On this breaking episode of Normally, Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz react to the escalating controversy surrounding Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner as new allegations emerge and prominent Democrats begin calling for him to leave the race.
Mary Katharine and Karol discuss the latest reporting, the political fallout, and why earlier accusations against Platner were dismissed by many of his supporters. They examine how media outlets handled the story, the standards used to judge political scandals, and the questions now facing Democratic leaders as they decide whether to continue backing him.
Plus, they break down what the controversy reveals about candidate vetting, political loyalty, the future direction of the Democratic Party, and why the Maine Senate race could become one of the most important battles for control of Washington
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, guys, we are back on normally the show with normally.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
She takes but when the news gets weird.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I am Mary capin Ham on a special episode because
we got some breaking news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How's it going, Hi?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I am Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
We had to do a special episode because our friend
Graham Platner in Maine is in some trouble and we
wanted to talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
We've talked about this a lot in the past, partially because,
as I frequently disclose, I am personal friends with Lindsay Fifield,
who was the first major accuser of grand Platner. She
accused him of violence within their relationship, although not sexual violence,
and she was sort of nationally dismissed and smeared by
(00:47):
those who assumed she had political motivations. But now we
have another woman named in the New York Times story
who has come forward to Politico with very serious allegations
of sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
And the thing is is that she alluded to The
New York Times these allegations as well. Did she flat
out tell the Times?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Do we know that? So?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
From my understanding, the Times knew that there was more
to that story. I don't know how explicit she got.
She My understanding is that she maybe told it off
the record to them, but did.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Not want to come forward as a.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Rape victim, which is what she accuses her. She says
that on a drunken night in twenty twenty one, he
came into her house, let her into, let himself into
her house when she had asked him not to come,
and then forcibly raped her, and she realized she was
in a situation where she could not fight him off
and was potentially even more unsafe than she already was,
(01:46):
And that he fell asleep afterwards, and she didn't even
she didn't have him leave the house and kick him
out because she was afraid he would drive drunk and
hurt someone. I mean, the whole thing is very graphic,
it's very detailed. Yes, she had given some of those
detail to New York Times. And also my understanding is
that the New York Times leveraged that story, which was
(02:06):
then off the road, to tell Lindsey, see, it's okay
to go on the record. You'll be the least of
the accusations in this story.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, That's the thing is that they used her story
to get Lindsay and then did such a disservice to
Lindsay that it's you know, journalistic malpractice. But you know,
we're so used to it, we don't even think of
it as like, do you have any hope of The
New York Times like apologizing or rewriting anything or issuing
any kind of statement. No, because they don't care about us,
(02:37):
So we're not part of their thing, and they are
not going to care that Lindsay got you know, played
the way that she did by them. Alex Berenson writes,
this may get very ugly for New York Times. A
victim of sexual misconduct at minimum by Graham Plattner explains
in detail how she provided the Times the evidence it
could have used to corroborate her story, and how the
(02:59):
Times or this is deep journalistic malfeasans. I have no
faith that this will get ugly at all of the
New York Times. I don't think they're going to have
any blowback whatsoever from the left. And I'm seeing from
the left that we didn't believe Lindsay. But this new
accuser is one of us, and therefore we will take
(03:20):
her seriously.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Right, she's credible in a way that Lindsay was not.
In fact, One of the reasons that Jenny Rassico, I
believe is how you pronounce her last name, came forward
despite being a liberal who was like, I understand why
people are backing this man, but you got to know
the full story. Is basically her reason for coming forward.
But one of the reasons she came forward is because
(03:42):
she watched the story become Lindsay's possible political motivations, and
it sounds like it ticked her off. Yeah, and she
was like, this should not be the center of this story.
But the New York Times very deliberately made that the
center of that story, with I believe eleven paragraphs about
Lindsay's professional background and one paragraph given to Resco, who
(04:04):
said in twenty twenty one, he arrived at her house
drunk after she had asked him not to come over.
She declined to elaborate, but said she cut off contact
soon after that episode and found his behavior reckless and unsettling.
There was plenty of ellipses there for me to glean
what happened, and I think the New York Times had more.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
And she did elaborate right, or she would have. And
I think that they weren't interested in getting to the Bob.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I don't want to pursue that. So the question now
becomes is he going to drop out? And there's obviously
Mom Dannie came out against him today and he's sort
of considered somehow the head of this party at this point.
Elizabeth Warren called for him to drop yesterday. Bernie Sanders,
as of this recording, has not said anything but a
(04:51):
bunch of you know, all these people who were defending
him very very recently Rolecanna, are now saying that he
should drop out.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
The thing is that he could easily not drop out,
and you're going to see all of these people line
back up to support him.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yes, So I said today on Fox I wouldn't count
on him dropping out quickly. He put up a video
where he said we're exploring the path forward. It was
not a defiant video, right, which seems to lead people
to think he might eminently drop out. I wouldn't be
so positive, only because this is a man who had
(05:31):
his wife do a straight to camera selfie video response
to his sexting scandal, which was very real, and that
is a brazenness that I think might end in him
trying to extract things from the party to get him
off this ticket. Has Bernie Sanders yet come out and rescinded.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
His as of this recording, I have not seen that.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Okay, so I don't think he has. And you know,
Bernie's got a nice old chip on his show shoulder.
It would not surprise me if the two of them
are working out what they could get out of this
party for the ousting of yet another we must point
out voter chosen person with a lot of baggage who
(06:18):
is a socialist in the model they wish to elect,
and the party now is very happy to oust him
and then install, just as they did with Kamala Harris,
one of their choosing because they still have time to
do that.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Right so on ex Sonny Wright tweets Democrats demanded that
Ralph Northam resign over his black face scandal too. He
said no, and Democrats got over it and went back
to supporting him.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Platner stays, they'll get over all little things like rape
and him being a Nazi. They'll pour in money and
demand people hold noses. They'll even do He's seeking redemption.
And that's what's so beautiful about America media stories. Now,
I could totally see all of that happening. But I
have heard, and I know a lot of other people
have heard, that there is more coming, that this is
(07:08):
not even the worst thing on the docket. And I
think that if I've heard that, you know, our our
friend comfortably smug alluded to it yesterday on Twitter, I
think that the people who are unendorsing him clearly have
heard about it too, and they're thinking, I better get
out now. So if he stays in, I don't know
(07:30):
that they do end up. I mean, maybe I'm being naive,
Maybe I'm giving the Democrats too much of a benefit
of the doubt, because I think that they know that
more shoes will drop.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Again, it's July seventh as we're recording this. The elections
in November. If Susan Collins has stuff on Graham plattn
or she's not releasing it in July. This is not
from Susan Collins. This is all from you know, either
from the Democratic Primary or from the Democratic Party itself
wants him out in time to replace him on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
No, that was the silliness of the accusation of Lindsay
was if Lindsay Fifield is a GOP plant right, Why
is she coming out in June before your primary so
that you could do something about it?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Right exactly? I mean that was the whole thing, is
that it made no sense that she would do that
in June, and yet she was considered this right wing plant.
So if Susan Collins has more on him, and I
think that she probably does, she's gonna hold it till
October and then release it then. So I don't know
(08:31):
that the Democrats get back on board because I think
they know more is coming.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Here's the thing about Platner.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Though he has believed that he's totally fine throughout, he
continues to believe he's fine, like he didn't. He didn't
immediately go oh oh, this is the end for me yesterday.
There is potential for him to just brazen it out
and say, right, I believe what I'm selling. You guys
(09:02):
don't believe what I'm selling. Perhaps you don't believe in
the Great Cause enough. Because he was telling the New
York Times reporters the Democratic Caucus over and over again,
there's nothing out there. In fact, not only is there
nothing out there, I'm friends with all my exes. That
is what he told reporters, right, and I think he
(09:26):
believes it. I think that's what makes him a believable candidate,
is that he thinks he's super cool with ladies.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, it's yeah. I mean the thing is that the
New York Times believed it too, and a lot of
his supporters believed it, and they want him to be
this working class hero and he's just not that guy
at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I don't guess.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Run through because I think it's always important. I don't
have a problem with even when it's my friend who
is involved. I don't have a problem with people weighing
motivations evidence. I think that's really important, and I think
it's important even when I believe my friend. So in
Lindsay's case, I ran through the four things that I
do to decide whether an allegation is credible. And I've
(10:14):
been doing this the whole me Too era, because during
the med Too era, no one seemed to have a
standard that was consistent, and I was like, I should
have one, so mine where Okay, let's look at four things.
Is there a named accuser, Are there physical details and
corroborations that make it clear these two people knew each
other and were in the same space, at the same time.
Three were there contemporaneous reports not necessarily to police, but
(10:38):
to people and friends before this person was a national figure.
And then four, does this person have a demonstrated MO
that it leads to believe that these things a series
of things could be true. Kavanaugh had one of those,
which was a named accuser. That's their gold standard, right,
there was never any of the other three elements. We
(10:59):
don't even know that those two met each other. And
there was in fact countervailing right, Yeah, there was countervailing evidence,
and they pressured her friend to say she remembered things
that she didn't remember. In Lindsay's case, there were three
if you didn't count an MO. But guess what you
have with Jenny on the record. You have an MO
(11:20):
of a man who gets drunk, crosses boundaries, and forcibly
puts women into bedrooms where they don't want to be.
That's pretty decent. And all of these both of these
stories have corroboration. From before he was a senate candidate.
Jenny Rasco was warning a friend who she thought might
(11:41):
be involved with him, to say, like, don't do anything
beyond friends with this guy.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
He has problems with consent, like.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Right, that's big, it's big, and motivation, right, I think
the fact is that she has no reason to do this.
It's it is just doing the right thing. And I
think that that's a big part of it. And she
makes you know, she says that the reason she didn't
do it before is because she shares this guy's politics
(12:11):
and she didn't want to destroy his chances, and then
she thought that he's a bad person, and I need
to do this. So you know, the thing is that
the Democratic Party is heading in a really insane direction,
and Republicans are sort of letting them go off that
cliff right now. But I'm always worried, and we've talked
(12:33):
about it on here, that these crazy people can win
and somebody like him. You know what else is interesting.
The two socialists who like recruited him to run, and
they did that interview in the Wall Street Journal where
they just sound deranged. But they hired a firm to
look into his background and they didn't find any of this.
So you know, it's somebody like this could slip in
(12:57):
pretty easily, and we should all be worried about that.
You know, today this isn't about specifically Platiner, but today,
Brianna Joy Gray, you know, far far far left podcaster,
she says, she tweets about AOC. She says AOC ran
cover for genocide is terrible and hostile interviews and at
best is being pushed by Dems, so she can sheep
(13:18):
doll the left, but that doesn't stop certain leftists from
manufacturing consent for her. AOC is no longer left enough,
like that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Think, and one of her reasons for that would be
she didn't endorse the guy with the Nazi tattoo right
because like just utter stupidity and vileness as long as
it points to. For Brianna Joy Gray, a dislike of
Israel right right, which a Nazi tattoo does indicate sort
(13:51):
of a tell like it's all fine. In fact, I
would argue many of these candidates outright anti Semitism is
a feature not above in animating the left flank of
this party, and they don't want to deal with that.
I had a conversation with John Favreau in May where
I said, you know, he was making an excuse for
(14:13):
the Nazi tattoo and say that there's no indication that
this man has ever been a white supremacist, and like
Why are you guys, Why are you guys coming after
Manor's choice?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
And I said, like, I think if one's trying to
figure out if a candidate is sympathetic to Nazis, an
important test would be whether he got a Nazi tattoo
like permanent body art.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And he continues to.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Say that doesn't make any sense, that's a dumb theory
of the.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Case, and I said, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I remain convinced the Nazi tattoo is a useful heuristic
for Dulm and bat in the extreme, and I was correct, right,
And the issue is in the future, are they going
to continue to listen to John Favreau.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yes, of quest they are.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, yeah, no lessons will be learned at all. And
so the thing about the Platinum accusations now is like
all these people are jumping ship. But the things that
they had on him before, even not just the Nazi tattoo,
And think about how crazy that sentence is. Not just
the fact that he had a Nazi tattoo on his chest,
(15:18):
they had more than that, and they still didn't care.
And I think some of the Reddit posts are completely disqualifying.
He rooted for the enemy, He praised soldiers get American
soldiers being shot. I mean, he had some really gross
commentary and the fact that nobody cared about any of this.
It just, oh, it was youthful things that he said,
(15:39):
oh three years ago. It just it makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, it makes no sense. And a lot of this
stuff happened within the last decade. The other thing that
rubs me the wrong way about some of his specific
responses is that he's made part of his sympathetic bio
the idea that he had alcohol fueled problematic PTSD accompanied
(16:06):
by blackout drinking on the regular. And then he says,
I categorically deny that any of these things could ever
have happened. Now, in the case of miss Rasko's terrible,
terrible incident that she relays, he passes out and then
the next day she tries to hug her and she says,
do you remember what happened last night? And he does not,
(16:30):
like he can't to count for his behavior.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Right, maybe that's not who you want to put into Senate,
But what do we know?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
What do we know?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Especially against moderate Susan Collins, Like they're not fighting some
crazy right winger. They have like the most moderate member
of the US Nate. But that's not enough, And we
have to overlook a Nazi tattoo and rooting for the
enemy and all these gross things that he's done and
now rape in order to accept him as the candidate.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, and I think I think one of the things that,
of course I would I would prefer that he had
never been nominated or raised up to this profile, and
that these women had never been through this. However, going
through this is useful for illustrating that on the issue
of white supremacy, or sexual violence or just domestic violence,
(17:23):
as Lindsay alleged, like they were.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Always full of it. Totally, these things don't matter to them.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
The idea that a Nazi tattoo is not indicative of
some sort of problematic white supremacy.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It's just the most wacky idea. Like I need something
a little more concrete than that, said John Favreau.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's crazy, and I do think I do appreciate there
are a lot of people online of the sensible left
and center saying it seems like Sheldon Whitehouse and others owe.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Apologies to Lindsay Fifield, who's.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
And this is the other thing about New York Times
if The New York Times knew some of the details
of Jenny's story and New Lindsay's story, that's a through
line in the style of behavior over a ten year period.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And they're just like the.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
No dot's connected. What is journalism anyway?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Ugh?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I do think just I hope that her.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Rasico getting ticked off and making sure this story gets
out might quell the temptation of journalists to do that
kind of soft landing, catch and kill reporting on this
stuff in the future.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
That's right. I look for the public in side, learn
lessons here. Don't support a candidate who has all these
obvious skeletons in their closet because he's on your side.
It's just it's not the way to go.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Well, And their answer is always but Trump right, right right,
And Trump has many liabilities, many many flaws, all of
which we have acknowledged in the past. And also one
must contend with the fact that no one else is
Trump like it just politically speaking, is different, as is
(19:25):
the fact that like much like the Kavanaugh stuff, I
weigh each and every accusation and some of them are
with merit and some of them are without Like that's
just that's what the left was unwilling to do during
all of me too, and suddenly they got very interested
in it during Lindsay Fifield's accusations, right.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I get a lot of because I defended Pete Hegseth
during his nomination process very openly. I get a lot
of comments about him, like, oh, you didn't care about Hegseth.
His The accusation against him did not sound believable to
me at all, and it.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Also had video evidence.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yeah, to rehash you know what happened there, but going
up to his room while her husband was in a
different hotel room, I don't know a lot of things
there just did not ring true to me at all,
and that's why I supported him despite that accusation. Some
accusations are going to be untrue and you can parse
them as you want.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, well, I do wish Raska is the best.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I think you know, she lives main It's a small
state with a small population. She said, I didn't really
want to be known for this, and now she will be,
and that's not easy.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
No, it's not.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, we wish her the very very best. Well, thanks
for joining us on this special episode of Normally Normally
Usually airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
things get weird, act normally
Hey, guys, we are back on normally the show with normally.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
She takes but when the news gets weird.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I am Mary capin Ham on a special episode because
we got some breaking news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How's it going, Hi?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I am Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
We had to do a special episode because our friend
Graham Platner in Maine is in some trouble and we
wanted to talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
We've talked about this a lot in the past, partially because,
as I frequently disclose, I am personal friends with Lindsay Fifield,
who was the first major accuser of grand Platner. She
accused him of violence within their relationship, although not sexual violence,
and she was sort of nationally dismissed and smeared by
(00:47):
those who assumed she had political motivations. But now we
have another woman named in the New York Times story
who has come forward to Politico with very serious allegations
of sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
And the thing is is that she alluded to The
New York Times these allegations as well. Did she flat
out tell the Times?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Do we know that? So?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
From my understanding, the Times knew that there was more
to that story. I don't know how explicit she got.
She My understanding is that she maybe told it off
the record to them, but did.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Not want to come forward as a.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Rape victim, which is what she accuses her. She says
that on a drunken night in twenty twenty one, he
came into her house, let her into, let himself into
her house when she had asked him not to come,
and then forcibly raped her, and she realized she was
in a situation where she could not fight him off
and was potentially even more unsafe than she already was,
(01:46):
And that he fell asleep afterwards, and she didn't even
she didn't have him leave the house and kick him
out because she was afraid he would drive drunk and
hurt someone. I mean, the whole thing is very graphic,
it's very detailed. Yes, she had given some of those
detail to New York Times. And also my understanding is
that the New York Times leveraged that story, which was
(02:06):
then off the road, to tell Lindsey, see, it's okay
to go on the record. You'll be the least of
the accusations in this story.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, That's the thing is that they used her story
to get Lindsay and then did such a disservice to
Lindsay that it's you know, journalistic malpractice. But you know,
we're so used to it, we don't even think of
it as like, do you have any hope of The
New York Times like apologizing or rewriting anything or issuing
any kind of statement. No, because they don't care about us,
(02:37):
So we're not part of their thing, and they are
not going to care that Lindsay got you know, played
the way that she did by them. Alex Berenson writes,
this may get very ugly for New York Times. A
victim of sexual misconduct at minimum by Graham Plattner explains
in detail how she provided the Times the evidence it
could have used to corroborate her story, and how the
(02:59):
Times or this is deep journalistic malfeasans. I have no
faith that this will get ugly at all of the
New York Times. I don't think they're going to have
any blowback whatsoever from the left. And I'm seeing from
the left that we didn't believe Lindsay. But this new
accuser is one of us, and therefore we will take
(03:20):
her seriously.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Right, she's credible in a way that Lindsay was not.
In fact, One of the reasons that Jenny Rassico, I
believe is how you pronounce her last name, came forward
despite being a liberal who was like, I understand why
people are backing this man, but you got to know
the full story. Is basically her reason for coming forward.
But one of the reasons she came forward is because
(03:42):
she watched the story become Lindsay's possible political motivations, and
it sounds like it ticked her off. Yeah, and she
was like, this should not be the center of this story.
But the New York Times very deliberately made that the
center of that story, with I believe eleven paragraphs about
Lindsay's professional background and one paragraph given to Resco, who
(04:04):
said in twenty twenty one, he arrived at her house
drunk after she had asked him not to come over.
She declined to elaborate, but said she cut off contact
soon after that episode and found his behavior reckless and unsettling.
There was plenty of ellipses there for me to glean
what happened, and I think the New York Times had more.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
And she did elaborate right, or she would have. And
I think that they weren't interested in getting to the Bob.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I don't want to pursue that. So the question now
becomes is he going to drop out? And there's obviously
Mom Dannie came out against him today and he's sort
of considered somehow the head of this party at this point.
Elizabeth Warren called for him to drop yesterday. Bernie Sanders,
as of this recording, has not said anything but a
(04:51):
bunch of you know, all these people who were defending
him very very recently Rolecanna, are now saying that he
should drop out.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
The thing is that he could easily not drop out,
and you're going to see all of these people line
back up to support him.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yes, So I said today on Fox I wouldn't count
on him dropping out quickly. He put up a video
where he said we're exploring the path forward. It was
not a defiant video, right, which seems to lead people
to think he might eminently drop out. I wouldn't be
so positive, only because this is a man who had
(05:31):
his wife do a straight to camera selfie video response
to his sexting scandal, which was very real, and that
is a brazenness that I think might end in him
trying to extract things from the party to get him
off this ticket. Has Bernie Sanders yet come out and rescinded.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
His as of this recording, I have not seen that.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Okay, so I don't think he has. And you know,
Bernie's got a nice old chip on his show shoulder.
It would not surprise me if the two of them
are working out what they could get out of this
party for the ousting of yet another we must point
out voter chosen person with a lot of baggage who
(06:18):
is a socialist in the model they wish to elect,
and the party now is very happy to oust him
and then install, just as they did with Kamala Harris,
one of their choosing because they still have time to
do that.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Right so on ex Sonny Wright tweets Democrats demanded that
Ralph Northam resign over his black face scandal too. He
said no, and Democrats got over it and went back
to supporting him.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Platner stays, they'll get over all little things like rape
and him being a Nazi. They'll pour in money and
demand people hold noses. They'll even do He's seeking redemption.
And that's what's so beautiful about America media stories. Now,
I could totally see all of that happening. But I
have heard, and I know a lot of other people
have heard, that there is more coming, that this is
(07:08):
not even the worst thing on the docket. And I
think that if I've heard that, you know, our our
friend comfortably smug alluded to it yesterday on Twitter, I
think that the people who are unendorsing him clearly have
heard about it too, and they're thinking, I better get
out now. So if he stays in, I don't know
(07:30):
that they do end up. I mean, maybe I'm being naive,
Maybe I'm giving the Democrats too much of a benefit
of the doubt, because I think that they know that
more shoes will drop.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Again, it's July seventh as we're recording this. The elections
in November. If Susan Collins has stuff on Graham plattn
or she's not releasing it in July. This is not
from Susan Collins. This is all from you know, either
from the Democratic Primary or from the Democratic Party itself
wants him out in time to replace him on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
No, that was the silliness of the accusation of Lindsay
was if Lindsay Fifield is a GOP plant right, Why
is she coming out in June before your primary so
that you could do something about it?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Right exactly? I mean that was the whole thing, is
that it made no sense that she would do that
in June, and yet she was considered this right wing plant.
So if Susan Collins has more on him, and I
think that she probably does, she's gonna hold it till
October and then release it then. So I don't know
(08:31):
that the Democrats get back on board because I think
they know more is coming.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Here's the thing about Platner.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Though he has believed that he's totally fine throughout, he
continues to believe he's fine, like he didn't. He didn't
immediately go oh oh, this is the end for me yesterday.
There is potential for him to just brazen it out
and say, right, I believe what I'm selling. You guys
(09:02):
don't believe what I'm selling. Perhaps you don't believe in
the Great Cause enough. Because he was telling the New
York Times reporters the Democratic Caucus over and over again,
there's nothing out there. In fact, not only is there
nothing out there, I'm friends with all my exes. That
is what he told reporters, right, and I think he
(09:26):
believes it. I think that's what makes him a believable candidate,
is that he thinks he's super cool with ladies.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, it's yeah. I mean the thing is that the
New York Times believed it too, and a lot of
his supporters believed it, and they want him to be
this working class hero and he's just not that guy
at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I don't guess.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Run through because I think it's always important. I don't
have a problem with even when it's my friend who
is involved. I don't have a problem with people weighing
motivations evidence. I think that's really important, and I think
it's important even when I believe my friend. So in
Lindsay's case, I ran through the four things that I
do to decide whether an allegation is credible. And I've
(10:14):
been doing this the whole me Too era, because during
the med Too era, no one seemed to have a
standard that was consistent, and I was like, I should
have one, so mine where Okay, let's look at four things.
Is there a named accuser, Are there physical details and
corroborations that make it clear these two people knew each
other and were in the same space, at the same time.
Three were there contemporaneous reports not necessarily to police, but
(10:38):
to people and friends before this person was a national figure.
And then four, does this person have a demonstrated MO
that it leads to believe that these things a series
of things could be true. Kavanaugh had one of those,
which was a named accuser. That's their gold standard, right,
there was never any of the other three elements. We
(10:59):
don't even know that those two met each other. And
there was in fact countervailing right, Yeah, there was countervailing evidence,
and they pressured her friend to say she remembered things
that she didn't remember. In Lindsay's case, there were three
if you didn't count an MO. But guess what you
have with Jenny on the record. You have an MO
(11:20):
of a man who gets drunk, crosses boundaries, and forcibly
puts women into bedrooms where they don't want to be.
That's pretty decent. And all of these both of these
stories have corroboration. From before he was a senate candidate.
Jenny Rasco was warning a friend who she thought might
(11:41):
be involved with him, to say, like, don't do anything
beyond friends with this guy.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
He has problems with consent, like.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Right, that's big, it's big, and motivation, right, I think
the fact is that she has no reason to do this.
It's it is just doing the right thing. And I
think that that's a big part of it. And she
makes you know, she says that the reason she didn't
do it before is because she shares this guy's politics
(12:11):
and she didn't want to destroy his chances, and then
she thought that he's a bad person, and I need
to do this. So you know, the thing is that
the Democratic Party is heading in a really insane direction,
and Republicans are sort of letting them go off that
cliff right now. But I'm always worried, and we've talked
(12:33):
about it on here, that these crazy people can win
and somebody like him. You know what else is interesting.
The two socialists who like recruited him to run, and
they did that interview in the Wall Street Journal where
they just sound deranged. But they hired a firm to
look into his background and they didn't find any of this.
So you know, it's somebody like this could slip in
(12:57):
pretty easily, and we should all be worried about that.
You know, today this isn't about specifically Platiner, but today,
Brianna Joy Gray, you know, far far far left podcaster,
she says, she tweets about AOC. She says AOC ran
cover for genocide is terrible and hostile interviews and at
best is being pushed by Dems, so she can sheep
(13:18):
doll the left, but that doesn't stop certain leftists from
manufacturing consent for her. AOC is no longer left enough,
like that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Think, and one of her reasons for that would be
she didn't endorse the guy with the Nazi tattoo right
because like just utter stupidity and vileness as long as
it points to. For Brianna Joy Gray, a dislike of
Israel right right, which a Nazi tattoo does indicate sort
(13:51):
of a tell like it's all fine. In fact, I
would argue many of these candidates outright anti Semitism is
a feature not above in animating the left flank of
this party, and they don't want to deal with that.
I had a conversation with John Favreau in May where
I said, you know, he was making an excuse for
(14:13):
the Nazi tattoo and say that there's no indication that
this man has ever been a white supremacist, and like
Why are you guys, Why are you guys coming after
Manor's choice?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
And I said, like, I think if one's trying to
figure out if a candidate is sympathetic to Nazis, an
important test would be whether he got a Nazi tattoo
like permanent body art.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And he continues to.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Say that doesn't make any sense, that's a dumb theory
of the.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Case, and I said, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I remain convinced the Nazi tattoo is a useful heuristic
for Dulm and bat in the extreme, and I was correct, right,
And the issue is in the future, are they going
to continue to listen to John Favreau.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yes, of quest they are.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, yeah, no lessons will be learned at all. And
so the thing about the Platinum accusations now is like
all these people are jumping ship. But the things that
they had on him before, even not just the Nazi tattoo,
And think about how crazy that sentence is. Not just
the fact that he had a Nazi tattoo on his chest,
(15:18):
they had more than that, and they still didn't care.
And I think some of the Reddit posts are completely disqualifying.
He rooted for the enemy, He praised soldiers get American
soldiers being shot. I mean, he had some really gross
commentary and the fact that nobody cared about any of this.
It just, oh, it was youthful things that he said,
(15:39):
oh three years ago. It just it makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, it makes no sense. And a lot of this
stuff happened within the last decade. The other thing that
rubs me the wrong way about some of his specific
responses is that he's made part of his sympathetic bio
the idea that he had alcohol fueled problematic PTSD accompanied
(16:06):
by blackout drinking on the regular. And then he says,
I categorically deny that any of these things could ever
have happened. Now, in the case of miss Rasko's terrible,
terrible incident that she relays, he passes out and then
the next day she tries to hug her and she says,
do you remember what happened last night? And he does not,
(16:30):
like he can't to count for his behavior.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Right, maybe that's not who you want to put into Senate,
But what do we know?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
What do we know?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Especially against moderate Susan Collins, Like they're not fighting some
crazy right winger. They have like the most moderate member
of the US Nate. But that's not enough, And we
have to overlook a Nazi tattoo and rooting for the
enemy and all these gross things that he's done and
now rape in order to accept him as the candidate.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, and I think I think one of the things that,
of course I would I would prefer that he had
never been nominated or raised up to this profile, and
that these women had never been through this. However, going
through this is useful for illustrating that on the issue
of white supremacy, or sexual violence or just domestic violence,
(17:23):
as Lindsay alleged, like they were.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Always full of it. Totally, these things don't matter to them.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
The idea that a Nazi tattoo is not indicative of
some sort of problematic white supremacy.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It's just the most wacky idea. Like I need something
a little more concrete than that, said John Favreau.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's crazy, and I do think I do appreciate there
are a lot of people online of the sensible left
and center saying it seems like Sheldon Whitehouse and others owe.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Apologies to Lindsay Fifield, who's.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
And this is the other thing about New York Times
if The New York Times knew some of the details
of Jenny's story and New Lindsay's story, that's a through
line in the style of behavior over a ten year period.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And they're just like the.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
No dot's connected. What is journalism anyway?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Ugh?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I do think just I hope that her.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Rasico getting ticked off and making sure this story gets
out might quell the temptation of journalists to do that
kind of soft landing, catch and kill reporting on this
stuff in the future.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
That's right. I look for the public in side, learn
lessons here. Don't support a candidate who has all these
obvious skeletons in their closet because he's on your side.
It's just it's not the way to go.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Well, And their answer is always but Trump right, right right,
And Trump has many liabilities, many many flaws, all of
which we have acknowledged in the past. And also one
must contend with the fact that no one else is
Trump like it just politically speaking, is different, as is
(19:25):
the fact that like much like the Kavanaugh stuff, I
weigh each and every accusation and some of them are
with merit and some of them are without Like that's
just that's what the left was unwilling to do during
all of me too, and suddenly they got very interested
in it during Lindsay Fifield's accusations, right.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I get a lot of because I defended Pete Hegseth
during his nomination process very openly. I get a lot
of comments about him, like, oh, you didn't care about Hegseth.
His The accusation against him did not sound believable to
me at all, and it.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Also had video evidence.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yeah, to rehash you know what happened there, but going
up to his room while her husband was in a
different hotel room, I don't know a lot of things
there just did not ring true to me at all,
and that's why I supported him despite that accusation. Some
accusations are going to be untrue and you can parse
them as you want.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, well, I do wish Raska is the best.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I think you know, she lives main It's a small
state with a small population. She said, I didn't really
want to be known for this, and now she will be,
and that's not easy.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
No, it's not.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, we wish her the very very best. Well, thanks
for joining us on this special episode of Normally Normally
Usually airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
things get weird, act normally
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com