):
whether you count every single vote, but you could do
a caucus type situation. They could figure something out in
Platter's campaign and saying, what are you thinking because to
your point, they don't want this to go into Janet
Mills office, yeah, or or her or her office because
it's they just come out voter smoke signal the vote.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Jeck did her right. They explicitly did not vote for her,
like you cannot do this. In my opinion, this is
why I mean, look, I think so much of Plattner
and a lot of the Democratic Left. I don't know
what is going on, but like you know, their whole
brand is fighting. This is the time to fight, guys.
This is how you got steamrolled under Biden, and this
is basically why you have no power. This is why

(37:55):
Bernie dropped out of the race after Super Tuesday, never
fought and did anything allegedly, this is the time to
stand up. Everybody just immediately was like, oh yeah, Platner's
got to go, but nobody demanded any sort of conditions,
and the main Democratic Party said he's in no position
to demand anything.

Speaker 4 (38:11):
I'm he literally is in a position to demand anything.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
It's like, I really feel like I'm taking crazy pills, Ryan,
because a lot of it, like from Mamdani to Bernie,
to any of the Rocannas, all the movement leaders, everyone
started with he's got to go without the next part.
The next part should be and the person who who
succeeds him should be as similar to him as possible,

(38:37):
and they've given up all their leverage, and now these
people are right back in charge.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
I really think if your anti establishment Democrat.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
And Maine, you should be outraged by the way this
is playing out right.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
There are three kind of ways you can handle serious,
huge allegations like that in the moment. One is to say,
we need to wait for a couple of days here
to get more information about this I want to hear
from all sides. Two is to say, Okay, you know
what our guys done. We're going to negotiate a surrender here.

(39:09):
Let's work on the terms of what this surrender look like.
Looks like three is just complete in total surrender, and
they went with basically number three. So let's put up
C two. So this is Bernie Sanders, he says. He tweeted,
I have spoken with Graham Plattner about the best path

(39:29):
forward for Maine in light of these very serious allegations.
I have recommended that he step aside. Mayor Zoron Mdani
in New York was asked as well about whether or
not Platner should stay in the race. He has a
lot of the same kind of consultants on his team
as are with Platner and staffers. Let's roll C one here.

Speaker 11 (39:51):
Given that you have a sort of a sendent role
in the Democratic Party, could you talk about the main
Senate race. Do you think that Graham Plattner should drop
out of the race and do you have any intention
of endorsing any candidates in competitive races outside of New York,
LSIED or anyone else.

Speaker 6 (40:07):
I believe that it's time for him to drop out
of the race. And when it comes to my own endorsements,
I've made eight endorsements at the state and federal level.
They've all been right here in New York City. I'm
incredibly excited at the fact that they won their races,
and that's where my focus is for now. I think

(40:28):
the focus of today should be to respond to the
gravity of what so many of us have read. And
I think that the only appropriate response is for the
campaign to come to an end.

Speaker 5 (40:38):
And we can put up C five here. This is
from drops I knew is Nathan Bernard. He interviewed a
ton of volunteers for Grand Platner, and the overwhelming, almost
universal consensus from them was that Platiner either no longer
should have a shot at staying in the race or
no longer does have a shot in the race, and

(40:58):
that either way the upshot is the same. But they
want Troy Jackson, who are we were, who we were
talking about earlier and talked about yesterday on the program.
He's a logger who was the former state Senate president
who ran for governor. Finished a very close There was
a very close third with it was Hannah Pingree, Shennon
Bellows and UH and him and him as well in

(41:20):
the rough shot had ran coming competitively as well. UH. Meanwhile,
Jared Golden put up six year uh Platner ran as
an anti war candidate. Jared Golden cast a deciding vote
to kill a war Powers resolution in the US House.

(41:43):
As his thing was, he's a maverick in the conservative
district to to his credit, continued to get elected as
a as a Democrat in a Trump leaning district. To
his discredit, one of the ways he did it was
by constantly voting for war. So if to try to
replace a guy whose energy clearly came from his passionate

(42:07):
opposition two forever wars and two the genocide and Gaza
with somebody who's passionately on the other side of that
would be apparently maybe that's something that's okay with the
main Democratic Party, but it's hard to believe that that's well,
that not just guaranteeing defeat in November.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
That's what I want to ask you, Am I overreacting?
Like does the current process point in the Troy Jackson
you know path, because could one? But see, this is
where this is kind of why I think that the
left is not you know, far be it from me
to like give advice or whatever. You don't have to listen,
but you know, the whole point was supposed to be
we fight.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
That's why we go with Platiner.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
That's why we're going to abandon our woke shibblitz after
the New York Times store story and be like, no,
we're sticking with our man. This is it right, We're
going We're all in because this is about fight. And
then you not only do you immediately give up, you
ask for nothing, and you basically give the establishment the
bat which which to bash your head in, which if

(43:07):
you're spending any time on Twitter right now, and you
really should go monitor the accounts of all of the
pro establishment people near a Tandent and mat Iglesias and
Josh Barrow. And I'm not saying this in a disparaging way.
They have a you know, they have a more of
an adversarial, more like centrist view of how the Democratic
Party should be. They are using this moment to not
only go after Platner, but everybody who backed so Morris

(43:29):
Katz and the And I'm sorry if this is too
inside baseball, but this stuff matters. They're currently using it
to try and blacklist that what is it fight agency
which found Platner. So they're like, see, these people have
horrible judgment, right, See, these people cannot be trusted. That's
why I said, not only is it a coup, it's
a purge, it's a simultaneous effort by a lot of

(43:49):
the establishment Democrats. And so when you immediately give up
all your leverage, now you have nothing because Graham has
both not fought back even though I mean again, the
biggest indication to me that he's guilty is or at
least guilty in something, right is he's like, Okay, I
haven't heard from him.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Hands up, Yeah, you haven't heard from anything.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
He's canceled his events, he stopped all of his spending.
He basically, you know, conceded from day one that he
was like, we're gonna assess the future of our campaign.
He's hanging out at his home, you know, doing nothing
from what we can see right now. And then it's
not just him, it's all the movement leaders that I listed,
and you're basically allowing the establishment to burn you, which

(44:31):
you know, if it's twenty twenty after BLM, that's one thing,
but it's today where you guys are actually winning primaries,
you do have some leverage, and I see nothing. I
think this is a shameful incident, honestly.

Speaker 5 (44:44):
And they're even I've noticed trying to use it against
Abdul L's side in Michigan.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Wife noticed that too.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
It's like, wait, hold on a second, what on earth? Yeah,
he has not well side and also good luck Choynnie,
like a Platner's name idea in Michigan is probably not
very high. Like this is inside stuff that like freaks
like us or following pretty closely. But Abdula sayat like,
what are you doing? You're going after him just because
he shares some politics with Platiner. No, it's it's completely I.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Got my own beef with Obdul who by the way
is hopefully coming on the show next week. We're talking
a lot about property taxes.

Speaker 5 (45:18):
Yeah, I mean I'm I'm beefing with him over us too,
oh God like public Like I haven't argued with him.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
But I would. Yeah, but we'll get into it. We'll
we'll save all that later spoilers. Soo's been married for
twenty years. It looks like he's two children, so, you know,
good for him. I don't think that has anything to
do with his behavior. Also, you know, plug for you know,
non traditional Sharia. If you don't drink, none of this
will happen to you. That's just my my personal plug.

Speaker 5 (45:42):
But you gotta look totally. But it reduces the like
soft sharia.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
If you if you live a soft Sharia lifestyle and
you don't drink, you don't gamble, and you don't run
around and chase promiscuous lifestyle, you will not have people
who have accusations against you. Who who would have thought so?
So Ron, Mom, Donnie and I'll Dulcie. You know, you
got two Muslim guys and they live clean. This is
what clean living can get you. But my general point
here about the way that this is all playing out

(46:09):
is it seems abundantly clear that the Democratic establishment is
on a high.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
I have not seen them on in quite some time.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Like they really, like the left was having an ascendant moment.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
They had Zoron.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Between Zoron and then those three New York City primaries
and Colorado.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
This was a big deal.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
This was a big big I would say, two months
and now this was actually, in my opinion, the real
testing ground because when in a blue seat in a
blue state, Okay, congratulations, knocking off a Republican swing senator
in a swing ish state like Maine, which has consistently
voted for Susan Collins, to have a full blown, like

(46:51):
non compromising in terms of the DSA ideology to be
able to win that state would have been a absolute
earthquake in politics. Again, it's one thing to beat a Democrat.
It's a whole other thing to actually beat a Republican
whenever you're running on that strategy. And that's why to
give up all of that leverage and to basically hand
it all back in the silver platter to the main

(47:12):
Democratic Party. Who is setting these standards, I mean, you
tell me, Ryan, I don't see a single prominent movement
leader going after this main democratic woman, right, I haven't
seen one be like, actually no, he's going to have
a say because he seems so toxic.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
So I do think it.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
I think it's a very dangerous moment, like for democracy
and especially if you how could you how could the
number one lesson from Biden not be democracy is good?

Speaker 5 (47:37):
Now?

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Actually democracy is good. It is because that the failure
of that is what led to your devastating loss in
November of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 5 (47:45):
You know, let's talk a little bit about the way
the press handled this. Yeah, Politico and CNN omitted a
key detail from its reporting around the gram Platner sexual
assault allegations. We have learned. Let's take a listen to
how Jenny Rascott, the accuser of Graham Plattner, described how

(48:06):
the evening began in her interview with Jake Tapper on CNN.

Speaker 12 (48:11):
It was a nay where him and I were texting
back and forth and he had taken something that I
said as an invitation and that's not how he meant it.
And I quickly clarified, and he sent a message back
indicating that he would come over, and I said, no,
don't come over like I'm not in the mood, don't
come over. And I was more sterned with that message.

(48:33):
And then I didn't hear back from him, So I
thought that that meant he got the message or gave
up on it or whatnot.

Speaker 5 (48:41):
Okay, Sager, So there was no follow up from Jake
Tapper if you listened closely there that she said we
were texting back and forth and he took something that
I said as an invitation to come over. This is
they'd been dating off and on for about two years
at this point. The follow up from a normal person

(49:04):
at that point.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Is what did you say?

Speaker 5 (49:06):
What would you say? Right like? What was the thing
that you said to him that he misunderstood? Now, let's
take a look at how Politico reported this is This
is D eight. This is how Politico first reported so.
Rasakot told Politico she connected with Platner on the dating
at Bumble in twenty nineteen and consentual relations with him

(49:27):
prior to the night he allegedly assaulted her that night.
In late twenty twenty one, she said she had exchanged
text messages with him and told him not to come over,
saying she wasn't in the mood for company. Later that evening,
She said she realized when she heard a sound on
the stairs that he had let himself into her house,
which was unlocked. Platner came up the stairs, Rascott said,

(49:50):
to where she was on a couch. He got on
top of her and kept grabbing her, she said, while
she repeatedly told him to stop and that she wasn't interested. So, Sagar,
you read that, and most people in Washington who read that,
they're like that sounds like he broke in to the
house uninvited and then began a violent assault of her.

(50:13):
Nowhere does Politico mention what she mentioned to CNN there
that she had said something in the text message exchanges
that he mistook as an invitation. They just say, and
elsewhere in the article they say he was quote uninvited.
It turns out, and we have learned that Politico definitively

(50:36):
at the time of publication, knew precisely what Jenny had
texted to Graham that he, according to her, mistook as
an invitation to come over. And we know this because
the Washington Post also interviewed Jenny Rassakot, and Jenny told
the Washington Post, because she's being honest, laying out all

(51:01):
of the details, which is how it should be. You
lay out all the details and then you let the readers,
the public, the voters say, Okay, we have all the
different facts. Here's how we interpret this scenario. So good
for her for being trans I.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Totally agree with you, and I want to say that
up at the top. This is in no way an
attack on her. This is about how I believe that
the media's handless.

Speaker 9 (51:22):
She was.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
From the beginning about this.

Speaker 5 (51:25):
She doesn't she doesn't have the text messages anymore. Platner
apparently doesn't have the text messages anymore. So we're going
by her memory of what they are. And to her credit,
she divulged the details of the text messages from that
evening and to the so she divulged it to the
Washington Post. The Washington Post reaches out to the Platiner

(51:47):
campaign for comment. Good for the Washington Post, and in
their their requests for comment, they mentioned that Jenny had
been texting him talking about a massage earlier. And so
the Planner campaign sees this and they go back to
Politico and they say, apparently there's some more context here

(52:09):
about the back and forth, like do you know about
these text messages the reporter. The reporter then exchanges messages
with the Platner campaign. Those messages have been now circulating
in main politics, in main political circles. I obtained a

(52:29):
copy of those. I was able to authenticate them with
sources with knowledge of them. And here is what the
Politico reporter said to the campaign. Jenny Rascott had been
quote texting Platner about needing her glute massage. That detail
didn't make our story glute massage. So within about a

(52:55):
half an hour of getting this glute massage text, Platner
is in the house now, she says.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
She says.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
She followed up, no, no, no.

Speaker 5 (53:02):
Don't come, don't and don't come because because he texts
it back long, so he's he's wasted. Clearly, he gets
this message I need you know, I need my glute massage.
He comes over, he's and he's text back, I'm coming over,
and she said, She's like, wait, wait, don't come over that.
She says, don't come over, come over. This is main.
He's not taking the subway like so's. She's drunk drunken driving,

(53:25):
drunkenly driving over there comes into the house and then
it gives but and then he's she says, he's grabbing
her on the couch.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
Where is she saying?

Speaker 5 (53:33):
No, right, where's he grabbing her?

Speaker 9 (53:35):
Like?

Speaker 5 (53:35):
Is he like immediately starting like the glute massage or whatever? Anyway,
with Washington Post, to its credit, included a version of
the detail we could put up. Washington posted the seven
one night in November or December twenty twenty one. She
said she texted him to say that she could use
a massage. She said she did not intend it as

(53:56):
an invitation, but he interpreted it that way, immediate replying
to say he would come right over. She said she
wrote back twice telling him not to. The Post was
not able to review the alleged messages are independently verify them.
Rassaco It said she later deleted them soon after the incident,
so they didn't posts didn't include the glue part, but
did mention the massage their credit. But because the Politico

(54:21):
published first, nobody I didn't even know the Washington Post
reported xactly.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
And I think that's why this is important.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
So there's the most important part, and let's just zoom out,
because this does potentially explain why a drunken platner enters
the home. Right it stops there, because that's where the
rest of the evening and her account of the evening
it no longer accounts for. But it does explain a detail.
And I think what was key to the understanding generally

(54:51):
that all of us had was that it did genuinely
appear as if Platner had been told explicitly not to
come over there. Understood that to be the case. Broke
into the home, effectively entering a home unannounced, and which
whether it's unlocked or not, is a full blown crime,
I mean, and I do think that that's part of
why we need to assess this very seriously. The very

(55:13):
definition of what Jenny has alleged here is a full
blown gross sexual assault class A felony in the state
of Maine with statute of limitations for twenty years. That's
what she is alleging, which carries a significant prison sentence
for decades, potentially in prison. And that is my understanding
of how I need to evaluate what is being alleged here.

(55:35):
I want to make that clear now. If I were
then to submit to due process or any something like
that in a trial and I saw something like that,
it would significantly change Again, my understanding of how the
event were to begin. This does not in any way
say that she is lying about what then transcribed. Also,
we should not take away agency from Plattner, who is

(55:57):
wasted out of his mind five years ago, mind, you know,
not twenty years ago. Five years ago, absolutely blacked out
drunk and then clearly in a position where he has
been in several of these types of encounters which have
been described from Lindsay Fifield to others women or ex
girlfriends who have talked to the media. He put himself

(56:19):
and had terrible judgment, terrible behavior and put himself in
a situation where something like this could happen, which was
obviously very traumatizing to Jenny herself in terms of her
understanding the Facebook messages about consensually careless. That's why I
think this is a media story, because I think that
the irresponsibility of not reporting that led to an understanding

(56:42):
of how the event transpired, which is not fulsome with
the general reality. And maybe it seems like you and
I are splitting hairents. But the reason why I think
it's really important and when you learn this it really
struck me, is it really reminded me of how a
lot of the me too cases in twenty seventeen and
twenty eighteen transports in which it was very obvious it
was purely on the you know, word of one person.

(57:05):
You could have contravening evidence of what obviously was a
complicated encounter or something where look, there's genuine you know,
misunderstanding or you know, a different takeaway in which people's
lives got totally ruined. And I do think that in
this case, like with Platner, look it looks like he's
on the track to resign, and when he does, from

(57:26):
what we know about his finances, if his rich parents
don't bail him out, he has no money, and he
will be branded let's call it what it is, a
rapist for all time. And that is kind of what
we're talking about, beyond the political implications, but the character
of the person. I don't think he has particularly a
good character personally in terms of the way that he's
acted here. But you know, politics is not a character context.

Speaker 5 (57:46):
Were this really that If it was, it wouldn't be
good't we wouldn't have Trump as president.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Yet I say all of this only to say that
the way that CNN did not follow up that question
and Politico did not include that detail. That is willful
in trying to craft a narrative. That's not what we're
supposed to do. That's why, and that's part of why
I appreciate the show. We talked back and forth, we
had different context, detail understanding, and for them, you know,

(58:15):
by printing it the way they did. I mean, as
a journalist, I think the ultimate job is to always
include as much understanding an event as possible, especially one
it's just something like this. Jenny is reledging a full
blown felony punishable by a decade or plus or whatever
in prison. That merits a serious understanding of how we're

(58:37):
gonna put in all the detail as much as possible
as if then were go to trials. Since they knew
the direct implications of their story at the time that
they wrote it, they knew exactly what it would how
it would unfold.

Speaker 5 (58:49):
And what's so interesting that, like we were saying earlier,
credit to Jenny for volunteering this information, I totally agree.
Perhaps she thought that maybe Plattner still had the text messages,
but either way, she yes, she did not hide any
She did not hide this at all. It is the
media that decided that this was not a relevant detail
to share. And like you said, none of what we're

(59:09):
saying here is intended to say, oh, well everything afterwards
he's justified, No, of course not. The question is is
it a relevant detail that should have been shared with
readers so that as they are analyzing how they feel
about the situation, they can take it all into context.
Does it give you any clues into how Graham Plattner

(59:33):
was interpreting, whether or not there was consent, whether or
not he was invited over and I don't Politico affirmatively
wrote in its article that he was uninvited. You could
say he was disinvited by the subsequent text messages uninvited
is false, Like it is just flat out false.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
There's an invitation, and that is the key, and that
adds even more to this interview, which never thought I
would say, this a decent job of questioning here of
Mika Persinski and Adam Ren who's one of the.

Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
Before we got that, so I asked Jake Tapper if
he's aware, if he knew, I asked, why didn't you
do a follow up? But more importantly, did you ask
her off camera? Did you know that she had said
I need my glute massage. In the text message that
that was the thing that he quote unquote mistook as
an invitation. He did not respond. I asked Politico for comment.

(01:00:32):
They are saying that they're working on a response. When
that response comes in, we'll put it in the newsletter
and we'll put it in the notes underneath here. If
that comes in before we finish taping the program, well
we'll put it up.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Let's get to Mika Persinski here talking about or sorry
pressing Adam Wren, one of the reporters who was on
this story. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 13 (01:00:56):
What aspects of this story brought it to the love
of publishable.

Speaker 14 (01:01:03):
Yeah, you're you're correct here, Mika. There there is no
police report in this case. We spent a lot of
time talking to the Jenny, you know, asking her for
coroborating evidence. She shared that she had confided into a
number of people, including her therapist, uh and almost real time,

(01:01:24):
and we reviewed email exchanges between she and her therapist
referring to what she called this the sexual assault, and
her therapist sort of acknowledging that this is this had
happened to her. We talked to people who she confided
in in the months after this happened. We asked her
why she didn't file a police report, and she described

(01:01:48):
sort of the the insular nature of where she lives
in her corner of Maine that she shares with Graham Platner,
and she you know, debated sort of how to to
handle this.

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
Uh.

Speaker 14 (01:02:01):
And and we found ultimately the number of coroborating pieces
of evidence, uh, to to support her story h in
a way that we could report it.

Speaker 13 (01:02:13):
So, what are some of those corroborating pieces of evidence?
So you've got uh, conversations with her therapist and people
who she confide it in, any any conversations with Graham
Platner at the time of it, where she said because
apparently as part of this story, she says she even

(01:02:34):
confirmed to him that this was not consent.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Do you have that?

Speaker 13 (01:02:38):
What what do you have that actually connects this literally
Graham Platner to raping this victim.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:02:49):
She reached out to him the day after via Instagram
and essentially you know, told him that, you know, she
didn't want to hear from again, and she told him
that morning as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Uh.

Speaker 14 (01:03:03):
And uh, you know, we we uh looked at messages
that she had sent to others in the months after
this happened through.

Speaker 13 (01:03:11):
Social media to see those dms.

Speaker 14 (01:03:15):
Uh, she tried to recover those dms.

Speaker 7 (01:03:17):
We did not.

Speaker 14 (01:03:18):
We were not able to review those dms, but she
described them to us. We also, long before he was
a public, before he was a political candidate, we saw
her essentially explain to others that he was quote in
her words, consensually careless.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
So I do think that that interview is important because
you know, and you know, cutting off if I'm sharing
too much. But when you shared before the story came out,
one of the key details where I was like, wow,
this is devastating is you told me the therapist verified
her comments and that didn't happen. That wasn't in the story.

Speaker 5 (01:03:55):
That's pretty That was the room. That was the room.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
That was the rumor that was going around was that
the therapist could verify that at a time before he
ran for office, that he she could verify her allegation.
And that's not what happened. And they reviewed emails, you know,
between her telling the therapist that had happened in June.

Speaker 5 (01:04:13):
On in June June of this year, after she started
working with.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
She they did talk to a friend ex boyfriend who
backed up her story, so that you know that's there,
and the Facebook message is there too, But I don't know.
I mean, the therapist detail was.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
Kind of important and I can read from the political article.
So this is about the This is the Politico describing
the therapist. Rasik Coo showed Politico recent emails with her therapist.
They say recent. My understanding is this is June, like
weeks ago, in which Razakott explained she was talking to
the media about her relationship with Platiner and the essay

(01:04:48):
slash R, using an abbreviation for in the message, Rasicote
was not ready to go public and was seeking help
corroborating her account in conversations she was having with reporters
on condition of man Her therapist responded that Razakot shouldn't
have to speak publicly about a traumatic incident in order
to be believed, without referencing details of any particular incident.

(01:05:10):
The therapist, who Politico agreed not to name it her request,
declined to comment when reached on Monday. So if you
hear Adam Ran from Politico discussing it, the therapist confirmed
that they discussed that that's not what they wrote, but
they should have written that in their article.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
So he is saying something which did not appear in
their story, which is why I think again this is
where the rumor mail actually got past what was written,
because when I read that, and I'm assuming the editors
you know something like this, you go through the fine
tooth comp because your ass is getting suit if you
get a single detail right.

Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
Wrote so she wrote basically, do you remember me sharing
these details with you? And the therapist wrote back with
a general comment on how women should be believed and
she should be believed and she should beau for her.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
That's the same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:05:59):
That's not an firm, the same thing, and they didn't
They don't report it in their article as confirming, but
then they say in interviews that they did that, which
is again like we're in an era where people are
losing trust in media and what are we doing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
That's why I finally want to do D five. Let's
do D five here and put it up here on
the screen. This is from Lindsay Fifield, who he'll recall
she was the conservative activist who originally was one of
the people named in the New York Times story. And
I actually think it's very worth reading what she says here.
She says, I actually understand why Democratic leaders didn't take
our story seriously when the Times are poored them in June,

(01:06:36):
but are taking them seriously now. It was by design.
The line most shared from my piece was the claim
that Times could quote not corroborate my story despite talking
to two of my friends. I gave them contact information
for five friends. They called the two who I clarified
not to know about the abuse, but they would be
able to affirm our relationship, timeline events, et cetera. They
simply did not call the other three. I also gave

(01:06:57):
the names of all my former roommates who remember him
stalking our row house, which was five row houses down
from his, and waiting for me to return. I gave
them screenshots of messages between these roommates and I discussing it.
I gave them the names of other men I dated
who might have remember him following us around the hills,
showing up on my stoop where we walked home from
days to confront us. I gave them emails to my
landlord urgently ending my lease and moving to an apartment

(01:07:18):
across town, and diary entries talking about it all time,
marks I told them during pre marital counseling, I'd spoken
to my ex fiance about the abuse, because I had
to explain to him why I reacted with terror anytime
he lost his temper. They said, oh, no, we don't
need to bother him or my priests. Besides, I'd written
about in my diary. As the weeks dragged on, I
stopped trying to give them evidence because the amount I'd
already give them seemed to overwhelm them, and I thought

(01:07:39):
it meant that they had clearly more enough to verify
my every claim. My friends might not have known the details,
but they affirmed that, yes, I had told them he
was abusive. Besides, they assured my part in the reporting
would be small. I thought my details would only serve
to affirm Jenny and the other anonymous woman. Jenny and I,
having never met or spoken, both shared with these reporters

(01:07:59):
terrifyingly similar details of intimate partner violence, coercive control, and
cycles of abuse. The third unnamed woman did as well,
but tell me again how they could not corroborate. So
there are two things that actually happen here is it's
very clear they told her she would be a small
part of the story. She ends up being in.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
Mind in the flagship part of the story.

Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Similarly, she actually did provide them a decent amount of evidence.
It's and this is speculation on my part. If by
telling her that she's going to be a small part
of the story, they probably did the same thing to Jenny.
And Jenny is her entire reason for coming forward with
this allegation now is that she says she was furious
at the way the reaction happened to the New York

(01:08:40):
Times story, which elevated Lindsay Fifield's allegation and the dismissal
generally of her because of her previous role as a
conservative activist. And so the spiral here is that if
the Times had just done its job, if they had
reported what she says here. By the way, Jennie also
so says, I told the Times all of this off

(01:09:02):
the record, and if she they had gotten her to
expound on that and get her on the record and
properly get her on the record and put all of
this in a fulsome story, this could have all been
done before the primary, and then none of this would
be happening in some weird you know, extra democratic way

(01:09:22):
where he's got to drop out and then they're gonna
have to put them. This could happen before the primary,
right the voters would have had the information, new candidates
to Troy or whatever could have declared.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
People would have.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Actually had a chance to vote. And so I think
that the two primary villains here New York Times for
the way they handle this, and then CNN and Politico,
all three of those because they did not present Graham
for being a dog.

Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
Well oh yeah, right, so you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Sorry when I say primary villain, I'm talking about the
process that right, Yes, I know, yeah, Graham. I mean again,
I said it before in our previous block. Take it
as a lesson, guys, clean living. Clean living will get
you a clean life. And if you want to run
for office, you know you shouldn't be acting like this.
And that's final thing.

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
I said it yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
That's why I think he's loadsome because he told people
nothing else is coming, and you were rolling around like
this four or five years ago, maybe even ten fifteen
years ago, like Lindsay Fifields. So there could be more
that we could be, more that we didn't talk about,
and people stuck their next out for you. How many
millions of dollars did he raise? Millions? People donated to
their hard earned money to you, and you fucked them over, man,

(01:10:26):
You really did.

Speaker 4 (01:10:27):
And he's got to live with that, you know not,
which is what he did these women.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
He betrayed all these supporters trusts.

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
And I don't know if he even remembers this text
message exchange. And I reached out to him for comment
having heart back. So I don't even know. And as
far as people I've talked like him, he may not
even know about the existence of these text messages, the
glup thing, because he was seems like he was blacked out.

(01:10:53):
According to Jenny, the next morning, he rolled over and
put his arm around her and she's like, what are
you doing? Like do you not remember what happened last night?
And years right now? She's like and she's like get out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Yeah, and yeah, I mean his his handling of all
of it is awful. He never responded. Allegedly, according to her,
he never responded to her message, being like, dude, you raise.

Speaker 5 (01:11:13):
That was and that was a thing. Come on, that
was the thing that he's knocked for over and over.
So's ghosting, like, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
These women he was drunk, you know, totally out of control,
manic depressive, which even five years ago that was and
he was gradually true. And that's my final thing where
people are like, how could you have known? And you
couldn't have known this. I'm not blaming you or anybody,
but you know, the tattoo, the adrenaline, junkie behavior, the
blackwater and all that, it's a type. It's an archetype

(01:11:43):
which anybody who's ever interacted with people in the military
they know, they know. Well, some people liked him for that,
and I understand that, but it does come with a
significant downside.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
For anybody who you know is like this.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
And then so you know, look, if you want to
be a public servant, part of that is you need
you not only have to withstand scrutiny, but you need
good character.

Speaker 4 (01:12:02):
You need good judgment.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
And I don't think I would have said that five
years ago. I don't think the character and judgment, or sorry,
character especially was all that was all that important to judgment.
But I've actually changed my opinion quite a bit on that.

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
As mom Donnie showed up. If you're going to take
on the man, oh man, you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Gotta be squeaky clean and completely no skeletons or any
of that in the closet, because you're right, if you're
the man, you can have plenty of skeletons in there,
they don't care. But if you're not, you know, and
that's not an endorsement of the way that the situation is.
It is kind of unfair considering how many disgusting cretans
are Aaron Washington probably who have done the exact same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:12:40):
But in class cannot count it such behavior.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Great point, Ye