Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Exit Platner, Enter Panic—Democrats Hit the Eject Button in Maine

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Exit Platner, Enter Panic—Democrats Hit the Eject Button in Maine · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: When they go low, we go high.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: The question is when Democrats go high, do they win?
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  Speaker 2: I believe that the accusations are awful and that they
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  Speaker 2: are disqualifying for a political candidate.
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  Speaker 1: If true.
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  Speaker 2: The question is is that was this an orchestrated thing?
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  Speaker 2: And both of them can be true. It can be
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  Speaker 2: real and it can be orchestrated.
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  Speaker 3: You're listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben ferguson.
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  Speaker 4: Good Saturday morning. Nice to have you with us on
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: the forty seven Morning Update, and we've got a big
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  Speaker 4: story for you. Grant Platner has dropped out of the
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  Speaker 4: race in Maine. So what comes next for the Democratic
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  Speaker 4: Party and what does this mean for the GOP chances
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  Speaker 4: of holding power in the Senate. We break it down
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  Speaker 4: for you. It's the forty seven Morning Update and it
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  Speaker 4: starts right now.
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  Speaker 1: Story number one, Well, it finally happened.
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  Speaker 4: After days of mounting pressure, grand has dropped out of
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  Speaker 4: the main Senate race, leaving Democrats scrambling to save one
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  Speaker 4: of the races they believe gave them their best chance
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  Speaker 4: to flip a Republican Senate seat, which could easily mean
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  Speaker 4: them having the majority in the Senate. After the midterm elections.
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  Speaker 4: But before we get to what happened next, let's remember
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  Speaker 4: exactly what brought us to this point. This wasn't one controversy,
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  Speaker 4: it was a cascade. Platner's campaign had already been rocked
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  Speaker 4: by resurface social media posts that generated massive backlash. Then
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  Speaker 4: came the scrutiny over at tattoo, a ss Nazi tattoo. Then,
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  Speaker 4: of course the candidate said, oh, I just got it
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  Speaker 4: well intoxicated in the Marines. It just happened to resemble
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  Speaker 4: the Naziss symbol, but he didn't really know it. But
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  Speaker 4: then later he covered it up. Former partners then came
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  Speaker 4: out and made allegations about abusive behavior and non consensual
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  Speaker 4: sexual conduct rape. Finally, formal girlfriend publicly accused him of
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  Speaker 4: sexually assaulting her in twenty twenty one, an allegation that
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  Speaker 4: Platner has repeatedly and categorically denied. Now, as all those
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  Speaker 4: allegations mounted, the political support was solid until the very end,
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  Speaker 4: when pulling that has showed that Graham may not be
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  Speaker 4: able to win the race. And that is when things changed. Overnight.
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  Speaker 4: Bernie Sanders, who stood by him no matter what until
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  Speaker 4: the poll numbers switched called for him to step aside.
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  Speaker 4: Then Senate Democratic leaders with drew their support and said
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  Speaker 4: the money would be shut off to his campaign. Progressive
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  Speaker 4: organizations who stood by him through everything, once they saw
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  Speaker 4: the poll numbers, they abandoned him instantly and helped destroy him.
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  Speaker 4: Then the main Democratic Party concluded he could no longer
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  Speaker 4: be their nominee, shutting off the money. And then Graham
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  Speaker 4: Platner came out and was forced to say this.
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  Speaker 5: Everyone, it's cramp Platner here. I think, as many of
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  Speaker 5: you know, over the past couple of days, I have
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  Speaker 5: faced some very serious allegations, and I just want to
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  Speaker 5: make it clear this is all false. The things that
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  Speaker 5: have been claimed did not happen. It's not real. It
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  Speaker 5: has placed an immense amount of weight on me as
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  Speaker 5: I think about what needs to happen now. Amy and
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  Speaker 5: I are regular people. We were not looking for this experience.
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  Speaker 5: We were not looking to get into politics. We had
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  Speaker 5: no desire to run for office. I just want you
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  Speaker 5: to think about what you would do as a regular
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  Speaker 5: person in a position where a much larger world, large
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  Speaker 5: forces we're working against you personally to accuse you of
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  Speaker 5: the worst thing that a person could do and it
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  Speaker 5: was not remotely true. I learned about this through press
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  Speaker 5: inquiries with no time to truly respond, no time for investigations,
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  Speaker 5: before a corporate media system and the political establishment got
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  Speaker 5: to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Accusations are supposed
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  Speaker 5: to be the beginning of things, not the end. I
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  Speaker 5: think it's really important to understand why this is happening
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  Speaker 5: in the timeline, why this is happening right now, much
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  Speaker 5: like October when the first attack started, much like the
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  Speaker 5: news that was created the week before the primary. There
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  Speaker 5: is a reason that this is happening now. I only
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  Speaker 5: have until July thirteenth until I am officially the nominee.
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  Speaker 5: This was the last week to try to get me
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  Speaker 5: off of the ballot, and that's why this is occurring.
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  Speaker 5: It's not the false allegations though that have brought us
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  Speaker 5: to where we are. It's the fact that they are
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  Speaker 5: being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure
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  Speaker 5: on us. We live in a political system that is
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  Speaker 5: not built for normal people. It is a system that
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  Speaker 5: is built truly to make sure that movements like ours
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  Speaker 5: cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can
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  Speaker 5: be crushed.
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  Speaker 1: What we have accomplished here.
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  Speaker 5: You made possible the people of Maine, the volunteers, the voters,
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  Speaker 5: the grassroots donors, and I have all the faith in
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  Speaker 5: the world that we could win if we could continue
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  Speaker 5: to harness that. But the brutal political reality is that
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  Speaker 5: they are going to take everything away from us. Those
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  Speaker 5: in power who have the ability to do so are
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  Speaker 5: using these allegations as an excuse to take away all
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  Speaker 5: of the things that we need to run a campaign.
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  Speaker 5: We are going to lose our ability to fundraise, we
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  Speaker 5: are going to lose our ability to access voter data.
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  Speaker 5: We are going to lose all of the things that
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  Speaker 5: any campaign needs on the basic level simply to function.
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  Speaker 5: Larger organizations, the national level, Party, the bigger donor networks,
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  Speaker 5: they have all committed.
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  Speaker 1: To spending no money in this race.
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  Speaker 5: If I'm in it, they would rather see Susan Collins
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  Speaker 5: win than have me be the next Senator from Maine.
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  Speaker 5: What comes next needs to come from the people. Needs
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  Speaker 5: to come from the people of Maine. Needs to come
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  Speaker 5: from the voters, who on June ninth, at a strength
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  Speaker 5: of over one hundred and fifty thousand, the largest number
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  Speaker 5: in the history of Maine primaries, said no to this
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  Speaker 5: kind of politics. Voted for a politics that would actually
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  Speaker 5: represent them. Voted against the political system, against the donor class,
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  Speaker 5: against the entrenched forces.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm not asking for how this process is going
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  Speaker 1: to work.
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  Speaker 5: I'm not trying to dictate to anyone who it should
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  Speaker 5: be or how we get there. But I will say this,
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  Speaker 5: it needs to be open, transparent, and democratic. It needs
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  Speaker 5: to be reflecting the will and the values of the
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  Speaker 5: people that built this movement, the people that showed up
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  Speaker 5: on June ninth. People in DC need to stay in DC.
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  Speaker 5: Decisions should not be made in back rooms by people
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  Speaker 5: in places of political power. Party apparatics are not the
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  Speaker 5: ones to make these decisions. These decisions need to be
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  Speaker 5: made in the open by the people of this state,
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  Speaker 5: the people who got us here. This is exactly the
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  Speaker 5: kind of political system that everyone voted against on June ninth.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting?
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  Speaker 4: The Grand Platinum has been over the establishment pressure dropped
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  Speaker 4: out of the race, but is calling them out, saying
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  Speaker 4: you forced me out, and the media. The dude, by
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  Speaker 4: the way, that pretended to be a big old fighter
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  Speaker 4: totally surrendered. Now he's maintaining that all I want to
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  Speaker 4: make this clear all the allegations are false. He's saying,
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  Speaker 4: I just learned about them through the media because they
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  Speaker 4: wanted me out. Now the Democrats, to be clear, they're
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  Speaker 4: not exactly celebrating at this moment either.
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  Speaker 1: They're panicked. This wasn't just any Senate race.
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  Speaker 4: For months, national Democrats considered Maine one of their very
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  Speaker 4: best pickup opportunities in the country. The Republican Susan Collins
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  Speaker 4: has always been one of the toughest Republicans for Democrats
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  Speaker 4: to defeat, but they believe that Platner's outsider campaign had
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  Speaker 4: really energized voters in a new, unique way. Now, just
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  Speaker 4: months before election day, that entire strategy has collapsed, and
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  Speaker 4: instead of spending that summer that they were hoping for
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  Speaker 4: attacking and talking about Susan Collins, Democrats are holding emergency
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: meetings trying to figure out who their nominee will even be.
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  Speaker 4: The main Democratic party now has only a narrow legal
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: window to formally replace Platner on the ballot, with a
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  Speaker 4: party convention expected to choose a new nominee before the
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  Speaker 4: state's deadline. Now there's already several names that are being floated.
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  Speaker 4: Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson has announced he's running
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  Speaker 4: for the nomination. Former CDC director Narov Shah is also considering,
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  Speaker 4: we're being told entering the race. Jordan Wood is also
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  Speaker 4: weighing a campaign, and there's many other names are actually
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  Speaker 4: circulating as I'm talking to you right now. Even the
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  Speaker 4: actor this isn't a joke. Patrick Dempsey had to publicly
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  Speaker 4: say he wasn't interested because the speculation was so intense.
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  Speaker 4: That's how chaotic this has actually become. Now when Hollywood
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  Speaker 4: actors have to deny that they're running for Senate, you know,
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  Speaker 4: a political party is searching for anyone that can stabilize
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  Speaker 4: a disaster of a race. And here's the question Democrats
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  Speaker 4: now have to answer, how did we get here? Because
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  Speaker 4: let's be honest, many of the controversy surrounding Platner weren't new.
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  Speaker 4: Questions about his online history, questions about his tattoo, questions
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  Speaker 4: about his past relationships. Much of that had already surfaced
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  Speaker 4: before the Democratic primary. Voters made him their nominee. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: they picked him knowing all of this. And many prominent
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  Speaker 4: Democrats are actually even continuing to back him because they
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  Speaker 4: believe he gave them the strongest chance to win. It
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  Speaker 4: only was because of these new allegations from a Democratic
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  Speaker 4: woman who said that he raped her. Was it finally
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  Speaker 4: time for Democrats to call it quits. Platner, of course
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  Speaker 4: saying he's innocent, saying those allegations are false over and
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  Speaker 4: over again. He's also now saying he's the real victim
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  Speaker 4: of the liberal media and of the Democratic establishment that
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  Speaker 4: forced him out of the race. So if you're wanting
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  Speaker 4: to know what this looks like now in a major election,
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  Speaker 4: Republicans suddenly have a chance to campaign against a Democratic
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  Speaker 4: party that has spent the last week consumed by internal
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  Speaker 4: turmoil instead of focusing on the general election. And Democrats
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  Speaker 4: have now got to introduce an entirely new statewide nominee
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  Speaker 4: with very little time to build, fundraising, organize volunteers, to
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  Speaker 4: find even a message and challenge an incumbent senator. That's
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  Speaker 4: incredibly difficult to do. And Democrats right now they're hoping
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  Speaker 4: you'll forget about Graham Platner forever. But the reality is
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  Speaker 4: he was the highlight of the Democrats cycle of twenty
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  Speaker 4: twenty six. Let that sync in now. The race is
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  Speaker 4: not over, but the clock is ticking and there's no
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  Speaker 4: clear consensus candidate. One thing is for sure, Democrats are
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  Speaker 4: going to rally like never before with money probably coming
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  Speaker 4: in from all over the country, and that is where
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  Speaker 4: the story is at this hour.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
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  Speaker 3: with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: you're listening to this podcast right now and for more
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: and we will see you back here on Monday morning.