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Today on the Playbook Podcast, Graeme Platner is out as the Democrat Senate candidate for Maine. We'll tell you what happened, why, and what comes next? And Donald Trump is back from NATO. Has the war restarted with Iran? Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. And I'm Will Sten. It's Thursday, July 9th. Will, great to have you on our new Politico, national politics reporter on a very timely morning to have with us. You must be having quite a busy week, Will. It's been a busy week. It's been also just a busy first month. It's quite a time to join, but that's why I came here to cover these kind of stories.
Great to have you with us. Um, I'm sure all of you listening to this morning have seen the news. two days, five hours since Politico published the accusations of sexual assault against Graeme Platner, uh, which he denies, he has pulled out of the race. He dropped a video, a long 11minute video last night, uh, explaining his decision and explaining in his words why he did it. Let's listen to that. It's not the false allegations though that have brought us to where we are. It's the fact that they are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us. We live in a political system that is not built for
normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed. Okay. Will Graeme Platner there absolutely defiant to the last, still denying all the allegations, still blaming the machine, blaming the media for what's happened to him. Do you think the tone has gone down well with people? And do you think he had any choice but to uh but to pull out the way that he has? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty interesting. I think like right after that video came up, Mai was getting texts from all kinds of Democratic operatives who I think
were taken aback by the tone, by the defiant tone. And I had one operative texted me, quote, "All anyone wanted to hear was two words, I'm out. Amazing. It took 11 minutes to say that." And I think from what we're hearing, our team's hearing, which our team reported today, is that there was actually some, I think, behind the scenes um division over how Platner's tone should be in this video. I think there was folks that wanted to be more consilatory and um wanted to be maybe focused on gratitude. And clearly Platner wanted it to be a little bit more defiant and to take a shot at the establishment. I was speaking to like one progressive kind of adviser and they were telling me it almost sounded like a rallying call to maybe try to get some
of his supporters to stay engaged trying to make it about the establishment media, the money in the hopes of whoever they comes in with that kind of mantle that Platner was running on would maybe stay engaged. And so we'll have to see if that works. Yeah, absolutely. and received similar criticisms about the tone of the video. Nevertheless, Democrats pretty much across the board. Yes, really across the board welcoming the decision uh even though it took a couple of days uh for the announcement to get made. Republicans very quick to put the boot in last night. Heard from the RNC chair Joe Gutter saying that Democrats rolled in the mud with Platner and are now stained by their association with him.
And you I think you can expect to hear a lot of that over the next few months in what's going to be obviously a very heated campaign now in Maine. you can expect to see people, you know, trying to tar other Democrats with the sort of platner brush, um, if I can put it that way. And there has been, I think, some soularching, hasn't there, will amongst platinum supporters. We've seen some of it online. I've seen people, you probably heard it privately as well, you know, looking back at particularly people who stayed with him right to the end or almost to the end, you know, about like how did we actually get this one so wrong? How do we put so much faith and so much weight behind this
candidate when you know it's not like the politico revelations accusations on Monday were like out of the blue right there had been a series of negative stories and scandals about Graeme Platner over the months as everybody knows and yet people believed in him people stuck with him people didn't want to um believe negative stories about him and uh and that's kind of how we've got to this point there's a progressive kind of like influencer dare I call her name's Emma Vin Vinland and she was a big backer of Graham Platner. She's been campaigning with the DSA candidates all around the country. And the night our story uh broke, uh I was speaking to her and she told me she felt like just complete betrayal from Platner, from the
team around him and just that, you know, she felt like when that New York Times story broke a few weeks ago that had different allegations in it, you saw a wave of support. Bernie Sanders, Roana, others kind of rallied behind Graham Platner. And there was this cry that like there was going to be no more allegations were to come forward. There's nothing else out there. And I think a lot of people in the movement feel betrayed and feel like they kind of put their stuck their necks out for someone like Platner who they still believe in his cause and his policies and believe in the movement, but I think feel in terms of the man and the team, I think, like you said, I think they just feel utterly betrayed. And so it's going to be really tough to
see if they can take that momentum that the left has been having for the past few weeks after this speed bump and push it over the line to get someone to carry that through to uh November when you're going up against someone like Susan Collins who has just been so resilient in past races. Yeah. Well, let's talk about what happens next in Maine because we got some indication from the main uh Democratic party uh yesterday about how they're going to now move this process forward because of course they've got very little time to find themselves a new candidate. Basically two and a half weeks now before a deadline to choose a candidate. So this all has to happen very quickly indeed. They've announced they're going to hold a
nominating convention uh to choose a new candidate in which roughly 600 people uh who've been selected by county level Democratic committees will get together and choose a new candidate. Um now that's a bit vague and we don't really know the details of exactly how those people are going to be chosen quite how which candidates are going to be involved in that and how they will present themselves. So we're still waiting for more detail of that. We know that Graeme Platner's campaign certainly has been trying to uh have its say in how that should happen. There's been quite heated conversation behind the scenes and Platner addressed this directly in his uh 11minute video last
night where again was trying to make clear his take on how this process should happen. Uh let's just hear that clip. What comes next needs to come from the people. Needs to come from the people of Maine. needs to come from the voters who on June 9th at a strength of over 150,000, the largest number in the history of Maine primaries, said no to this kind of politics. Voted for a politics that would actually represent them, voted against the political system, against the donor class, against the entrenched forces. So that's Graeme Platner's take. I mean, will the main Democratic party um
are saying, you know, they want this to be as open and transparent as Democratic as possible. So, you know, maybe everyone's going to be aligned on this, but you know, and I do know that the process behind these things can end up being so important in who actually gets chosen that there's bound to be a real bunfight, I would suggest, over the next few days over the precise detail of this because every little detail matters when you've got two and a half weeks to choose a candidate and everyone's got different, you know, skin in the game. Earlier this week, I was already getting messages from folks close to the campaign saying he's not getting out unless, you know, this process basically puts someone in place that is
ideologically aligned with him and whether it's an open process. I think this is something clearly that he made such a huge point in his dropout announcement that is really important to him, really important to the campaign. And you know, I think talking to some Democrats, there's a little bit of like they're maybe getting part of the blitz campaign that they wanted in 2024 when Biden dropped out. Um, but I think with that comes also the fear that as especially progressives are fearing is it going to be like the establishment coalesing around a candidate that maybe they don't really support and to prop them up. I clearly that's what Grant Platner is worried about. I know others
are worried about. And so like you said, every little piece of how this plays out is going to be picked apart. who's involved. People are going to be looking at Chuck Schumer to see how involved he is. People in DC and I think it's going to be really telling in the next few days kind of how the rules and you know how things are played out whether or not it goes smoothly. My bet is it doesn't but we will certainly find out. It's hard to imagine everyone just smiling and agreeing sort of come by your happy convention isn't it? But we shall see. Um, straight out of the tracks last night, Troy Jackson, uh, the former state senate president in Maine,
who is the choice of many of Graeme Platner's uh, supporters and c progressive campaign groups. He's a veteran politician. He's done more than 20 years there. He's a logger and a guy from Maine. He campaigned with Platner, which may now prove to be something of a poison challenge for him. We will see. He is already saying he is in the running as is Dan Clebon the co-founder of the main beer company who very briefly ran um then in the primary then pulled out and endorsed uh Janet Mills. I would very much expect Nav Shaw the uh the former public top public health official in Maine who was a very popular figure during the co 19 crisis is likely to put himself forward. Chennet Bellows who ran against
Susan Collins uh unsuccessfully in 2014. The current Secretary of State looks like she may well get into the race as well. I mean, it's very hard to know, you know, what's going to happen over the next two and a half weeks given we don't really understand the process, given we don't really have any decent polling yet, but I think we can safely say it's going to be a fair old bum fight between at least those four, if not more as well. Yeah, I mean it's going to be an allout blitz. I mean I the number of people that are showing interest and leaking that they're you know receiving calls. I mean it's just turning it's going to turn into probably a circus potentially
overnight. But you know I think someone like Troy Jackson who like immediately after it seemed like Graham Platner was going to drop was already getting his name out there. I think he's really trying to you know coalesce the progressive grassroots insurgent vote around him. He was DSA backed when he ran uh for governor who and was also endorsed by Bernie Sanders. So I think there's like a clear line there. And I was talking to his adviser shortly after Platner dropped out last night and they're clearly, you know, they're saying enthusiasm through the moon. Lawmakers are lining up. All these groups are going to be lining up to back him. But I do think there's some signs that there's some concern among other
folks on the insurgent left about his candidacy. You hear a lot of whispers about his own oppo file. Some folks I was talking to were saying, you know, he just doesn't really have the charisma to maybe to run such a campaign in such a short period of time. And so I think there's still room around whoever is going to try to grab that kind of vote, but as of right now, he's clearly working overtime. Going to be fascinating to watch. Um, I guess the bigger picture beyond, you know, the specific horse race that's now about to unfold before us is how damaging this whole thing is or maybe not damaging uh for the Democratic cause overall, which of course is
defeating Susan Collins and finally winning this main uh Senate seat, which they've long felt they ought to be winning and is absolutely critical to any path they might have to winning back the Senate this fall. Um, and you know, you talk to different people who have different takes on this. There are some people who are telling me that this is not a bad week for the Democrats, even though it looks like it right now because Graeme Platner was so damaged by so many of the different allegations and smears and scandals and blah over the last few months that actually the best possible thing that could have happened was that something tipped it over the edge and now they get a relatively clean skin, if I can put it
that way, in the race. Equally, you can make the case that this whole thing has been a catastrophe for the Democrats in terms of a nomination process and this whole thing is a complete mess and if they just found a decent candidate from the start, they could be, you know, running away with it right now. And of course, none of that has happened. Have you got a take on between those two wildly different views on where we stand? That sounds like the state of the Democratic party if I've ever heard it. I think that's where we are in general. I think if you're a progressive, if you're Bernie Sanders, if you're part of that wing of the party, you really are heartbroken that a candidate who you thought not only had the message but was delivering the
message in a way that was connecting with voters is now been snatched out of the race. And I think the other side, they were hoping to get Platner out. They didn't think he they like to your point, they thought he has too much baggage. he's not going to be able to go up to someone like, you know, Susan Collins and take someone on given everything that is going to come with it. And what if a story like this would have broken, you know, in the middle of the general election? Do you think, you know, what have we got less than four months is enough time for one of these new candidates to come in
and pull together an effective campaign against someone as seasoned and experienced at winning these things as Susan Collins? I think that's going to be the huge test. But, you know, you got to think about the voters that were going to those Grand Platner rallies that you would see, I think he said in his video tonight, more than anyone in a p a Democratic primary before. So, what happens to those voters? Are they going to be able to get behind another candidate? Just move that enthusiasm o over. I think there's a lot of progressives that are worried that's just not going to happen. And again, like you said, going up against
someone like Susan Collins, who has just been so resilient over the years and has just run those campaigns um you know, so skillfully, I think it was already going to be a really tough task. It's now gotten just exponentially harder. All right, we've got almost to the end of this podcast without mentioning Donald Trump, which I always insist we must do at some point because he is the president of the United States. He has nothing much to do with Graeme Platner, but he is back in DC today after the NATO summit. He did order those significant air strikes on Iran overnight. So, we will all be watching that very closely today. It's not very clear what's happening now with that ceasefire. He said it was over. Then he
sort of backtracked a little bit yesterday. So, um I think the other big story that you should all be tracking today is of course what happens in the Middle East and what that means for the oil prices and so on as well. should also flag that Donald Trump flew back from Turkey on the old Air Force One due to apparent security concerns about the new one which uh will certainly attract some attention as well. But we shall leave it there for today. Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you Will for coming on such an important morning of politics. As always, we've got more news and analysis in today's Playbook newsletter. You can find that at politico.com/playbook.
Please don't forget to click subscribe to get the latest news from Washington. We will be back tomorrow, but I won't. I'm heading back to the UK for a few weeks to see the family, but I will leave you in the capable hands uh tomorrow and next week of my excellent colleagues. Please have a great day.
