July 9, 2026
Maine Democrat Accused Of Rape Finally Suspends Campaign, But That’s Not Why He Quit
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RSS Feed The democrat who just won 70 percent of Maine’s vote in the primary election, has now officially dropped out of the race. Graham Platner posted an 11 minute video to X last night, stating clearly that is wasn’t the “false” rape allegations that forced him out, but instead, it was because of the Democratic Party itself. Platner claims the political system and the party took away the funding and structure necessary for him to continue his campaign and made it clear he is innocent of the allegations questionably timed to end his candidacy. Now state democrats are racing against time to choose a new nominee to go head to head with Republican incumbent and long time Maine senator, Susan Collins.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Thursday, July ninth, and as expected, Graham Plattner has dropped out of the race for Senate in Maine. But he did not go gentle into that. Good night and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:18
Speaker 1: Ropes.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: Two women came out and accused him of sexual violence. He said, that ain't why he's getting out of the race. That was something to hear.
00:00:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, he made it very clear that the allegations are false and they are not the reason why he has finally decided to suspend his campaign. He did take his time making that decision, but time come to the point where I was actually thinking, you know what, he may just say FU to the Democratic Party and stay on the ballot. What you're gonna do now, fine, take away my funding. I'm gonna be the champion for the little guy.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: That's what he was trying to do. He built this thing up. This is an eleven minute video. He dropped that what seven or eight minutes in?
00:00:59
Speaker 3: He wait, did quite some time before he said, because he could have said, I'm gonna fight no matter what. I'm not going to back down. I'm not going to undo the will of maners who voted for me, the one hundred and fifty thousand people who cast their ballot for me on June ninth in the primary, where I overwhelmingly won their support. No, and he in fact took down or at least tried to take down the establishment, the democratic establishment on the local level. On the national level, he painted a dark picture of politics today and him being a normal person just like you and me, being basically squashed and crushed by the political juggernaut that exists in this country.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: Okay, well, folks, at this point, you know why this is such a big deal. Maine Democrats think they have a shot at taking the Senate back from Republicans, and key to that is going to be Maine, where they think they could after thirty year plus Senator Susan Collins there the Republican longtime serving, so Graham Plattner seems to have a shot. So they stuck by him through all these allegations having to do with the Nazi tattoo, having to do with Reddit posts that came back up, having to do with girlfriends coming out and saying he had some questionable and abusive behavior, and then after that some of those same women came out and said, actually I was raped, according to one, and then the other accused him of stealthy which we've been talking about, taking his condom off without her knowledge and consent during sex. So that brings us all ropes to this moment to where support was going away. Big time donors and big time politicians were all running from him. This gets us to this point. So this was expected. His deadline was Monday, Is that right?
00:02:49
Speaker 3: It was Monday at five pm. And he points to that timing, specifically the timing for the deadline with these new allegations. He points to the timing before the primary as the date of those original accusations. It is the timing is suspicious. There is no question about him.
00:03:10
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean the stuff isn't true. We have seen this before sometimes with true allegations and politics, they'll keep him in the pocket till close to election time. That doesn't mean the women's stories are not true. But Robes, he certainly did jump on that and make that point in a video that I thought he wasn't apologetic.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: He wasn't Robes.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: He was everything that I thought he wasn't going to be. When it comes to a the seriousness of the allegations. He was defiant and mad, but the anger was directed at politics, at the party. He didn't address necessarily these women. He didn't address himself, his background, why this is. This is all politics to him, and it didn't seem Robes to address the seriousness of the allegations.
00:04:01
Speaker 3: You make a very good point, and defiant is exactly the word that I was going to use to describe his tenor and tone. And yes, he said they were the allegations were false. He made that very clear. But he didn't dwell on the allegations. And you could tell, I mean, it seemed hardfelt his anger was not directed at the women, or at least it didn't seem to be. It was directed at the party that it seemed to insinuate. He was seeming to insinuate that they basically were behind it, that they wanted him out, that they timed this to get him out, and that there were factions at work behind the scenes that led to these allegations and the timing of them.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: So there was eleven minute video, like we said, he went seven or eight minutes, and you're right, Rope, it seemed intentional. It seemed like he probably had and wanted Democrats to be watching that and sweating minute after minute after minute to.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: See what's he going to say, What's he going to say?
00:05:00
Speaker 1: And he finally let it go.
00:05:01
Speaker 2: But here's just a portion of Graham Plattner explaining why he is getting out of the race.
00:05:06
Speaker 4: 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.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: I think some politicians have made this argument over the years, including Bernie Sanders.
00:05:50
Speaker 1: How do they not you have.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: A movement that's kind of shaking up this system, this political system of money and power. And he's making the argument and placing himself or positioning himself as a martyr against big politics.
00:06:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just a veteran. I'm just somebody who wants to make main better. I'm just somebody who wants better healthcare, better representation for the state of Maine. I'm no fancy politician. I'm not like the rest of those folks in DC. I'm an oyster farmer. I've served in the US military. I'm just like you. I also thought it was interesting throughout his eleven minute video he never really used the word I. It was always we us and ours, and I thought that was interesting in a situation where he has been singled out, he has been accused of some heinous behavior, and yet throughout the video he just kept saying we us ours.
00:06:52
Speaker 2: I about to use that as his logic robes for either trying to stay in the race or for staying in as long as he did, or the word has been that he behind the scenes, he in his camp have been fighting with the Democrats because he wants to say he wants to have some kind of power behind the scenes and who is going to be the nominee or what direction the party is going to go with this. He is making this argument here robes that he is being now shut out of that.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: So he's using he's kind of.
00:07:21
Speaker 2: Explaining that no, no, no, no, I'm not trying to control anything. I just want to make sure this movement that we put together is heard, is respected. It's good political messaging it is.
00:07:33
Speaker 3: And I actually thought one of the lines he used it resonated with me. He said, accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end. This was the last week to try and get me off the ballot, and that's why this is occurring.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: If there could be some truth to that, But there also could be truths to the allegations that have to be.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: Looked at robes.
00:07:58
Speaker 2: If this guy is innocent of this stuff didn't happen, he should stay in the race.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: There's another part of.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: It, rose that we talk about sometimes maybe he doesn't know it happened, Maybe he doesn't realize it happened. Maybe she the women never talked to him about it, and this is maybe new to.
00:08:15
Speaker 1: Him, and everything they're saying is correct.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: That is absolutely no, not the kind of thing that was intentional. But the Jenny Rassicott allegations, the one that came out at the beginning of the week where she claims that yes, he in fact, by dictionary definition, raped her. I believe that's how she put it, But she even said in her interviews that he came over drunk, uninvited, forced himself on her, Yes, ignored, repeated demands for him to stop, but that she ultimately not that she consented, but that she just let it happen because she felt like that was the safest thing to do. And then she said he stayed over, had his arm around her, and she the next morning couldn't believe that he didn't remember. She claims he was like what, and she basically said, get the hell out of here. This was not what I wanted to happen. And they never spoke again. So it is absolutely possible, even by her own account, that he didn't Not that not that it absolves him of wrongdoing in any way, shape or form, but that he actually may not remember or have any knowledge of what happened, and might have been blindsided by the account that she gave to the press.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: All that could be all that could be true.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: And then what do you do with that Robes that all these years later, he is being he is finding out in a press headline that he violated somebody.
00:09:38
Speaker 1: He was never told that Robes.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: He went to sleep that night comfortably, got up the next day and she says herself, he didn't remember.
00:09:47
Speaker 3: He had his arm around her.
00:09:48
Speaker 1: Lovingly, she said, he didn't remember.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: What is to be It doesn't mean it doesn't happen, But where is I don't know, robes and something like this, this big mistakes with somebody's reputation on the line, it it is important to get this right.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: Yes, and I think a lot of people have pointed to the fact. Look and these women have put their names to the story. They put their faces to the story, and that means something because this is not something that women. I truly believe this. Most women would never want to be the face of sexual assault. That is not especially when you've got an established life and a job and children and a family, which these women have. This isn't something you want to be associated with. However, it is suspicious to the point where he pointed out, and several others have why didn't they tell their whole story the first time? And we can always question why an alleged victim doesn't come out with everything all at once. And a lot of it is shame, a lot of it is embarrassment, but it also can lead to people questioning the validity, the timing, the motivation of these accounts in robes.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: All of that is fair, it's what do you ever do with these stories? Robes where women have for so long not been believed, and then when they do speak of in situations like this, you believe them automatically, and it ruins someone's reputation, life, potential, career, robes, and it should if this is accurate. But there's too much, there's too much nuance, and it's not we're not supposed to have it right.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: We just believe the woman. That's the end of the story.
00:11:25
Speaker 2: Is is that what we've had this conversation so many times. It's what are we supposed to do? And look at this? She says, this happened. She says, this happened. We believe them. End of story. Move on is what we have at times robes in recent years, been told we're supposed to do.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: And yet I do believe as a woman, I do believe what Graham Platner said, Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things. I do agree with that that has to be the case. And I actually believe in a perfect world, the voter should side. The Democratic Party should not decide. The voter should decide, and unfortunately that is what he's railing against. I do fundamentally believe that, but that's not what's happened, and he has stepped down. So now the question becomes who will replace him? And do they have enough time to actually mount a successful campaign against a long standing incumbent there in Maine?
00:12:25
Speaker 2: Are they calling Kamala Harris for advice on such things? I say that's somewhat jokingly. But Rope, they're up.
00:12:31
Speaker 1: They're up against this thing again. Are we really doing this again?
00:12:35
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party is not having a democratic process to choose a nominee Somewhere, Rope, that's a legit criticism. And he said in his eleven minute video several times, I want to assure that the voters are the ones who get to say that the people from my movement, that they are in charge of this process, that they get to pick the nominee.
00:12:55
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that is not satisfying.
00:12:58
Speaker 3: What's going to happen when we come back, We're going to tell you what Maine Democrats have announced, how they are going to pick Platner's replacement. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about the big headline this morning. Graham Platner has officially suspended his campaign. He posted a video to X last night at eight ten pm. He had to wait about seven eight minutes to get into the video before he actually officially announced. He wanted people to hear what he had to say first before he announced, and that yeah, he knew he could hold their attention.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: I would have cut it off after sixty seconds if he said I'm getting out right.
00:13:46
Speaker 3: Exactly, and he knew that you would, he knew that everybody else would, So he waited till the very end to announce that, yes, he is suspending his campaign. And as we went to break, you were pointing out he asked or he hoped that Maine, that Maine voters would still have a say in who would be representing that state for Democrats. But look, state Democrats have already announced they're going to be holding a nominating convention to choose a new candidate, with more details to come soon. But in that announcement they made it very clear that Graham Platner will not have any role in that nominating convention.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: So they were clear about that.
00:14:24
Speaker 3: But everyone else, yes, they were very clear, and so yes, So it looks like among the state Democrats it will be the establishment, the one that Graham Platner just railed against, who will choose that? Can't wait?
00:14:38
Speaker 2: What's the process supposed to be? Isn't it a nominating convention?
00:14:42
Speaker 1: So how's this going to work?
00:14:44
Speaker 3: That they're going to have to assemble like next week because they only have two weeks the twenty seventh. They have to have a new name submitted by five pm on July twenty seventh. They have to have the name. Obviously, they can't hold a vote. Obviously there's no time to do any of that. So the main voters will have zero say. And who is representing them?
00:15:08
Speaker 1: So who is?
00:15:08
Speaker 2: These are just what delegates and folks like that? These are people party people.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: Yes, some of them had already. Some of them ran on the primary, some of them ran for governor.
00:15:17
Speaker 1: Of them the convention people, Yeah.
00:15:20
Speaker 3: I don't know, people who hold positions within the Democrat in the main Democratic Party.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:25
Speaker 3: So it's literally going to be the people, the very people who Grant Platner did not want.
00:15:30
Speaker 2: And now he has an audition, Now he has an argument, allegations aside, he has an argument. Here we go again with this. And Kamala Harris was just she just slid in right. There was no nominating no at the convention.
00:15:47
Speaker 3: She was already the nominee. Correct, No, I'm trying to forget the problem. I'm trying to remember that the convention. So then they voted her.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: She was officially what but voters never got to vote.
00:16:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely not so. But the point being that the primary, the whole point of a primary is to allow voters in that state or in that country to choose the candidate representing that party.
00:16:12
Speaker 1: That's no good.
00:16:13
Speaker 3: The main Democrats voted in the primary seventy percent in favor of Graham Platter, and that was after those initial allegations were out. So remember the New York Times put out this damning article with a bunch of ex girlfriends who painted a picture of someone who was abusive verbally and at times physically, and they made the whole point of this Nazi tattoo that he claimed he didn't know was a Nazi symbol, which an ext girlfriend refuted and said he absolutely knew it was a Nazi emblem. And then he had all of those questionable posts where he came off as a misogynist. He came off and look, he even admitted to most of that and said it was a dark time in my life. I was suffering from PTSD, so all of that known. Still he went overwhelmingly the primary.
00:17:04
Speaker 1: He has been a mess.
00:17:05
Speaker 2: He has been a mess from the jump, and you know what, they still wanted their guy exactly, and so the guy they still want it. They are not getting a chance to judge him based on these new allegations. They're not getting an opportunity to do so. That would be in November. But Democrats don't like the idea of having to ride with support fund stand on a stage with this guy.
00:17:27
Speaker 3: I wonder what our founding fathers would think about yes, because no, seriously, isn't the whole point, Yes, that the voters get to decide with the information they have. And I understand Democrats statewide and nationally can't stomach the idea of him losing because of this and then losing the opportunity to flip Maine, to flip a seat in Maine, which is a big deal nationally in terms of the balance of power.
00:17:52
Speaker 2: It's enormous, sweetheart, And I don't know if any of these folks have a shot against Susan Collins. She has been if you haven't heard, surviving in this Democratic state for a.
00:18:03
Speaker 3: Long time, decades, decades. She is a household name, and there aren't a lot of senators I think who are, and she certainly is.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: But did you see her last of the last time you saw her doing an interview, doing anything.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: She doesn't need to, doesn't need the campaign.
00:18:19
Speaker 3: She's like, y'all can figure this out and be messy, and I'm just gonna still be the same Susan Collins. I have always been representing the state of Maine. But yes, we've got I think I counted right now. Eight now folks have expressed interest. A couple of them have already filed paperwork. They did yesterday.
00:18:35
Speaker 1: Fifteen by the weekend.
00:18:37
Speaker 3: None of these names are of any national They're not known entities in this state of Maine. Perhaps they are a little bit more. Some of them, again have already run for governor. Their names might be out there. Some of them are like local politicians and so look. But with that, many folks don't know how they're going to decide who to choose and what that person's chances are of actually being able to unseat Susan Collins.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: But didn't you just say the plan right now from Democrat at least the one they put out in is they're making this up as they go along, right.
00:19:10
Speaker 3: A nominating convention with two weeks to spare.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: But they said, well, more details, the gumers.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: More details do come soon.
00:19:18
Speaker 1: That's we don't know what we're doing.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: That's fine, other than the fact the Graham Platner will have no role in the nominating convention.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: The people of Maine are not deciding who the nominee is going to be to face Susan Collins.
00:19:30
Speaker 3: That sucks and as you pointed out, a major reflection of what happened in last in the in the last presidential election with Kamala Harris. I mean literally, it's different reasons but extremely similar circums.
00:19:43
Speaker 2: They got what August, September, October, November, so four months to run a campaign Kamala Harris, that was about what she had three for.
00:19:51
Speaker 3: It was late summer. It was late summer, all right.
00:19:55
Speaker 1: To not take a page out of that playbook.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Whoever ends up getting this nomination, I'm fascinated now by what happens in me, this little man.
00:20:02
Speaker 3: I never knew that we'd be actually covering daily and sometimes multiple times a day, the main Senate race. But here we are, and it certainly is going to be interesting. We will keep our eye on it as always, we always appreciate you listening to us. Everyone. I'm Amy Roebuck alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Thursday, July ninth, and as expected, Graham Plattner has dropped out of the race for Senate in Maine. But he did not go gentle into that. Good night and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:18
Speaker 1: Ropes.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: Two women came out and accused him of sexual violence. He said, that ain't why he's getting out of the race. That was something to hear.
00:00:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, he made it very clear that the allegations are false and they are not the reason why he has finally decided to suspend his campaign. He did take his time making that decision, but time come to the point where I was actually thinking, you know what, he may just say FU to the Democratic Party and stay on the ballot. What you're gonna do now, fine, take away my funding. I'm gonna be the champion for the little guy.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: That's what he was trying to do. He built this thing up. This is an eleven minute video. He dropped that what seven or eight minutes in?
00:00:59
Speaker 3: He wait, did quite some time before he said, because he could have said, I'm gonna fight no matter what. I'm not going to back down. I'm not going to undo the will of maners who voted for me, the one hundred and fifty thousand people who cast their ballot for me on June ninth in the primary, where I overwhelmingly won their support. No, and he in fact took down or at least tried to take down the establishment, the democratic establishment on the local level. On the national level, he painted a dark picture of politics today and him being a normal person just like you and me, being basically squashed and crushed by the political juggernaut that exists in this country.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: Okay, well, folks, at this point, you know why this is such a big deal. Maine Democrats think they have a shot at taking the Senate back from Republicans, and key to that is going to be Maine, where they think they could after thirty year plus Senator Susan Collins there the Republican longtime serving, so Graham Plattner seems to have a shot. So they stuck by him through all these allegations having to do with the Nazi tattoo, having to do with Reddit posts that came back up, having to do with girlfriends coming out and saying he had some questionable and abusive behavior, and then after that some of those same women came out and said, actually I was raped, according to one, and then the other accused him of stealthy which we've been talking about, taking his condom off without her knowledge and consent during sex. So that brings us all ropes to this moment to where support was going away. Big time donors and big time politicians were all running from him. This gets us to this point. So this was expected. His deadline was Monday, Is that right?
00:02:49
Speaker 3: It was Monday at five pm. And he points to that timing, specifically the timing for the deadline with these new allegations. He points to the timing before the primary as the date of those original accusations. It is the timing is suspicious. There is no question about him.
00:03:10
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean the stuff isn't true. We have seen this before sometimes with true allegations and politics, they'll keep him in the pocket till close to election time. That doesn't mean the women's stories are not true. But Robes, he certainly did jump on that and make that point in a video that I thought he wasn't apologetic.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: He wasn't Robes.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: He was everything that I thought he wasn't going to be. When it comes to a the seriousness of the allegations. He was defiant and mad, but the anger was directed at politics, at the party. He didn't address necessarily these women. He didn't address himself, his background, why this is. This is all politics to him, and it didn't seem Robes to address the seriousness of the allegations.
00:04:01
Speaker 3: You make a very good point, and defiant is exactly the word that I was going to use to describe his tenor and tone. And yes, he said they were the allegations were false. He made that very clear. But he didn't dwell on the allegations. And you could tell, I mean, it seemed hardfelt his anger was not directed at the women, or at least it didn't seem to be. It was directed at the party that it seemed to insinuate. He was seeming to insinuate that they basically were behind it, that they wanted him out, that they timed this to get him out, and that there were factions at work behind the scenes that led to these allegations and the timing of them.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: So there was eleven minute video, like we said, he went seven or eight minutes, and you're right, Rope, it seemed intentional. It seemed like he probably had and wanted Democrats to be watching that and sweating minute after minute after minute to.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: See what's he going to say, What's he going to say?
00:05:00
Speaker 1: And he finally let it go.
00:05:01
Speaker 2: But here's just a portion of Graham Plattner explaining why he is getting out of the race.
00:05:06
Speaker 4: 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.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: I think some politicians have made this argument over the years, including Bernie Sanders.
00:05:50
Speaker 1: How do they not you have.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: A movement that's kind of shaking up this system, this political system of money and power. And he's making the argument and placing himself or positioning himself as a martyr against big politics.
00:06:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just a veteran. I'm just somebody who wants to make main better. I'm just somebody who wants better healthcare, better representation for the state of Maine. I'm no fancy politician. I'm not like the rest of those folks in DC. I'm an oyster farmer. I've served in the US military. I'm just like you. I also thought it was interesting throughout his eleven minute video he never really used the word I. It was always we us and ours, and I thought that was interesting in a situation where he has been singled out, he has been accused of some heinous behavior, and yet throughout the video he just kept saying we us ours.
00:06:52
Speaker 2: I about to use that as his logic robes for either trying to stay in the race or for staying in as long as he did, or the word has been that he behind the scenes, he in his camp have been fighting with the Democrats because he wants to say he wants to have some kind of power behind the scenes and who is going to be the nominee or what direction the party is going to go with this. He is making this argument here robes that he is being now shut out of that.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: So he's using he's kind of.
00:07:21
Speaker 2: Explaining that no, no, no, no, I'm not trying to control anything. I just want to make sure this movement that we put together is heard, is respected. It's good political messaging it is.
00:07:33
Speaker 3: And I actually thought one of the lines he used it resonated with me. He said, accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end. This was the last week to try and get me off the ballot, and that's why this is occurring.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: If there could be some truth to that, But there also could be truths to the allegations that have to be.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: Looked at robes.
00:07:58
Speaker 2: If this guy is innocent of this stuff didn't happen, he should stay in the race.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: There's another part of.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: It, rose that we talk about sometimes maybe he doesn't know it happened, Maybe he doesn't realize it happened. Maybe she the women never talked to him about it, and this is maybe new to.
00:08:15
Speaker 1: Him, and everything they're saying is correct.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: That is absolutely no, not the kind of thing that was intentional. But the Jenny Rassicott allegations, the one that came out at the beginning of the week where she claims that yes, he in fact, by dictionary definition, raped her. I believe that's how she put it, But she even said in her interviews that he came over drunk, uninvited, forced himself on her, Yes, ignored, repeated demands for him to stop, but that she ultimately not that she consented, but that she just let it happen because she felt like that was the safest thing to do. And then she said he stayed over, had his arm around her, and she the next morning couldn't believe that he didn't remember. She claims he was like what, and she basically said, get the hell out of here. This was not what I wanted to happen. And they never spoke again. So it is absolutely possible, even by her own account, that he didn't Not that not that it absolves him of wrongdoing in any way, shape or form, but that he actually may not remember or have any knowledge of what happened, and might have been blindsided by the account that she gave to the press.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: All that could be all that could be true.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: And then what do you do with that Robes that all these years later, he is being he is finding out in a press headline that he violated somebody.
00:09:38
Speaker 1: He was never told that Robes.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: He went to sleep that night comfortably, got up the next day and she says herself, he didn't remember.
00:09:47
Speaker 3: He had his arm around her.
00:09:48
Speaker 1: Lovingly, she said, he didn't remember.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: What is to be It doesn't mean it doesn't happen, But where is I don't know, robes and something like this, this big mistakes with somebody's reputation on the line, it it is important to get this right.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: Yes, and I think a lot of people have pointed to the fact. Look and these women have put their names to the story. They put their faces to the story, and that means something because this is not something that women. I truly believe this. Most women would never want to be the face of sexual assault. That is not especially when you've got an established life and a job and children and a family, which these women have. This isn't something you want to be associated with. However, it is suspicious to the point where he pointed out, and several others have why didn't they tell their whole story the first time? And we can always question why an alleged victim doesn't come out with everything all at once. And a lot of it is shame, a lot of it is embarrassment, but it also can lead to people questioning the validity, the timing, the motivation of these accounts in robes.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: All of that is fair, it's what do you ever do with these stories? Robes where women have for so long not been believed, and then when they do speak of in situations like this, you believe them automatically, and it ruins someone's reputation, life, potential, career, robes, and it should if this is accurate. But there's too much, there's too much nuance, and it's not we're not supposed to have it right.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: We just believe the woman. That's the end of the story.
00:11:25
Speaker 2: Is is that what we've had this conversation so many times. It's what are we supposed to do? And look at this? She says, this happened. She says, this happened. We believe them. End of story. Move on is what we have at times robes in recent years, been told we're supposed to do.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: And yet I do believe as a woman, I do believe what Graham Platner said, Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things. I do agree with that that has to be the case. And I actually believe in a perfect world, the voter should side. The Democratic Party should not decide. The voter should decide, and unfortunately that is what he's railing against. I do fundamentally believe that, but that's not what's happened, and he has stepped down. So now the question becomes who will replace him? And do they have enough time to actually mount a successful campaign against a long standing incumbent there in Maine?
00:12:25
Speaker 2: Are they calling Kamala Harris for advice on such things? I say that's somewhat jokingly. But Rope, they're up.
00:12:31
Speaker 1: They're up against this thing again. Are we really doing this again?
00:12:35
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party is not having a democratic process to choose a nominee Somewhere, Rope, that's a legit criticism. And he said in his eleven minute video several times, I want to assure that the voters are the ones who get to say that the people from my movement, that they are in charge of this process, that they get to pick the nominee.
00:12:55
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that is not satisfying.
00:12:58
Speaker 3: What's going to happen when we come back, We're going to tell you what Maine Democrats have announced, how they are going to pick Platner's replacement. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about the big headline this morning. Graham Platner has officially suspended his campaign. He posted a video to X last night at eight ten pm. He had to wait about seven eight minutes to get into the video before he actually officially announced. He wanted people to hear what he had to say first before he announced, and that yeah, he knew he could hold their attention.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: I would have cut it off after sixty seconds if he said I'm getting out right.
00:13:46
Speaker 3: Exactly, and he knew that you would, he knew that everybody else would, So he waited till the very end to announce that, yes, he is suspending his campaign. And as we went to break, you were pointing out he asked or he hoped that Maine, that Maine voters would still have a say in who would be representing that state for Democrats. But look, state Democrats have already announced they're going to be holding a nominating convention to choose a new candidate, with more details to come soon. But in that announcement they made it very clear that Graham Platner will not have any role in that nominating convention.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: So they were clear about that.
00:14:24
Speaker 3: But everyone else, yes, they were very clear, and so yes, So it looks like among the state Democrats it will be the establishment, the one that Graham Platner just railed against, who will choose that? Can't wait?
00:14:38
Speaker 2: What's the process supposed to be? Isn't it a nominating convention?
00:14:42
Speaker 1: So how's this going to work?
00:14:44
Speaker 3: That they're going to have to assemble like next week because they only have two weeks the twenty seventh. They have to have a new name submitted by five pm on July twenty seventh. They have to have the name. Obviously, they can't hold a vote. Obviously there's no time to do any of that. So the main voters will have zero say. And who is representing them?
00:15:08
Speaker 1: So who is?
00:15:08
Speaker 2: These are just what delegates and folks like that? These are people party people.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: Yes, some of them had already. Some of them ran on the primary, some of them ran for governor.
00:15:17
Speaker 1: Of them the convention people, Yeah.
00:15:20
Speaker 3: I don't know, people who hold positions within the Democrat in the main Democratic Party.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:15:25
Speaker 3: So it's literally going to be the people, the very people who Grant Platner did not want.
00:15:30
Speaker 2: And now he has an audition, Now he has an argument, allegations aside, he has an argument. Here we go again with this. And Kamala Harris was just she just slid in right. There was no nominating no at the convention.
00:15:47
Speaker 3: She was already the nominee. Correct, No, I'm trying to forget the problem. I'm trying to remember that the convention. So then they voted her.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: She was officially what but voters never got to vote.
00:16:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely not so. But the point being that the primary, the whole point of a primary is to allow voters in that state or in that country to choose the candidate representing that party.
00:16:12
Speaker 1: That's no good.
00:16:13
Speaker 3: The main Democrats voted in the primary seventy percent in favor of Graham Platter, and that was after those initial allegations were out. So remember the New York Times put out this damning article with a bunch of ex girlfriends who painted a picture of someone who was abusive verbally and at times physically, and they made the whole point of this Nazi tattoo that he claimed he didn't know was a Nazi symbol, which an ext girlfriend refuted and said he absolutely knew it was a Nazi emblem. And then he had all of those questionable posts where he came off as a misogynist. He came off and look, he even admitted to most of that and said it was a dark time in my life. I was suffering from PTSD, so all of that known. Still he went overwhelmingly the primary.
00:17:04
Speaker 1: He has been a mess.
00:17:05
Speaker 2: He has been a mess from the jump, and you know what, they still wanted their guy exactly, and so the guy they still want it. They are not getting a chance to judge him based on these new allegations. They're not getting an opportunity to do so. That would be in November. But Democrats don't like the idea of having to ride with support fund stand on a stage with this guy.
00:17:27
Speaker 3: I wonder what our founding fathers would think about yes, because no, seriously, isn't the whole point, Yes, that the voters get to decide with the information they have. And I understand Democrats statewide and nationally can't stomach the idea of him losing because of this and then losing the opportunity to flip Maine, to flip a seat in Maine, which is a big deal nationally in terms of the balance of power.
00:17:52
Speaker 2: It's enormous, sweetheart, And I don't know if any of these folks have a shot against Susan Collins. She has been if you haven't heard, surviving in this Democratic state for a.
00:18:03
Speaker 3: Long time, decades, decades. She is a household name, and there aren't a lot of senators I think who are, and she certainly is.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: But did you see her last of the last time you saw her doing an interview, doing anything.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: She doesn't need to, doesn't need the campaign.
00:18:19
Speaker 3: She's like, y'all can figure this out and be messy, and I'm just gonna still be the same Susan Collins. I have always been representing the state of Maine. But yes, we've got I think I counted right now. Eight now folks have expressed interest. A couple of them have already filed paperwork. They did yesterday.
00:18:35
Speaker 1: Fifteen by the weekend.
00:18:37
Speaker 3: None of these names are of any national They're not known entities in this state of Maine. Perhaps they are a little bit more. Some of them, again have already run for governor. Their names might be out there. Some of them are like local politicians and so look. But with that, many folks don't know how they're going to decide who to choose and what that person's chances are of actually being able to unseat Susan Collins.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: But didn't you just say the plan right now from Democrat at least the one they put out in is they're making this up as they go along, right.
00:19:10
Speaker 3: A nominating convention with two weeks to spare.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: But they said, well, more details, the gumers.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: More details do come soon.
00:19:18
Speaker 1: That's we don't know what we're doing.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: That's fine, other than the fact the Graham Platner will have no role in the nominating convention.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: The people of Maine are not deciding who the nominee is going to be to face Susan Collins.
00:19:30
Speaker 3: That sucks and as you pointed out, a major reflection of what happened in last in the in the last presidential election with Kamala Harris. I mean literally, it's different reasons but extremely similar circums.
00:19:43
Speaker 2: They got what August, September, October, November, so four months to run a campaign Kamala Harris, that was about what she had three for.
00:19:51
Speaker 3: It was late summer. It was late summer, all right.
00:19:55
Speaker 1: To not take a page out of that playbook.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Whoever ends up getting this nomination, I'm fascinated now by what happens in me, this little man.
00:20:02
Speaker 3: I never knew that we'd be actually covering daily and sometimes multiple times a day, the main Senate race. But here we are, and it certainly is going to be interesting. We will keep our eye on it as always, we always appreciate you listening to us. Everyone. I'm Amy Roebuck alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.